Rose Orchid | Page 5

chest. But his mind was working rapidly; and he made his decision almost without hesitation.
"I've been waiting for you," he said to Hurley. "I understand you found my pony. Bring him up."
At the tone of command the man started and glanced keenly at the lieutenant-commander, who remembered too late that he should have attempted to disguise his voice. He thought of his broken arm, and braced himself for whatever might come.
Hurley walked over to the couch and stood looking down at him in silence. The expression in his eyes was distinctly unpleasant; but the lieutenant-commander perceived that it was alloyed with doubt.
"Have I ever seen you before?" Hurley said finally
The lieutenant-commander achieved a smile of surprise.
"What makes you think so?" he asked.
"Why did you speak to me--like that?"
The lieutenant-commander, being rather clever, did not make the mistake of apologizing. Instead, his tone was one of irritation as he said: "How do I know? Do you expect a man with a broken arm to get up and bow?"
For another minute Hurley stood above him, eyeing him keenly. Then he turned.
"I don't know," he muttered. "I'll bring up your pony. Come Rita; you come with me."
They returned shortly with the pony, saddled and bridled. Hurley, sending Rita to another room, helped the lieutenantcommander put on his coat and boots, placed the injured arm in a sling, and strapped his poncho back of the saddle. Then he steadied him with both hands, carefully, while he mounted.
"You ought to be in San Juan by seven," said Hurley, standing in the doorway. "That's a good hour and a half before dark. The trail runs over there," pointing to the west, "by that first blue cliff. You can't miss it. And I guess I made a mistake in there," he continued, a little awkwardly. "I meant no offense, sir."
For more reasons than one the lieutenant-commander made no reply. He started the pony as gently as possible out of respect for the broken arm, and nodded a farewell. As he met the trail under the cliff, he turned and looked back. Hurley and Rita were standing together in the doorway.
Lieutenant-Commander Reed was a man of decision. Whenever he met a problem he liked to face it squarely, analyze it thoroughly, and decide it quickly. This he had always done.
But the problem which was now before him defied analysis. It seemed somehow intangible, fleeting, ungraspable. He tried one after another of his cherished rules, and found that none of them fitted.
For the first three hours of the last stage of his journey to San Juan his mind was in an uncomfortable and entirely unique condition of flexibility. As might have been expected, the weight of habit preponderated and he decided in favor of duty.
Owing to the broken arm, the four hours' ride was slow and painful, but he suffered no further mishap. As Hurley had predicted, exactly at seven o'clock he climbed from the Naval Station wharf at San Juan into the Commandant's gig.
On board the Helena all was confusion and despair. They had not expected their Commanding Officer for another four days, and they were having the time of their lives.
The first luff, who was an easygoing, good-natured fellow, who possessed a hearty dislike for his skipper, had taken advantage of his absence.
There had been no inspections or drills of any kind, the brasswork had not been touched, the decks had received merely a gentle flushing with the hose, and every classed man on the ship had been granted shore liberty.
You may imagine the effect of this state of affairs on Lieutenant-Commander Reed. Within two hours after his arrival every man and officer on board was ready for insubordination or mutiny, or worse, and the first luff heard his skipper's voice in his dreams.
At eleven o'clock the following morning Lieutenant-Commander Reed sat in his cabin, holding a pen in his hand and gazmg thoughtfully at a pad of official memorandum paper on the desk before him.
He had got his disordered ship and crew in something like a presentable and tractable condition, and was preparing to put into effect his decision of the afternoon before.
He frowned and sighed at intervals, and finally rose, walked over to a porthole and stood for some time gazing out on El Morro and the rocky coast.
Finally, with a gesture of decision, he returned to the desk, arranged the pad of paper, and wrote as follows:
Ensign G. J. Rowley, U. S. N., U. S. S. Helena. Sir: You will take four men and proceed at once to the village of Rio, twenty miles from San Juan on the Caguas road. Two miles beyond Rio, in a cottage three hundred yards to the left of the trail, you will find James Moser, Chief Yeoman, a deserter from the U. S. S. Helena. He has