Captain Adair's Wife.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 199, 22 August 1900, Page 6

Captain Adair's Wife.

(By Lieutenant John Payne.)

XXIII.

There was a stir all about the post when Eonan rode in, feeling like a knight who had won his spurs and had come to claim his lady fair. In this sordid day, the pity is that the jingle should be that of dollars instead of rowels and chains.

He did not go to Mary at first, but rode at once up to the commanding officer's quarters. He hoped—there was no fear now—to find her father alone, tell his story, and then go to Mary. He knew the gallant colonel too "well not to feel certain that he would never priggishly burrow into the follies of his youth. However great they may have been, they were clean follies, that had left no wrecks to mark their pathway. Ronan had flung- his fortune far and wide, but it had been done, gayly. Truly, as Neal had said, his wild oats were of the seedless variety.

As he came up to Colonel Marcy's office door, he found that instead of being empty, it was . full of anxious men. The Indians had within the past six or eight hours gone into a ranch less than twenty miles away, had carried oft' the women, slaughtered the children, and left the. owner, horribly mutilated, tied to a tree, to tell his miserable story. A courier had ridden in to ask for troops.

"There is a company of enlisted Indians on its way here now," Colonel Marcy said, "but depleted as we are, I feel that some one must follow this band of fiends at once."

"Precious little good the Indians will do," one young fellow said under his breath. "They simply go along to aid their brothers. There's no good Indian but a dead Indian.'' "That's an old piece of philosophy," Captain Judd remarked, under his breath, as well, "but it can't be 'improved on." "Where is Hecker?" Colonel Marcy asked impatiently. "He got leave to go down toward Mexico to look at a horse," Neal came forward to sa^y. "He. ought to tye back by this time." "Adair," the Colonel went on rapidly, "you take Company X, out at at once, and follow this trail. Take this man here as a guide"

"I can't go, sir. I'm going on to warn my brother." "Let me go," Ronan said quickly. The talk had told him the story, and he knew every foot of the way. He did not wait to tell his love; he asked for a fresh horse, and ten minutes later was trotting by Adair's side over the sun-baked mesa he had just left. He had scribbled a note on the back of a Tombstone shoe advertisement, and. sent it over to Mary, but he had forgotten the story of his new fortune. In a reiteration of his love this fact was entirely lost sight of. It was a brave little band. All suntanned veterans, who followed Adair.

Mrs Bland had been hastily called to the door an hour before, and oblivious to consequences, Hellish had followed her into the dining room.

"That dentist who has been over here, recognised me from the descriptions that were sent out two years ago," he began without any preliminaries, "and has sent word to the bank officials,'and I've got to get now! How much money have yoii got now?" "I?" Her face was ashy. • "None!" "It's got to be found! I'm not going to stay here like a rat in a trap. I can't go to Adair, for he is in with the .colonel, .They've got some. indiim scare on hand. I would be pounced on at once. I belong in the troop that is preparing to go out. I'll go with them, and with money in my pocket can desert and get over tno Mbxican border. You've got to get iti" . ;i ■:■-■■ ■

"I have no way."

"Then I'll make a way. I'll go to Mrs Heclcer, and tell her that she isn't Hecker's wife, and ask her what she'll give me not to tell it."

"You shall not!"

"I will." There was the dare-devil gleam in Mellish'a eyes. He enjoyed the excitement of being pursued, and the added joy of his interview with Mrs H'ecker. He had the curiosity of the atid.:ence to see what would happen next. . i "Mrs Hecker is engaged this instant with a Spanish woman." "Nbt old Lopez? Oh, Lord! This is rich! I knew, she'd come some time."

He had a glimpse through the curtains of the bulky form of the Mexican woman. Mrs Bland shut the door. ■■•') •

"Let me go to her and ask her for money for you.

"Well, go, and see you get it!" "She shall not Shear [that story," Mrs Bland said.

As she shut the dining-room door tightly and stood for an instant in the hall, her face set itself. She went rapidly to the kitchen'and sent the orderly to bring Mrs Hecker's horse around to the front door. The dining-room was in the rear. The orderly went. "What are you saddling up that horse for,?" one of the troopers, who was waiting for the sound of "boots and saddles," called.

"I guess some o' the ladies is going to ride a half mile or so with th 1 officers," the man answered as he bent his back to "cinch up." He trotted the horse to the door.

