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.Downs got full the first payday after his re-enlistment, as has been said, and drunk, as in duty bound, at the major's "swagger" wedding.It was after this episode he fell utterly from grace and went forth to the frontier irreclaimably "Downs." It was a seven-days' topic of talk at Sandy that Lieutenant Blakely, when acting Indian agent at the reservation, should have accepted the services of this unpromising specimen as "striker." It was a seven-weeks' wonder that Downs kept the pact, and sober as a judge, from the hour he joined the Bugologist to the night that self-contained young officer was sent crashing into his beetle show under the impact of Wren's furious fist.Then came the last pound that broke the back of Downs' wavering resolution, and now had come—what? The sergeant and party rode back from Dick's to tell Captain Cutler the deserter had not taken the Cherry Creek road.Another party just in reported similarly that he had not taken the old, abandoned Grief Hill trail.Still another returned from down-stream ranches to say he could not have taken that route without being seen—and he had not been seen.Ranchman Strom would swear to that because Downs was in his debt for value received in shape of whisky, and Strom was rabid at the idea of his getting away.In fine, as nothing but Downs was missing, it became a matter of speculation along toward tattoo as to whether Downs could have taken anything at all—except possibly his own life.Cutler was now desirous of questioning Blakely at length, and obtaining his views and theories as to Downs, for Cutler believed that Blakely had certain well-defined views which he was keeping to himself.Between these two, however, had grown an unbridgeable gulf.Dr.Graham had declared at eight o'clock that morning that Mr.Blakely was still so weak that he ought not to go with the searching parties, and on receipt of this dictum Captain Cutler had issued his, to wit, that Blakely should not go either in search of Downs or in pursuit of Captain Wren.It stung Blakely and angered him even against Graham, steeling him against the post commander.Each of these gentlemen begged him to make his temporary home under his roof, and Blakely would not."Major Plume's quarters are now vacant, then," said Cutler to Graham."If he won't come to you or to me, let him take a room there." This, too, Blakely refused.He reddened, what is more, at the suggestion.He sent Nixon down to Mr.Hart's, the trader's, to ask if he could occupy a spare room there, and when Hart said, yes, most certainly, Cutler reddened in turn when told of it, and sent Lieutenant Doty, the adjutant, to say that the post commander could not "consent to an officer's occupying quarters outside the garrison when there was abundant room within." Then came Truman and Westervelt to beg Blakely to come to them.Then came a note from Mrs.Sanders, reminding him that, as an officer of the cavalry, it would be casting reflections on his own corps to go and dwell with aliens."Captain Sanders would never forgive me," said she, "if you did not take our spare room.Indeed, I shall feel far safer with a man in the house now that we are having fires and Indian out-breaks and prisoners escaping and all that sort of thing.Do come, Mr.Blakely." And in that blue flannel shirt and the trooper trousers and bandanna neckerchief, Blakely went and thanked her; sent for Nixon and his saddle-bags, and with such patience as was possible settled down forthwith.Truth to tell it was high time he settled somewhere, for excitement, exposure, physical ill, and mental torment had told upon him severely.At sunset, as he seemed too miserable to leave his room and come to the dining table, Mrs.Sanders sent for the doctor, and reluctantly Blakely let him in.That evening, just after tattoo had sounded, Kate Sanders and Angela were having murmured conference on the Wrens' veranda.Aunt Janet had gone to hospital to carry unimpeachable jelly to the several patients and dubious words of cheer.Jelly they absorbed with much avidity and her words with meek resignation.Mullins, she thought, after his dreadful experience and close touch with death, must be in receptive mood and repentant of his sins.Of just what sins to repent poor Pat might still be unsettled in his mind.It was sufficient that he had them, as all soldiers must have, said Miss Wren, and now that his brain seemed clearing and the fever gone and he was too weak and helpless to resist, the time seemed ripe for the sowing of good seed, and Janet went to sow.But there by Mullins's bed, all unabashed at Janet's marked disapprobation, sat Norah Shaughnessy.There, in flannel shirt and trooper trousers and bandanna neckerchief, pale, but collected, stood the objectionable Mr.Blakely.He was bending over, saying something to Mullins, as she halted in the open doorway, and Blakely, looking quickly up, went with much civility to greet and escort her within.To his courteous, "Good-evening, Miss Wren, may I relieve you of your basket?" she returned prompt negative and, honoring him with no further notice, stood and gazed with Miss Shaughnessy at the focus—Miss Shaughnessy who, after one brief glance, turned a broad Irish back on the intruder at the doorway and resumed her murmuring to Mullins
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