Ray was concerned;
little dreaming how his going was but the means of coiling still more
closely the folds of suspicion and dishonor around the gallant comrade
whom all so gloried in for his summer's work; little dreaming of the
days of doubt and darkness and tragedy that were to envelop those they
left behind at Russell; little dreaming that from them and from friends
at home there was coming utter isolation,--that before them lay days and
weeks of toil and danger and privation, of stirring fight, of drooping
spirits, of hunger, weakness, ay, starvation, wounds, and lonely death;
little dreaming that when next they reached a point where news from home
could come to them one-half their gallant horses would be gone, broken
down, starved, or shot to death; many of their own number would have
fallen by the way, and that of the bold, warlike array that rode
buoyantly in among the welcoming comrades in the camp of the Gray Fox,
only a gaunt, haggard, tattered, unkempt shadow would remain, when,
eight long weeks thereafter, there came to them the next sad news of
Ray.

CHAPTER XXI.

RAY'S TROUBLES.

"Here we are, Billy! Whoop! What did I tell you? Official communications
disrupt bad grammar. The chief sends back your letter. Wants it changed
again, I suppose. It's the old, old story,--

'You can and you can't,
You will and you won't;
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damned if you don't.'"

Ray took the paper with a hand that was hot and flushed. For a week he
had been in close confinement, and that and a complication of annoyances
and worries had combined to make him fretful; then some grave anxieties
were added to his troubles; and then, his quick, impetuous nature had
done the rest. He had no cool-headed adviser in Blake, who had taken up
the fight with him, and now he was involved in an official tussle with
the post authorities that added greatly to his fevered condition. He was
sore in body, for the wound in his thigh was now beginning to trouble
him again. He was sore at heart, for, except the impolitic Blake, he did
not seem to have a friend in the world. There had come one or two kind
little notes from the ladies "up the row," as they called the
Stannard-Truscott household when they did not care to be more explicit;
but these had ceased, and what was worse, in his days of worry and
trouble and heartsickness, Ray had sought comfort in an old solace, that
had done no great harm when h