Mrs Bland went into the .parlour to find Nina lying, a limp heap on the sofa. "Nina, dear," she said softly, "will you ride up through the canyon, and take some tonic I promised to that poor lame boy on the Murchison ranch? I promised it to-day. I took the liberty, of ordering your horse around feeling sure you would go. Here is your hat, and whip. I suppose you don't care to change your gown to a habit for that little ride." "If I can get her up there they will keep her until the troops have gone, and he has gone with them," the little woman was thinking, "and she will never know."

Nina sprang up. There was nothing, she often said, that took the "tired" out of her mind and body like a horseback ride. Neither of the two women had been told one word of the Indians being out. The possibility of their. leaving the fort

was beyond Colonel Marcy's thought. In two minutes, Nina had pinned a broad hat on her head, and was in her saddle, cantering up through "the park" toward Murchison's ranch about four miles away.

Mrs Bland went back into the din-ing-room after she had seen her dis-

appear. "You may do your worst. I have no money for you.. Mrs Hecker is entirely out of your reach. Tell your story to whom you like. Nobody will believe you." Hellish turned with an oath, and struck her. She fell, but conscious and unhurt, and lifting herself, saw him leave her sight.

Nina .. rode up the park. After passing through that part of the canyon, she emerged upon a wooded plateau. Then she drew up her horse and looked over toward Murchison's ranch. There seemed to be a great many people going in and out; she could see the house plainly at this distance, but the people and horses looked like ants.

"It must be a company of cowboys who have stopped for water," she thought, and turning her horse into the wooded road which'led down to it, she let him walk along, giving- the cowboys time to get away from the Murchisons'. They lived on a road, one of the least frequented, into Mexico. As Nina walked her horse under the scrubby mountain live oaks, and through the chaparral, there came before her mind visions of her schooldays, of the zest with which she had gone into society, of the men and women who had helped to pass the days, and looking at the failure of her married life, she passionately wondered how it could have happened. She seemed to herself to have been an automaton, moved by secret influence of which she herself was unconscious.

Once, on the winding road, which adapted itself to the formation of the ground and the forest, she seemed to hear the sound of hoofs galloping. She stopped to listen. Her horse set its feet and pricked up its ears, and then broke from its walk into a trot, snorting with uplifted head. ' "Is a fly bothering you, old boy?" She leaned over and patted his neck. A horseman came tearing around the curve ahead of her, his horse's head down, running, riding for his life. Nina's horse wheeled and struck right across the path of the coming animal. Perspiration pouring from his red face, his hat gone, dust almost obliterating his uniform, in that bewildered minute, Nina recognised Ilecker.

"Harry!"

In the same instant the sound of pounding hoofs could be heard both before and behind them. They seemed to be in a ring of galloping horses. "My God! They have trapped us! Take this." He thrust a revolver into her hand. "Shoot; kill the devils!" It was the voice of desperation, the determination to sell life as dearly as possible, and the sound of it was lost in the melee that precipitated itself about them.

Around the curve, behind Hecker, low on their horses, their evil faces blurs of black in the red of their head bands, came the Apaches. Over the road Nina had ridden galloped Company X, led by Adair.

Nina seemed to hear one crash, to see flashes of lightning before her bewildered eyes, to hear the shouts of men and the guttural snarl of beasts. There was a report at her elbow, and she saw Hecker fall from his saddle, his legs twisting limplyfrom his heavy stirrups. She felt a hand on her bridle, and Adair's face was in hers. The soldiers had surrounded her, and were fighting- the Indians like demons. Something1 gave* way — she wakened from the dream.

"Robert, save me!" In her eyes, in that hell of fighting, Adair saw that his own kingdom had comei back to him.

After they had routed the Indians, scattering them one by one through the wood, like a dust column cut by a rifle shot, they gathered up the dead and wounded and carried them ,sorrowfully home. Hecker, Mellish and two other privates only, could have the last honours of. war, lamentations in the army papers, and a four line notice in the great busy dailies of the cities.

Mellish was buried in the little camp graveyard, under his assumed name. His wife stood at the window, watching the funeral pass,, her body shaken .with sobs for the lover of her girlhood, who had been dead to her so long.

Hecker's body was taken home to his people in Ohio. His widow was too ill to accompany it.

When Adair left the house the night after everything was over, the colonel wrung his hand, and held it'close in his

grasp. :..•;■■ "I know it seems like a long time, but it must be a year. We must never tell the story to the world. It will be a year before the horror of what she considers her insanity will leave Nina her healthy,. happy self again. You are both young. You can wait."

"Yes."

(And looking down the vista of the coming years, Adair' saw peace and happiness. .•...'.._.

(The End.)