Lanier of the Cavalry | Page 9

directed his adjutant
to drop his own work at their entrance and give attention to what took
place. Half a dozen other officers, with little or no business to transact
at that hour, made it their business to be present, drawn thither from
sheer sympathy, as some declared, and downright curiosity, as owned
by others. The office building was large and roomy; the colonel's desk
was close to the door; beyond it were tables spread with maps,
magazines, and papers; a big stove stood in the middle, and a dozen
chairs were scattered about, for it was here the officers met one evening
each week in the one "book-schooling" to which they were then
subjected--a recitation in regulations or "Tactics." Across the hall was a
smaller office--the adjutant's--and beyond that the room where sat the

sergeant-major and his clerks. The windows, snow-battered and
frost-bitten, gave abundant light from the skies, but none on the
surroundings--the view being limited to scratch-hole surveys. There
was nothing to distract attention from what might be going on within,
and all eyes were on the two burly captains who entered at 8.30,
fur-capped, fur-gloved, in huge overcoats and arctics. The wind had
begun, even earlier than usual, to whine and stir as it swept down from
the bleak northwest, and the mercury had dropped some ten degrees
since the previous evening.
"Blizzard coming," said Scott, as he glanced at the sullen skies, and
Scott knew the Rockies as he did the Paymaster's Manual.
"I report as old officer-of-the-day, sir," said Curbit, with brief salute,
tendering the guard report book.
The colonel went straight to business, as he glanced over the list of
prisoners.
"No sign of Trooper Rawdon?"
"No, sir. The patrol sent to search in town got back at reveille."
"His horse and kit all right?"
"All right, sir. Nothing missing that he was supposed to have."
"Police notified to watch all trains--and stages?"
"Yes, sir, and Sergeant Stowell, who commanded the paymaster's
escort, remains in town with a couple of men to help."
There was impressive silence in the office. The colonel sat with
troubled brow, looking grimly over the roster of the guard, the written
"remarks" of the officer-of-the-day, and the hours of his inspections of
sentries, etc. Barker, the adjutant, had dropped into a chair, a few feet
back of the fur-capped officers, and, though listening as bidden, was
gloomily contemplating the frost-covered panes of the nearest north

window.
Eight men had gone with Sergeant Stowell as escort to the paymaster
when, nearly four weeks earlier, he had set forth on his trip. Then the
little iron safe was full of money. Seven men had come back with him,
when, as the safe was well nigh empty, the paymaster said he hardly
needed an escort. Of the eight who started, four were "casuals" who
belonged to companies stationed at Fort Frayne, well up in the Indian
country, and there they remained when the duty was over. Of the seven
who came with Stowell, three belonged at Fort Frayne, a corporal and
two men of Captain Raymond's troop, and they came fortified with the
orders of their post commander, a copy of which was now in Barker's
hands.
"What I don't understand," said the colonel, whirling his chair to the
right about and addressing the paymaster, "is how or why those men
should be down here."
"It seems simple," answered Scott, placidly, he being entirely
independent of the post commander. "From Frayne I had to go to the
cantonments up along the Big Horn, and we doubled the size of the
escort accordingly. When we got back there these three were permitted
to come all the way, whether to buy Christmas things for the Frayne
folk, or for affairs of their own, I didn't inquire."
"To whom did you assign them for rations and quarters?" demanded the
colonel, of Barker.
"Captain Snaffle, sir--'C' Troop."
"Are they there?--the others, at least?"
"Corporal Watts and Trooper Ames are there, sir. Trooper Rawdon, as
you know, is not. He has not been seen about the quarters since some
time last evening. Moreover, the few personal belongings he had are
gone."
Again a pause. Then presently: "You arrested Kelly, I see, the man who

was on Number Five."
"Yes, sir. Both Doctor Schuchardt and the steward said his sickness
was due to drink. The sergeant and corporal-of-the-guard are willing to
swear he was perfectly sober when they stationed him. The men say he
hadn't touched a drop of liquor for a month. He must have drunk after
he was posted as sentry, for he vomited whiskey at the hospital. I
believe he was doped."
"That he could get whiskey anywhere along back of the officers'
quarters," said the colonel, reflectively as well as reflecting, "is not
improbable. That it