THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER; OR, WINNING HIS SPURS.

BY Capt. CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

A. F. HARMER.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

1892.

Copyright, 1882, by J. B. Lippincott & Co.

TO

MRS. JAMES B. RICKETTS,

WHO,

WHETHER SHARING THE LOT OF WOUNDED PRISONER,

OR

GRACING THE HIGHEST CIRCLES OF SOCIETY,

HAS BEEN

THE DEVOTED WIFE TO ONE,

THE

FAITHFUL FRIEND TO MANY A SOLDIER,

THIS

ARMY STORY IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson is responsible for the statement that “Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints, and gods use a short and positive speech.” This may account for the fact that there are no conversations worth reading in this entire story.

The spontaneous wisdom and eloquence that animate the characters of Bulwer and Disraeli to the habitual and familiar use of language outrivalling the diction of Richelieu; the colossal attainments of the natives neighboring Chattanooga, as set forth in St. Elmo, and discovered (by aid of the unabridged) in their off-hand chats; the wit and sparkle of that phenomenally delicious couple, Tom and Bessie, who irradiate not only “One Summer,” but every season in which they may be encountered,—all will be found wanting herein. My people simply talk, as people in the line of the army will talk,—most prosaically.

When it comes to portraying life in the staff, as opposed to existence in the fighting force, needless to say some other pen must be employed than that of

THE AUTHOR.

November, 1882.

[3]

THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER;

OR,

WINNING HIS SPURS.

CHAPTER I.

“Sergeant-Major!”

“Sir-r-r!” and the rasp and rattle of a hastily-moved chair preceded but an instant the appearance of a soldierly form in the doorway.

“That Prescott mail’s late again to-day?”

“Yes, sir; been late every time last three trips.”

The sergeant-major clips his words as close as his cropped hair and uses no superfluities. Having said so much he waits, mutely “standing attention,” for his superior’s next remark. The latter is dreamily contemplating a pair of rather shapely feet perched on the desk in front of him, and tapping the boot-toes thereof with a long ruler. Finally he queries,—

“Think that man Finnegan’s been drinking again?”

“Looks like it, sir; but can’t say. Horse shows hard riding every night when he gets in; but you can see him for six miles up the valley, and he comes at an easy lope all the way from the Point.”

[4]

The adjutant slowly lets down his long legs, quits his chair, takes from its case a signal-service binocular and saunters to the open doorway leading to the parade. His subordinate remains a moment, in his invariable attitude, at the door of the inner office, then, finding himself addressed no further, steps back quickly as he came.

Leaning against the post of the narrow piazza in front, the adjutant blinked his eyes in unwilling deference to the blazing sunlight and gazed out towards the north.

Before him, straight away, lay a level barren of gravelly earth, brown and desolate: no sprig of grass, no sign of shrub or tree; the parade of Camp Sandy, in the year of our Lord 187-, was as bald as the head of the commanding officer. Midway between the office and the glistening white line of picket-fence that spanned the northern limit of the garrison a lance-like staff shot upward into the burning vault of heaven, and from its summit hung motionless the heavy folds of blue and scarlet and white, the symbol of Yankee supremacy in the midst of surrounding desolation. It hung aloft as though paralyzed with wonderment at its unlovely companionship,—

Bounding this arid surface on right and left were two long lines of adobe buildings. Those on the eastern side, with their broad piazzas and mansard-roofs, indicating in greater pretence the homes of the officers of [5]the command; those on the left, low, one-storied, and colorless as the dun hue of the parade itself, the quarters of the men.

Beyond the former, a thousand yards away, rose a turreted palisade of conglomerate shale and yielding sandy earth that shut out wall-like all view to the east. At its foot rolled the shallow stream from which the post derived its sole supply of water. It never seemed to rain at Camp Sandy, though torrents might be descending in the mountains that shut it in. To the west, beyond the line of barracks, lay, in the same colorless clods of adobe, the cavalry stables,—the quartermaster’s “corrals,”—and beyond them tumbled heaps of foot-hill rolling higher and higher until, in the near distance, they rose a thousand feet above the plateau and joined the long ridge of mountain-chain that stretched down, claw-like, from the grand range of the California Sierra. Northward the eye roamed over a valley hemmed in towards the setting sun by dark, pine-covered mountains, while on the other side, vivid, dazzling, scintillating in the blazing rays, lay the barren yet brilliant cliffs of the Red Rock country. The winding fringe of cottonwood in the valley depths—a

lively green contrasted with the sombre hue of all nature near it—marked the course of the stream, and far, far to the north, plumb under the spot where the pole-star glowed at night, a snow-capped peak glistened and shimmered through the heated air, the one gleam of blessed coolness vouchsafed in the entire picture.

