"Man named Barclay; just got his captaincy in the 30th, – but was consolidated out of that, of course."
"Barclay – Barclay, you say?" ejaculated the major, in excitement. "Well, of all the – "
"Of all the what?" demanded the colonel, impatiently. "Nothing wrong with him, I hope."
"Wrong? No, or they wouldn't have dubbed him Galahad. But, talk about ups and downs in Texas, this beats all. Does Winn know?"
"I don't know that any one knows but you and me," answered the veteran, half testily. "What's amiss? What has Winn to do with it?"
"Blood and blue blazes! Why, of course you couldn't know. Three years ago Barclay believed himself engaged to a girl, and she threw him over for Winn, and now we'll have all three of them right here at Worth."
CHAPTER II
In spite of what Colonel Frazier could say, Captain Lawrence had gone the long and devious journey to Washington. Those were the days when the lumbering stage-coach once a week, or a rattling ambulance, bore our army travellers from the far frontier to San Antonio. Another trundled and bumped them away to the Gulf. A Morgan Line steamer picked them up and tossed and rolled with them to the mouth of the Mississippi and unloaded them at New Orleans, whence by dusty railway journey of forty-eight hours or more they could hope to reach the North. The parting between Lawrence and his tall slip of a daughter and boisterous little Jimmy was something women wept over in telling or hearing, for only two looked on, well-nigh blinded, – Mrs. Blythe, who had been devoted to their mother, and old "Mammy," who was devoted to them all. A month had rolled by, and the letters that came from Lawrence from San Antonio and Indianola and New Orleans had been read by sympathizing friends to the children. Then all awaited the news from Washington. Every one knew he would wire to Department Head-Quarters the moment the case was settled in his favor; but the days went by without other tidings, and the croakers who had predicted ill success were mournfully happy. February passed, March was ushered in; orders came transferring certain portions of Frazier's big command, and certain new officers began to arrive to fill the three or four vacancies existing, but the new captain of Troop "D" of the cavalry had not yet appeared. His fame, however, had preceded him, and all Fort Worth was agog to meet him. Brooks knew but a modest bit of his story, and what he knew he kept from every man but Frazier, yet had had to tell his wife. The Winns were silent on the subject. Winn himself was a man of few intimates, – a young first lieutenant of cavalry, – and the tie that bound him to Lawrence was the fact that he and Kitty Tyrrell were first-cousins, their mothers sisters, and Winn, a tall, athletic, slender fellow, frank, buoyant, handsome, and connected with some of the best names in the old army, was one of the swells of his class at the Point and the beau among all the young officers the summer of his graduation, – the summer that Laura Waite, engaged to Brevet Captain Galbraith Barclay of the Infantry, came from the West to visit relatives at that enchanting spot, spent just six weeks there, and, after writing letters all one month to close her absent lover's eyes, wound up by writing one that opened them. She was a beautiful girl then; she was a lovely-looking woman now, but the bloom was gone. The brilliant eyes were often clouded, for Harry Winn was "his aunt Kitty all over," said many a man who knew them both. Their name was impecuniosity. That Mrs. Winn could tell much about the coming captain letters from other regiments informed more than one bright woman at Worth; but that the young matron would tell next to nothing, more than one woman, bright or blundering, discovered on inquiry. Only one officer now at the post had ever served with Barclay, and that was Brooks, who became tongue-tied so soon as it was settled beyond peradventure that Captain Galbraith Barclay from the unassigned list had been gazetted to the 12th Cavalry, Troop "D," vice Lawrence, honorably discharged. But Brooks had letters, so had Frazier, from old officers who had served with the transferred man. Some of these letters referred to him in terms of admiration, while another spoke of him unhesitatingly as "more kinds of a damned fool" than the writer had ever met. Verily, various men have various minds.
