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An official from Sheridan's headquarters had just paid informal visit to Scott, had had long talks with Stone, Leonard, and the chaplain, and a very short one with the plausible Devers, and had gone back to Chicago. He arrived at Scott within four days of Cranston's departure for the agency, and within five of the re incarceration of Trooper Brannan on charge of night prowling.
It was their first meeting in four years. The court was in session a month, and three evenings out of four Davies spent as of old at Cranston's fireside. Sanders suggested that the Parson seemed to be "taking notice" again.
Then came a winter indeed of discontent, and the Eleventh was ordered to far away, burning, blistering Arizona, all but Cranston's troop, excepted at the last moment and detailed for service at the School of Application.
Tintop had to part with two of his pet companies Cranston's and Hay's at the reluctant orders from department head-quarters. Still a fourth had to be sent, and Truman was taken from the lieutenant-colonel and Major Warren despatched from head-quarters to Scott as commander of this cavalry battalion or squadron at the very moment when he was clinching his arrangements for long leave of absence.
Short-lived triumph for the scalper, sneaking to shelter with his hideous prize, for Cranston's pistol stretched him in his tracks, and Sergeant Buckner's big charger knocked the foremost of the rescuing warriors scrambling back between the lodges, where other troopers drove their horses trampling them under foot. But every wigwam had its garrison.
Cranston's tact. She had begun to feel a strong interest in and respect for her patient. So, too, had her husband, who came daily to sit by his bedside, but who avoided, as much as possible, all reference to the closing days of the campaign. As yet the young officer had not been told of McGrath's disappearance, and had not been encouraged to tell of his own experience.
Cranston's squadron was cheered to the skies when it marched away from Chicago after its month of riot duty, and on the plains of Evanston during the manoeuvres the visitors thronged to see the feats in horsemanship displayed by the men of Davies's troop. Even in the Eleventh he was held to be the most brilliant instructor as well as the most judicious and successful troop commander.
Little by little, as they walked homeward together, Cranston's orderly riding with the horses along the street, and dozens of people turning curiously to gaze at the cavalry officer and the late striker, it began to dawn upon Cranston that Mart's sister, who was worth so much more than her weight in gold, was the very Miss Wallen who had been so oddly unwilling to write at his dictation the letter to Elmendorf.
"He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, and then," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?" That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from many another tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp evening in late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face at Willett's side behind that stylish Eastern team.
Cranston's father loved those books, and had grouped them on his shelves according to their subjects, history, art, science, the drama, the classics, standard fiction, and modern literature having received each its allotted space, and not for a heavy reward would the son have changed them; but here already were more than half these prized possessions tumbled promiscuously all over the room, and the soldier could have sworn in hearty trooper fashion over the disarray, but for the silent presence of his mother's portrait above the mantel facing the father's desk.
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