RANSON'S FOLLY

I

The junior officers of Fort Crockett had organized a mess at the post-trader's."And a mess it certainly is,"said Lieutenant Ranson. The dining-table stood between hogsheads of molasses and a blazing log-fire, the counter of the store was their buffet, a pool-table with a cloth, blotted like a map of the Great Lakes, their sideboard, and Indian Pete acted as butler. But none of these things counted against the great fact that each evening Mary Cahill, the daughter of the post-trader, presided over the evening meal, and turned it into a banquet. From her high chair behind the counter, with the cash-register on her one side and the weighing-scales on the other, she gave her little Senate laws, and smiled upon each and all with the kind impartiality of a comrade.

At least, at one time she had been impartial. But of late she smiled upon all save Lieutenant Ranson. When he talked, she now looked at the blazing log-fire, and her cheeks glowed and her eyes seemed to reflect the lifting flame.

For five years, ever since her father brought her from the convent at St. Louis, Mary Cahill had watched officers come and officers go. Her knowledge concerning them, and their public and private affairs, was vast and miscellaneous. She was acquainted with the traditions of every regiment, with its war record, with its peace-time politics, its nicknames, its scandals, even with the earnings of each company-canteen. At Fort Crockett, which lay under her immediate observation, she knew more of what was going forward than did the regimental adjutant, more even than did the colonel's wife. If Trumpeter Tyler flatted on church call, if Mrs. Stickney applied to the quartermaster for three feet of stovepipe, if Lieutenant Curtis were granted two days'leave for quail-shooting, Mary Cahill knew it; and if Mrs."Captain"Stairs obtained the post-ambulance for a drive to Kiowa City, when Mrs."Captain"Ross wanted it for a picnic, she knew what words passed between those ladies, and which of the two wept. She knew all of these things, for each evening they were retailed to her by her"boarders."Her boarders were very loyal to Mary Cahill. Her position was a difficult one, and had it not been that the boy-officers were so understanding, it would have been much more difficult. For the life of a regimental post is as circumscribed as the life on a ship-of-war, and it would no more be possible for the ship's barber to rub shoulders with the admiral's epaulets than that a post-trader's child should visit the ladies on the"line,"or that the wives of the enlisted men should dine with the young girl from whom they"took in"washing.

So, between the upper and the nether grindstones, Mary Cahill was left without the society of her own sex, and was of necessity forced to content herself with the society of the officers. And the officers played fair. Loyalty to Mary Cahill was a tradition at Fort Crockett, which it was the duty of each succeeding regiment to sustain. Moreover, her father, a dark, sinister man, alive only to money-making, was known to handle a revolver with the alertness of a town-marshal.

Since the day she left the convent Mary Cahill had held but two affections: one for this grim, taciturn parent, who brooded over her as jealously as a lover, and the other for the entire United States Army. The Army returned her affection without the jealousy of the father, and with much more than his effusiveness. But when Lieutenant Ranson arrived from the Philippines, the affections of Mary Cahill became less generously distributed, and her heart fluttered hourly between trouble and joy.

The re were two rooms on the first floor of the post-trader's—this big one, which only officers and their women-folk might enter, and the other, the exchange of the enlisted men. The two were separated by a partition of logs and hung with shelves on which were displayed calicoes, tinned meats, and patent medicines. A door, cut in one end of the partition, with buffalo-robes for portieres, permitted Cahill to pass from behind the counter of one store to behind the counter of the other. On one side Mary Cahill served the Colonel's wife with many yards of silk ribbons to be converted into german favors, on the other her father weighed out bears'claws (manufactured in Hartford, Conn., from turkey-bones) to make a necklace for Red Wing, the squaw of the Arrephao chieftain. He waited upon everyone with gravity, and in obstinate silence. No one had ever seen Cahill smile. He himself occasionally joked with others in a grim and embarrassed manner. But no one had ever joked with him. It was reported that he came from New York, where, it was whispered, he had once kept bar on the Bowery for McTurk.

Sergeant Clancey, of G Troop, was the authority for this. But when, presuming on that supposition, he claimed acquaintanceship with Cahill, the post-trader spread out his hands on the counter and stared at the sergeant with cold and disconcerting eyes."I never kept bar nowhere,"he said."I never been on the Bowery, never been in New York, never been east of Denver in my life. What was it you ordered?"

"We ll, mebbe I'm wrong,"growled the sergeant.

