Nightfall of a weary day had come. Camp Sandy, startled from sleep in
the dark hour before the dawn, had found topic for much exciting talk,
and was getting tired as the twilight waned. No word had come from the
party sent in search of Downs, now deemed a deserter. No sign of him
had been found about the post. No explanation had occurred to either
Cutler or Graham of the parting between Elise and the late "striker."
She had never been known to notice or favor him in any way before. Her
smiles and coquetries had been lavished on the sergeants. In Downs
there was nothing whatsoever to attract her. It was not likely she had
given him money, said Cutler, because he was about the post all that
day after the Plumes' departure and with never a sign of inebriety. He
could not himself buy whisky, but among the ranchmen, packers, and
prospectors forever hanging about the post there were plenty ready to
play middleman for anyone who could supply the cash, and in this way
were the orders of the post commander made sometimes abortive. Downs
was gone, that was certain, and the question was, which way?
A sergeant and two men had taken the Prescott road; followed it to
Dick's Ranch, in the Cherry Creek Valley, and were assured the missing
man had never gone that way. Dick was himself a veteran trooper of
the ----th. He had invested his savings in this little estate and
settled thereon to grow up with the country--the Stannards' winsome
Millie having accepted a life interest in him and his modest property.
They knew every man riding that trail, from the daily mail messenger
to the semi-occasional courier. Their own regiment had gone, but they
had warm interest in its successors. They knew Downs, had known him
ever since his younger days when, a trig young Irish-Englishman, some
Londoner's discharged valet, he had 'listed in the cavalry, as he
expressed it, to reform. A model of temperance, soberness, and
chastity was Downs between times, and his gifts as groom of the
chambers, as well as groom of the stables, made him, when a model,
invaluable to bachelor officers in need of a competent soldier
servant. In days just after the great war he had won fame and money as
a light rider. It was then that Lieutenant Blake had dubbed him
"Epsom" Downs, and well-nigh quarreled with his chum, Lieutenant Ray,
over the question of proprietorship when the two were sent to separate
stations and Downs was "striking" for both. Downs settled the matter
by getting on a seven-days' drunk, squandering both fame and money,
and, though forgiven the scriptural seventy times seven (during which
term of years his name was changed to Ups and Downs), finally
forfeited the favor of both these indulgent masters and became
thereafter simply Downs, with no ups of sufficient length to restore
the average--much less to redeem him. And yet, when eventually
"bobtailed" out of the ----th, he had turned up at the old arsenal
recruiting depot at St. Louis, clean-shaven, neat, deft-handed,
helpful, to the end that an optimistic troop commander "took him on
again," in the belief that a reform had indeed been inaugurated. But,
like most good soldiers, the commander referred to knew little of
politics or potables, otherwise he would have set less store by the
strength of the reform movement and more by that of the potations.
Downs went so far on the highroad to heaven this time as to drink
nothing until his first payday. Meantime, as his captain's mercury,
messenger, and general utility man, moving much in polite society at
the arsenal and in town, he was frequently to be seen about
Headquarters of the Army, then established by General Sherman as far
as possible from Washington and as close to the heart of St. Louis. He
learned something of the ins and outs of social life in the gay city,
heard much theory and little truth about the time that Lieutenant
Blakely, returning suddenly thereto after an absence of two months,
during which time frequent letters had passed between him and Clarice
Latrobe, found that Major Plume had been her shadow for weeks, her
escort to dance after dance, her companion riding, driving, dining day
after day. Something of this Blakely had heard in letters from
friends. Little or nothing thereof had he heard from her. The public
never knew what passed between them (Elise, her maid, was better
informed). But Blakely within the day left town again, and within the
week there appeared the announcement of her forthcoming marriage,
Plume the presumably happy man. 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.