"Then it will be 'good-by, Mr. Mayhew,' to her present escort, I warrant you in return. Fanny Forrest has no use for subalterns except as fun to pass away the time."
"Yet she made eyes at Mr. McLean all that first day she was at the Millers'. I think that is really the reason Mrs. Miller cannot bear her. She won't speak of her if she can help it. Now watch the doctor."
There were perhaps half a dozen ladies in the party at the moment, and all eyes were fastened on the tall and distinguished form of Dr. Bayard as he strode across the parade, his handsome, portly figure showing to excellent advantage in his snug-fitting uniform. They saw him bare his head and bow with courtier-like grace to Miss Forrest and again to her escort as he stopped and extended his hand. Then, after a few words, he again bowed as gracefully as before and passed on in the direction of the hospital.
"Certainly the most elegant man in manner and bearing we have seen at Laramie for I don't know when," said Mrs. Gordon. "I don't wonder Nellie worships him."
"She thinks her father simply perfect," was Mrs. Wells's reply. "I dread to think what it will cost her when disillusion comes, as come it must. Why! Who is that he is talking with now?"
At the north-west corner of the quadrangle, just beyond "Bedlam," the doctor had encountered a stoutly-built man who wore an overcoat of handsome beaver fur thrown wide open over the chest in deference to the spring-like mildness of the morning, and who carried a travelling-bag of leather in one hand. After a moment of apparently cordial chat the two men walked rapidly southward along the gravel path, all eyes from all the piazzas upon them as they came, and, passing one or two groups of ladies, entered the gateway at the doctor's quarters, where Nellie Bayard with "the Gordon girls" happened to be seated on the veranda. Mrs. Gordon and Mrs. Wells arose from their chairs and gazed across the parade, in their very natural curiosity to see what was going on "over at the doctor's." They saw the stranger raise his cap, and bow low over the hand that Nellie extended to him, and then make a bobbing obeisance to each of the Gordon girls as he was presented to them. Then he took a chair by Miss Bayard's side, while the servant came out and relieved him of his overcoat and bag, and the Gordon girls were seen saying adieu. Nellie followed them to the gate, but they evidently felt that the stranger had not come to see them, and that it was time to leave. The ladies on the home piazza awaited their coming with no little impatience, and Mrs. Gordon was prepared to administer a sharp maternal reproof when they were seen to stop in answer to hails from the groups they passed en route. Everybody wanted to know who the fur-coated stranger was, and their progress homeward from the south-west angle was, therefore, nothing short of "running the gauntlet" of interrogations. Possibly in anticipation of the displeasure awaiting her, the elder maiden of the two strove to "cut across lots" when she came near the south-eastern corner, whereat, facing north, stood the big house of the commanding officer; but Mrs. Miller was too experienced a hand, and bore down upon the pair in sudden swoop from her piazza to the front gate, and they had to stop and surrender their information.
As a consequence, every woman along that side of Laramie knew before Mesdames Gordon and Wells that Roswell Holmes, of Chicago, the "wealthy mine-owner and cattle-grower," had just arrived in his own conveyance from Cheyenne, and had been invited to put up at the doctor's quarters during his stay at the fort.
"Think of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Gordon, "a bachelor, only thirty-eight, and worth a million. No wonder Dr. Bayard seized him!"
"The doctor knew him before, mother," put in her daughter. "Nellie wasn't introduced at all. He came right up and told her how glad he was to see her again—he looked it, too."
"They knew him in Chicago—met him there on the way out," said the younger. "I heard the doctor say so. Now, look! Here come Fanny Forrest and Mr. Mayhew, and she wants to know who the stranger is; if she doesn't she's the first person I've met who didn't ask."
But Miss Forrest proved an exception to the rule, so far as questions were concerned, at least. She stopped in front of the gate, looking beamingly up at the group on the piazza.
"Mrs. Gordon," she said, "Mr. Mayhew has invited me to walk down to the camp of the battalion, and, as I haven't been outside the limits of the post since we came, I should like to go. They are to have inspection in 'field kits' in half an hour. Don't you want to come with the girls? He says there are half a dozen young gentlemen down there who are eager to see them——"
"Oh, mamma, do!" implored both girls in a breath.
"Why, I hardly know, Miss Forrest," answered Mrs. Gordon, hesitatingly. "Cannot Mrs. Forrest go?"
"Ruth is never ready to go anywhere," answered Miss Forrest, half laughingly, yet with a certain rueful emphasis. "She is a slave to her babies, and as for Celestine, the nurse, she is no help to her whatever."
"Of course you girls must have a 'matron,'" said Mrs. Gordon. "How long will you be there, Mr. Mayhew?"
"Oh, just about half an hour or so, Mrs. Gordon. Then inspection will be over, and we fellows can all come back with you. It's just for the walk, you know, and the pleasure it will give a raft of second lieutenants." (Mr. Mayhew was a first lieutenant of one year's standing.) "They'll bless me for bringing them down."
"Do let the girls go with us, Mrs. Gordon, and if you are too busy I'll see Ruth at once. I can make Celestine stay home and look after the children, though she cannot; and here come Mr. Hatton and Mr. McLean. One of them, at least, will be glad to join us," said Miss Forrest, with the confidence of handsome womanhood. "Perhaps both of them. No. They are turning off across the parade. Call them, Mr. Mayhew. Let no guilty man escape."
Obediently Lieutenant Mayhew shouted to the two young officers who had just come forth from the presence of the major commanding. Both were in undress uniform and sword-belts; both had caught sight of the tall girl at the Gordons' gate at the same instant, and, had any one disposed to be critical been looking on, that somebody would have been justified in saying they "sheered off" the very next instant so as not to pass her by within speaking distance. Mrs. Miller, sitting where she could see the whole affair, was struck by the sudden change in their line of direction, and watched them in no little curiosity as they halted in recognition of Mayhew's call.
"What is it, Mayhew?" sung out Hatton.
"Come over here a minute, you and McLean. I have a scheme to unfold."
"Can't; I'm officer of the day."
"Well, you come, McLean. Miss Forrest wants to speak with you."
"Mac, there's no way out of it," growled Hatton between his set teeth; "you've got to go."
"Be at the house in ten minutes, then. I'll join you there," said McLean, glancing over his shoulders at his comrade as he started across the springy turf to obey the summons. "What is it, Miss Forrest?" he inquired. "Good-morning Mrs. Gordon—Mrs. Wells—everybody," he continued, as, with forage-cap in hand, he made his obeisance to the various ladies of the party.
"I want you to prove how we Bedlamites stand by one another by placing yourself under my orders for a whole hour. You have no duty or engagement, have you?"
McLean would have given—he knew not what—to be able to say he had; but this rencontre was something utterly unlooked for. He could easily have pleaded letters, or company duty, but evasion was a trick he could not brook. "I have none," he quietly answered.
"Then, for the honor of Bedlam, offer your services to these young ladies and be their escort down to camp, where they are dying to go."
"Why, Fanny Forrest! how dare you?" gasped Kate Gordon, the elder.
"Indeed, Miss Forrest, I will not have a detailed escort," indignantly protested Jeannie, the younger.
"What illimitable effrontery!" was the muttered comment of Mrs. Wells, while poor Mrs. Gordon hardly knew what to say or do in her amaze and annoyance. McLean himself had flushed crimson under the combined influence of embarrassment and the recollection of the long talk he and Hatton had had but two nights before. Mayhew, too, could hardly control