Still holding his binocular in his listless hand, the adjutant lounged in the shade of the porch, and gazed [6]drearily over the scene before him. Save the occasional lizard, darting about the sun-baked parade, no sign of life or motion greeted the eye. Along “officers’ row” every blind was tightly closed against the blazing west. One or two sleeping forms could be detected along the shade-line of the opposite “quarters”; but even at the guard-house the sentry had been drawn inside, and was pacing the narrow corridor in front of the barred windows, through which swarthy, hungry-eyed Apache faces were doubtless glaring out in miserable hatred of their captors.

It was a cheerless scene, and in face and form, expression and attitude, there could be detected on the part of the one visibly wakeful being a thorough appreciation of its dreariness. Tall, “six feet two in his stockings,” lithe and thin in flank, but with massive shoulders and powerful limbs, the adjutant’s form would have enraptured the life guardsmen of England. Clad in the coolest of white duck and flannel, every line of his frame was patent to the observer, and the head and face were fitting accompaniment. Eyes of darkest hazel, a straight, slender, broad-nostriled nose, a mouth firm and clear-cut under the curling moustache, chin and jaw square, resolute, and clean-shaven, forehead broad and white, in odd contrast to the bronze that spread over face and neck, hair that might have been dark and wavy in boyish days, but now close-cropped to the shapely head, the adjutant was well termed among his comrades a “splendid-looking fellow.” Yet at this moment the whole face was marred by its expression of utter weariness and discontent.

Turning sharply with a disgusted snap of the case, [7]he looked at the thermometer hanging well back in the shade,—

“One hundred at 5 P.M.! Well! not so bad as yesterday, but hot enough for Tophet. What in Tophet did we ever take this hole from Mexico for anyhow?” is the muttered comment that falls from his lips. “An ape or a Greaser is the only thing on two legs fit to live in this infernal Arizona, and yet, by gad, here’s old Pelham going to bring his wife and daughter out to join.”

Something in the absurdity of this last idea provoked a smile upon the face of Mr. John Truscott, adjutant of Uncle Sam’s —th regiment of cavalry, and while he did not give way to soliloquy his thoughts ran somewhat as follows:

“She’s the girl” (she being, of course, Miss Pelham, the daughter aforementioned) “the youngsters have all been raving about for the last two years. Just finished school in New York, but spent her last two summers at West Point, and had no end of adorers in the graduating class. I half fancy Glenham to be one of her victims. Almighty good thing for her and the old folks if he is, for the Fates have blessed him with infinite lucre, and those three boys of Pelham’s have drained him poor as—as, begad, as I am. Wonder what she’s like anyhow? You never can tell from what these young fledglings say. Good lord! how long it is since I’ve had a glimpse of a pretty face, or anything civilized!”

Mechanically, Mr. Truscott turned once more northward, and, adjusting the glass, took a long survey of the valley and the point where the road disappeared [8]among the mountains. This time, with better success, his practised eye noted the faintly visible whiffs of dust, rising at intervals beyond the cottonwoods, yet four miles away.

A sudden clatter of hoofs came rapidly up the slope in rear of the office from the south, and a horse and rider plunged into space by his side.

“Mail in yet, Jack?” shouted a fresh cheery voice, and the sunburnt, bright-eyed young face of the horseman beamed down upon the adjutant.

“Nary,” is that official’s inelegant but terse reply. “Coming though, I think,” he adds, as he notes the shade of disappointment creeping over the features of his interrogator. “Where have you been?” he asks. “You must find riding hot work such a day as this?”

