CHAPTER XXI. RUBY’S MISSION.

Colonel Clark had already cleared the outskirts of the town, and was alone in the wild prairie, a swell of land hiding him from view. He rode slowly along, buried in painful and bitter thoughts. He began to see that he had been hasty in his first explosion of anger against the adjutant. Had it been possible to have recalled it, he would have done so; but now that mutiny had boldly established itself, he felt that he must be firm, right or wrong. His resignation of authority, though it seemed as if wrung from him in desperation, was in reality nothing but a return of his old tact and management.

That the movement had taken his men by surprise he felt sure from the dead silence which followed his words. He fully expected that a message would come after him, but he expected it from his officers, at whom he felt very angry for not having given him their support.

He had resolved to coquette with them before he yielded, as he had all along determined, and resumed the command. He was resolved to make them realize his full value. When he heard the clatter of horsehoofs behind him, therefore, he kept steadily on. The fact that only a single person was following him somewhat surprised him, but he did not deign to turn his head.

Then some one dashed past him at full speed, and Ruby Roland, in all her splendor of beauty, wheeled around in front of his horse and halted, extending the sheathed sword with an imperious gesture.

Clark was for a moment taken aback. The next he colored angrily and waved her aside, saying:

“Mademoiselle, it is too late. You have your victory. See if you can make as good use of it as I have. Permit me to pass.”

“I will not,” said Ruby, firmly. “You must resume your[91] command, sir. There are too many lives depending on you to be lost for a foolish quarrel about a girl.”

“Did you think of that, mademoiselle,” he asked, bitterly, “when you undertook to excite my men to mutiny, to protect an insolent boy, who called you—. No, I will not say what. No, mademoiselle, but I will say this, that it is a hard thing to find that when I did a thing to avenge your name from insult, you should be the first person to protect my enemy, and steal away my men’s hearts from the leader they trusted till you came between us.”

Ruby listened to his indignant words in silence. The girl was very pale now, and her eyes had a strange light in them, as of triumph and revenge, which struck the colonel as singular, when he met them.

“So the little girl you despised last year, and packed off to her tribe, is not so powerless, after all, monsieur?” she said, in a low tone. “She has stirred your proud heart at last.”

“If it is any consolation to you to know it,” said Clark, bitterly, “you know my heart as well as I do. Perhaps you and your boy lover have laughed over my endeavors to save your name from light speaking.”

“Who asked you to save my name from any thing?” said she, haughtily. “You take on yourself an impertinence to do it. Did I ask you to fire up like a fool before those rude fellows, and show your heart so plainly that the boys in the streets sing lampoons about us? Who is to blame for that, sir, but you? My name, indeed! Much you have cared for it to permit it to be dragged through the mud of Kaskaskia, because you have a temper that you can not control. I am a fool to come here to entreat you to come back. Would I had never seen you! Let the sword lie where you have dashed my name, since you are no longer fit to wear it.”

And the excited girl indignantly dashed the sword on the ground, and wheeled her horse to ride away. Then it was that Clark put spurs to his own horse and darted forward, laying his hand on her bridle with iron grasp.

“Not so fast, mademoiselle,” he said, sternly. “You have cast an imputation on my honor that I can not visit on you, but, by heavens, I will visit it on him. Do you understand?[92] I see it all now. You love this boy; and now I warn you that you shall never be his, nor any other man’s but mine. Do you hear? I will resume command of my troops, and my first act shall be to release your lover from arrest. For what will follow, you alone are responsible. I have done.”

He let go the bridle, quietly dismounted from his horse, and picked up his sword, then mounted and turned toward the town at the same slow pace at which he had come.

Ruby sat gazing at him for a moment with a strange smile; it almost seemed tender and compassionate, and yet it was decidedly triumphant.

“I have him safe,” she said, to herself.

Then she dashed away past him at the utmost speed of her mustang, swept through the streets like a whirlwind, and drew up in front of the camp, where every one was still clustered in groups. Ruby rode straight up to the officers.

“What are you doing, gentlemen?” she cried. “You have allowed the greatest General in this country to be insulted by his own troops, whom he has led to victory; and when he resigns in disgust, not one of you is fit to step into his shoes; and yet you have left it to a woman to entreat him to come back. For shame, old women that you are! Do one thing or another. Choose another chief, or welcome back your old one. Beat the drums; fall in the men! Send a deputation to request him to resume command. Act like soldiers, not like boys!”

Her fiery eloquence seemed to go like a shock through the crowd. As if by magic the drummer struck up “To the Colors;” the men rushed to their places; Bowman and Harrod mounted and rode off up the street to salute the returning commander.

The parade of Clark’s Rangers had never been formed before with one-half the celerity that was manifested on this occasion; and when Clark, soon after, rode up to the center of the line, the order was perfect, and every one in his place.

As for Ruby, she was nowhere to be seen. As soon as[93] the parade was formed, she rode straight up the steps of the arsenal, received by her dusky escort with the same impassive silence that they had manifested all through the proceedings.

The great gray building was now closed up, silent and grim as ever, and to all appearance untenanted.

When the commander appeared, there was a dead silence. He had not greeted either Bowman or Harrod, except by stiffly answering their salute, and now the two officers repaired to their places in the line of battle.

Then the acting-adjutant gave the order “present arms!” and turned over the parade to his commander in due form. Clark drew his sword once more, and rode forward to near the center of the line. His face was particularly grim at the moment, and the silence was breathless.

“The acting-adjutant will take a sergeant and twelve men,” said Clark, in a clear, hard tone, “from the right of the regiment. He will enter that building, and bring forth Adjutant John Frank, now under arrest, under guard, and report to me, here.”

In dead silence the order was obeyed.

The little adjutant himself, in full uniform, with a snowy peruke covering his black locks, trim and dainty, in a laced suit of blue and silver, made his appearance in the doorway, bowed politely to the officer, and advanced into the middle of his guards, as if by a previous understanding.

Then he was marched up to the colonel, who dismissed guard and acting-adjutant alike to their places, with a sign, when colonel and adjutant stood looking at each other. The little officer was quiet, dignified, and serious, without a particle of the old sauciness. He looked his commander full in the face without blenching, and Clark said, in a very distinct tone:

“Sir, you are relieved from arrest. Take your post at parade.”