Presently, however, there came a man who could tell lots about Barclay, whether he knew anything or not, and that was one of the new transfers, Lieutenant Hodge by title and name. Hodge said he had served with the 30th along the Union Pacific, and had met Barclay often. In his original regiment Mr. Hodge had been regarded as a very monotonous sort of man, a fellow who bored his hearers to death, and the contrast between his reception in social circles in the regiment he had left, and that accorded him here at Worth so soon as it was learned that he knew Barclay, inspired Mr. Hodge to say that these people were worth knowing; they had some life and intelligence about them. The gang he had left in Wyoming were a stupid lot of owls by comparison. For a week Hodge was invited to dinner by family after family, and people dropped in to spend the evening where he happened to be, for Hodge held the floor and talked for hours about Barclay, and what he had to tell was interesting indeed; so much so, said Brooks, that some of it was probably a preposterous lie. To begin with, said Hodge, Captain Barclay was rich, very rich, fabulously rich, perhaps; nobody knew how rich, and nobody would have known he was rich at all, judging from the simplicity and strict economy of his life. In fact, it was this simplicity and strict economy that had given rise to the belief that existed for a year or two after he joined the 30th that he was hampered either with debts or with dependent relatives. Relatives they knew he had, because sisters sent their boys to visit him at Sanders, and he took them hunting, fishing, etc.; from these ingenuous nephews the ladies learned of others, nephews, nieces, sisters, cousins, aunts, who wrote long letters to Uncle Gal, and the mail orderly said he left more letters at Captain Barclay's quarters than at anybody's else. So Fort Sanders dropped the theory of debts and adopted that of dependants, and that held good for the first year of his service with them. He had joined from the volunteers, where he had risen to the grade of major. He was "pious," said Hodge, – wouldn't drink, smoke, chew, play cards, or swear, – thought they ought to have services on Sunday. He left the roistering bachelors' mess soon after his reaching the post, and had ever since kept house, his cook and housemaid being one old darky whom he had "accumulated" in the South during the war, – a darky who had been well-taught in the household of his old master, and who became extravagantly attached to the new. Hannibal could cook, wait at table, and tend door to perfection, but he had to learn the duties of second girl when his master joined the 30th in far Wyoming, and that was the only time a breach was threatened. Hannibal's dignity was hurt. He had been body-servant in the antebellum days, butler, cook, coachman, and hostler, but had never done such chores as Marse Barclay told him would fall to his lot when that reticent officer set up his modest establishment. Hannibal sulked three days, and even talked of leaving. The lieutenant counted out a goodly sum, all Hannibal's own, and told him that he would find the balance banked in his name in the distant East whenever he chose to quit; then Hannibal broke down, and was speedily broken in. All this had Hodge heard when the dames of Sanders and those of Steele or Russell were comparing notes and picnicking together along that then new wonder of the world, the Union Pacific. But all this was only preliminary to what came later.
Little detachments, horse and foot, were scattered all over the line of the brand-new railway while it was being built; every now and then the Indians jumped their camps and working-parties, and in the late fall of '67 Barclay had a stiff and plucky fight with a band of Sioux; he was severely wounded, but beat them off, and was sent East to recuperate. Now came particulars Hodge could not give, but that letters could and did. It was while Barclay was convalescing at Omaha Barracks that he met Miss Laura Waite, – a beautiful girl and a garrison belle. She was ten years his junior. This was her first winter in army society. She had spent her girl years at school, and now was having "simply a heavenly time," if her letters could be believed. Her father was a field officer of cavalry with rather a solemn way of looking at life, and her mother was said to be the explanation of much of his solemnity, – she being as volatile as he was staid. She too had been a beauty, and believed that beauty a permanent fixture. But Laura was fresh and fair, sweet and winsome, light-hearted and joyous, and the father for a time took more pride in her than he did in his sons. Major Waite was in command of the cantonment from which the relief party was sent when the news came that Barclay and his little detachment were "corralled." Major Waite became enthusiastic over the details of the cool, courageous, brainy