But a month later, when a coyote howled down near the Indian village, the sergeant said insinuatingly,"Sounds just like the cry of the Whyos, don't it?"And Cahill, who was listening to the wolf, unthinkingly nodded his head.

The sergeant snorted in triumph."Yah, I told you so!"he cried,"a man that's never been on the Bowery, and knows the call of the Whyo gang! The drinks are on you, Cahill."

The post-trader did not raise his eyes, but drew a damp cloth up and down the counter, slowly and heavily, as a man sharpens a knife on a whetstone.

That night, as the sergeant went up the path to the post, a bullet passed through his hat. Clancey was a forceful man, and forceful men, unknown to themselves, make enemies, so he was uncertain as to whether this came from a trooper he had borne upon too harshly, or whether, In the darkness, he had been picked off for someone else. The next night, as he passed in the full light of the post-trader's windows, a shot came from among the dark shadows of the corral, and when he immediately sought safety in numbers among the Indians, cowboys, and troopers in the exchange, he was in time to see Cahill enter it from the other store, wrapping up a bottle of pain-killer for Mrs. Stickney's cook. But Clancey was not deceived. He observed with satisfaction that the soles and the heels of Cahill's boots were wet with the black mud of the corral.

The next morning, when the exchange was empty, the post-trader turned from arranging cans of condensed milk upon an upper shelf to face the sergeant's revolver. He threw up his hands to the level of his ears as though expressing sharp unbelief, and waited in silence. The sergeant advanced until the gun rested on the counter, Its muzzle pointing at the pit of Cahill's stomach."You or me has got to leave this post,"said the sergeant,"and I can't desert, so I guess it's up to you."

"What did you talk for?"asked Cahill. His attitude was still that of shocked disbelief, but his tone expressed a full acceptance of the situation and a desire to temporize.

"At first I thought it might be that new'cruity'in F Troop,"explained the sergeant"You came near making me kill the wrong man. What harm did I do you by saying you kept bar for McTurk? What's there in that to get hot about?"

"You said I run with the Whyos."

"What the h—l do I care what you've done!"roared the sergeant."I don't kmow nothing about you, but I don't mean you should shoot me in the back. I'm going to tell this to my bunky, an'if I get shot up, the Troop'll know who done it, and you'll hang for it. Now, what are you going to do?"

Cahill did not tell what he would do; for, from the other store, the low voice of Mary Cahill called,"Father! Oh, father!"

The two men dodged, and eyed each other guiltily. The sergeant gazed at the buffalo-robe portieres with wide-opened eyes. Cahill's hands dropped from the region of his ears, and fell flat upon the counter.

When Miss Mary Cahill pushed aside the portieres Sergeant Clancey, of G Troop, was showing her father the mechanism of the new regulation-revolver. He apparently was having some difficulty with the cylinder, for his face was red. Her father was eying the gun with the critical approval of an expert.

"Father,"said Miss Cahill petulantly,"why didn't you answer? Where is the blue stationery—the sort Major Ogden always buys? He's waiting."

The eyes of the post-trader did not wander from the gun before him."Next to the blank books, Mame,"he said."On the second shelf."

Miss Cahill flashed a dazzling smile at the big sergeant, and whispered, so that the officer in the room behind her might not overhear,"Is he trying to sell you Government property, dad? Don't you touch it. Sergeant, I'm surprised at you tempting my poor father."She pulled the two buffalo-robes close around her neck so that her face only showed between them. It was a sweet, lovely face, with frank, boyish eyes.

"When the major's gone, sergeant,"she whispered,"bring your gun around my side of the store and I'll buy it from you."

The sergeant nodded in violent assent, laughing noiselessly and slapping his knee in a perfect ecstasy of delight.

The curtains dropped and the face disappeared.

The sergeant fingered the gun and Cahill folded his arms defiantly.

"We ll?"he said.

"We ll?"asked the sergeant.

"I should think you could see how it is,"said Cahill,"without my having to tell you."

"You mean you don't want she should know?"

"My God, no! Not even that I kept a bar."

"We ll, I don't know nothing. I don't mean to tell nothing, anyway, so if you'll promise to be good I'll call this off."

For the first time in the history of Fort Crockett, Cahill was seen to smile."May I reach under the counter NOW?"he asked.

The sergeant grinned appreciatively, and shifted his gun."Yes, but I'll keep this out until I'm sure it's a bottle,"he said, and laughed boisterously.

For an instant, under the cover of the counter, Cahill's hand touched longingly upon the gun that lay there, and then passed on to the bottle beside it. He drew it forth, and there was the clink of glasses.