“Can’t help it,” replies the junior, swinging lightly to the ground. “Old Catnip says those herds have got to be visited by the officer of the day at least once before stable-call, and I made it late as I could. You look bored to death, Jack.”

Now, just why every officer in that garrison should invariably address Mr. Truscott as “Jack” is one of those mysteries which has puzzled metaphysicians. Some profound thinker has recorded as the result of his observations that a man hailed by his fellow-men by his Christian name may be beloved, but is always “blind to his own interests.” The two fit into one another after a fashion, for it usually happens that the man “blind to his own interests” is apt to be the most unselfish and considerate fellow imaginable, and as such is apt to be popular, and, in army circles, to have “troops of friends” until, in his blindness, he stumbles [9]into a scrape, when it is curious to mark how quickly the “Jack” gives place to the distant surname, and the friends dwindle to few. Mr. Truscott was popular, but it rose from no pronounced “blindness to his own interests.” He was generous, even lavish, in his way, but with all the fact of an acknowledged intellectual superiority over his comrades, and the record of being a splendid soldier and a “thorough-bred” gentleman,

the best explanation of his popularity, perhaps, is to be found in the remarks of Captain Tanner on the subject. “I like Truscott,” said he, “because in the eight years I’ve known him he has never spoken ill of a man behind his back, and because he holds a woman’s name as sacred.” The knot of officers to whom this opinion was delivered contained no dissenter. Yet Mr. Truscott had his enemies. A certain uncompromising “hit-or-miss” way of doing his duty, and coming down hard on delinquents, had stirred the rancor of more than one of his brethren, who, negligent or ignorant themselves, had no patience with his sternly military system, and, having been rapped over the official knuckles by the commanding officer, they would gladly have seen the adjutant deposed from his influential position. Nor was it among his own sex that Mr. Truscott had acquaintances who were not all well-wishers. In the utter isolation of that distant station those ladies of the regiment who had followed their husbands in their exile (and perchance brought unmarried sisters

with them) had, or fancied they had, little else to talk of than the affairs of the garrison and of their neighbors. Possibly that very trait which so aroused the enthusiasm of Captain Tanner, “that he held sacred a [10]woman’s name, and could not be brought to speak ill of one,” was the very thing which rendered him unbearable to some three or four of their number. For how inexpressibly stupid in the eyes of one woman is the man who cannot be induced, for her entertainment, to criticise another!

Treating them one and all alike with a certain grave courtesy and gentle deference, he trod metaphorically upon the sweeping trains of both Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Turner, and in the observance of a strict neutrality had at one time or other given offence to these rival belles of the garrison. “Why,” said Mrs. Raymond, “I merely hinted to him at the hop last week that Mrs. Curtis’s last dress from San Francisco must have been a frightful tax on her husband’s pay, and you know it was, and he drew himself into his shell in that awfully superior way of his and fairly snubbed me.” Now, Mr. Truscott was incapable of “snubbing” any woman. Grant-like, he fell back upon an inflexible silence when pressed for his opinion on matters of which he chose not to speak. But this passive rebuke was to women of Mrs. Raymond’s calibre as exasperating as an active “snub,” and in her feline way she resented it.

Neither she nor her sisters in garrison cared to declare open war against the best-looking man and one of the best partners in the command. Besides, Mr. Truscott had a way of showing very delicate attentions to the ladies of the regiment, though distributing all such with a strict impartiality; for whether from hunting, a trip to Prescott, or the rare luxury of a “leave” in San Francisco, he seldom returned without an acceptable remembrance for each and every one. Then, [11]too, he had all the latest books and magazines. “He kept up his reading,” as the officers said, and his taste was indisputable. Younger officers went to him in their troubles and perplexities, sure of sympathy, and surer still of inviolable confidence; older officers, sorely against their will at times, consulted his opinions on matters wherein they should have been, but were not, thoroughly informed. But for his part, it was a circumstance of frequent remark that he never once was known to seek advice or sympathy, and never alluded to affairs of his own. Many and various were the

theories advanced as to why Mr. Truscott, at the age of thirty, remained unmarried. Most of his brother-officers had taken unto themselves wives, and were as happy as is possible under such circumstances, but to all questions, however deftly put, bearing upon the matter, the adjutant replied with imperturbable gravity that he thought too much of the sex in the abstract to offer it anything so unworthy its acceptance.

