Marions Faith | Page 5

of the regiment and the incredulous mirth of Mr. Ray, Gleason pocketed the blow as complacently as he did the money he had won from the Kentuckian by a trick which was transparent to every looker-on, and would have been harmless with Ray--had he been himself. Those were the rough days of the regiment's campaign against the Apaches; officers and men were scattered in small commands through the mountains; in the general and absorbing interest of the chase and scout after a common foe there was no time to take up and settle the affair as something affecting the credit of the entire corps; many officers never heard of it at all until long afterwards, and then it was too late; but to this day Gleason stood an unsparing, bitter, but secret and treacherous enemy of the younger officer. He hated Ray with the venom of a snake.
So far as the regiment was concerned, the enmity of a man of Gleason's calibre could hardly be of consequence. Like Canker, he had come into the --th from the "supernumerary list" at the time of the general reorganization in '71. Scores of infantry officers left out of their regiments by consolidation were saddled upon the cavalry and artillery, and in many instances proved utterly out of their element in the mounted service. All the cavalry regiments growled more or less at the enforced addition to their list of "total commissioned," and the --th had not been especially fortunate. Many a fine soldier and excellent comrade had come into the cavalry in this way, and of them the --th had found a few; but a dozen or more, valuable neither as soldiers nor comrades, had drifted into the mounted service, and of these the regiment had, to say the least, its full share. "All I've got to remark on the subject," said old "Black Bill," the senior major at that eventful period,--"all I've got to remark is simply this: those infantry fellows showed profound discrimination in getting rid of their chaff, but they had no mercy on us. When a man ain't good enough for a doughboy officer he ain't fit for anything."
Now, it by no means resulted from inefficiency on their part that so many of the transferred officers had left their own regiments. Many had requested the move; many more were rendered supernumerary as being the juniors of their grades; but there were others still who ranked well up in their old regiments, and yet were mysteriously "left out in the cold." And of such was "that man Gleason." Six years had he served with the new regiment in the field, and not a friend could he muster among the officers,--not one who either liked or respected him,--not one who more than tolerated him except among the two or three who daily and nightly haunted the card-room at the trader's store; but to hear Gleason talk one would fancy him to be on terms of intimacy with every "solid" man of the regiment, and the casual visitor at the garrison would be more than apt to leave it with the impression that Gleason was the figure-head of the commissioned element. He had fair manners; his appearance was prepossessing; he was bland and insinuating among daily associates, confidential and hospitable with strangers. A visitor could go nowhere without meeting Gleason, for his social status was just so balanced between adverse influences that one could neither forbid nor welcome him to his home. No matter who might be the entertaining officer, the first to call and pay his respects to the guest would be that objectionable Gleason, and very sprightly and interesting could he be. Ten to one the chances were that when he took his departure he had left a pleasant impression on the mind of the new arrival, who would find himself at a loss to account for the evident perturbation with which his host proper regarded his acceptance of Gleason's hospitable invitations. Gleason's horse, Gleason's dogs or guns or rods were promptly at the door for him to try, and when others sought to do him honor, and other invitations came to hunt or ride or dine, Gleason had the inside track, and somehow or other it seemed to make the better men of the --th retire into their shells when they heard of it. This had been the way with visiting officers from other posts and regiments when in Arizona, and the same thing was being repeated here in Kansas. The --th did not like it, but could not exactly see how to help it. The only vulnerable and tangible points upon which he could be "sent to Coventry" were shady transactions at cards or horse-racing that had occurred in Arizona, and his failure to resent Ray's blow; but