In the other room Mary Cahill winked at the major, but that officer pretended to be both deaf to the clink of the glasses and blind to the wink. And so the incident was closed. Had it not been for the folly of Lieutenant Ranson it would have remained closed.

A week before this happened a fire had started in the Willow Bottoms among the tepees of some Kiowas, and the prairie, as far as one could see, was bruised and black. From the post it looked as though the sky had been raining ink. At the time all of the regiment but G and H Troops was out on a practice-march, experimenting with a new-fangled tabloid-ration. As soon as it turned the buttes it saw from where the light in the heavens came and the practice-march became a race.

At the post the men had doubled out under Lieutenant Ranson with wet horse-blankets, and while he led G Troop to fight the flames, H Troop, under old Major Stickney, burned a space around the post, across which the men of G Troop retreated, stumbling, with their ears and shoulders wrapped in the smoking blankets. The sparks beat upon them and the flames followed so fast that, as they ran, the blazing grass burned their lacings, and they kicked their gaiters ahead of them.

When the regiment arrived it found everybody at Fort Crockett talking enthusiastically of Ranson's conduct and resentfully of the fact that he had regarded the fire as one which had been started for his especial amusement.

"I assure you,"said Mrs. Bolland to the colonel,"if it hadn't been for young Ranson we would have been burned in our beds; but he was most aggravating. He treated it as though it were Fourth of July fireworks. It is the only entertainment we have been able to offer him since he joined in which he has shown the slightest interest."Nevertheless, it was generally admitted that Ranson had saved the post. He had been ubiquitous. He had been seen galloping into the advancing flames like a stampeded colt, he had reappeared like a wraith in columns of black, whirling smoke, at the same moment his voice issued orders from twenty places. One instant he was visible beating back the fire with a wet blanket, waving it above him jubilantly, like a substitute at the Army-Navy game when his side scores, and the next staggering from out of the furnace dragging an Asphyxiated trooper by the collar, and shrieking,"Hospital-steward, hospital-steward! here's a man on fire. Put him out, and send him back to me, quick!"

Those who met him in the whirlwind of smoke and billowing flame related that he chuckled continuously."Isn't this fun?"he yelled at them."Say, isn't this the best ever? I wouldn't have missed this for a trip to New York!"

When the colonel, having visited the hospital and spoken cheering words to those who were sans hair, sans eyebrows and with bandaged hands, complimented Lieutenant Ranson on the parade-ground before the assembled regiment, Ranson ran to his hut muttering strange and fearful oaths.

That night at mess he appealed to Mary Cahill for sympathy."Goodness, mighty me!"he cried,"did you hear him? Wasn't it awful? If I'd thought he was going to hand me that I'd have deserted. What's the use of spoiling the only fun we've had that way? Why, if I'd known you could get that much excitement out of this rank prairie I'd have put a match to it myself three months ago. It's the only fun I've had, and he goes and preaches a funeral oration at me."

Ranson came into the army at the time of the Spanish war because it promised a new form of excitement, and because everybody else he knew had gone into it too. As the son of his father he was made an Adjutant-general of volunteers with the rank of captain, and unloaded on the staff of a Southern brigadier, who was slated never to leave Charleston. But Ranson suspected this, and, after telegraphing his father for three days, was attached to the Philippines contingent and sailed from San Francisco in time to carry messages through the surf when the volunteers moved upon Manila. More cabling at the cost of many Mexican dollars caused him to be removed from the staff, and given a second lieutenancy in a volunteer regiment, and for two years he pursued the little brown men over the paddy sluices, burned villages, looted churches, and collected bolos and altar-cloths with that irresponsibility and contempt for regulations which is found chiefly in the appointment from civil life. Incidentally, he enjoyed himself so much that he believed in the army he had found the one place where excitement is always in the air, and as excitement was the breath of his nostrils he applied for a commission in the regular army. On his record he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Twentieth Cavalry, and on the return of that regiment to the States—was buried alive at Fort Crockett.

After six months of this exile, one night at the mess-table Ranson broke forth in open rebellion."I tell you I can't stand it a day longer,"he cried."I'm going to resign!"

From behind the counter Mary Cahill heard him in horror. Second Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis shuddered. They were sons of officers of the regular army. Only six months before they themselves had been forwarded from We st Point, done up in neat new uniforms. The traditions of the Academy of loyalty and discipline had been kneaded into their vertebrae. In Ranson they saw only the horrible result of giving commissions to civilians.