There were matrons in the regiment who looked upon him as a most eligible catch for a younger sister, and who had imported such sisters in days when the —th was stationed in climes more accessible for the avowed purpose of capturing the tall subaltern, but Jack appeared as serenely unconscious of their wiles as he did of the oft-thrown signal for flirtation from some of the giddy matrons themselves. Tradition had it that Mr. Truscott’s obduracy was due to a love-affair of long standing; that since the days of his graduation he had adored and been adored by a damsel far away in Massachusetts, and for a time it was known that delicate missives with a womanly superscription reached [12]him from that quarter; but, some three years before, he had gone East on a long leave of absence, and when the regiment received orders for Arizona had suddenly reappeared in their midst, older, graver, and at times very absent-minded, but never since had he sought further opportunity of going to “the States,” and his secret, whatever it might be, was buried in his own

bosom. Wherever there are women there are apt to be audacious flirts, and many a time had some practised coquette baited her hook in the vain hope of getting a rise from the adjutant of the —th. It would be a reflection on his sagacity to say that he did not see the fly, but he possessed the faculty of appearing so utterly obtuse as not to see it, and, whether real or assumed, his indifference was unmistakable. Nellie Blossom, the brightest, merriest, and withal the fairest girl known to military circles in the West,—the niece of one of the prominent officers of the department,—had actually been accused by the critical matrons of the garrisons of Prescott and Camp Sandy of having thrown herself at Jack Truscott’s head. But she had returned to San Francisco wiser if not sadder, and was last heard of flirting desperately with the artillerymen at Alcatraz and the Presidio, and when inquisitive Circes of Camp Sandy sought to probe Jack’s inner consciousness, they received for all answer an assurance that if he could admire any one as much as he did the

ladies of the —th, that lady was Miss Blossom.

One day “Old Catnip,” as he was popularly termed, Colonel Pelham, as he was known officially, electrified the garrison of Camp Sandy by the information that Mrs. Pelham and his daughter Grace were coming out [13]to join. Now, it is a peculiarity of the ladies of the army that the simple announcement of a fact is as stimulative of conjecture and reflection as was the fall of Isaac Newton’s apple. There wasn’t a woman in all Camp Sandy who did not immediately set to work to fathom the motives of Mrs. Pelham in thus suddenly starting for such an utterly out-of-the-way place as Arizona; and there was not a woman in all Camp Sandy who by noon on the following day had not decided that she was coming to capture Lieutenant Arthur Glenham and his handsome fortune. Grace was a girl of sixteen at school when the regiment was hurried to the Pacific coast, and Mrs. Pelham had decided to remain in New York until her daughter’s education was completed. Each summer she had gone with her to West Point, where Grace had been an acknowledged belle among the cadets, and where frank,

whole-souled young Glenham had most unequivocally shown himself an adorer. It was said that he had gone so far as to offer himself to Grace, saying humbly that “he wasn’t much to look at, but at least he could offer the woman he loved a home and an ample fortune.” Grace never told it to a soul, nor had she encouraged the boy, but a sharp-sighted mamma had noted every symptom, and speedily won from Glenham himself a statement of his prospects financial, and had bidden him hope as regarded his prospects otherwise. Meantime, jolly old Pelham had established his headquarters at Sandy, and his red face and bald head could be seen for an hour each morning at the office, after which they were invisible until sundown, when he reappeared on the veranda of his quarters ready to chat with any one [14]who came along, and was completely happy if three or four of his officers would consent to spend the evening and play whist with him.

Glenham’s classmates had exchanged some sly witticisms when the order assigning him to Pelham’s regiment was received, and it was said at Sandy that the colonel eyed the young gentleman very sharply when he reported for duty. “Mr. Truscott,” said he, “I think that young fellow has some good points about him. Suppose you take him in hand and draw him out.” So it happened that Glenham had been welcomed to the adjutant’s quarters, and, as there were by no means houses enough to give each subaltern a “set” to himself, he had there remained to this day.

It was Arthur Glenham himself who reined up at the adjutant’s office, and it was his cheery voice that accosted Truscott in eager inquiry for the mail.