ave
Swanson the benefit of the doubt, and a reprimand for not taking
greater care of the keys, and Swanson made good the five thousand.

Swanson did not think it was a burglar who had robbed the safe. He
thought Rueff had robbed it, but he could not possibly prove that. At
the time of the robbery Rueff was outside the Presidio, in uniform, at
a moving-picture show in San Francisco. A dozen people saw him there.
Besides, Rueff held an excellent record. He was a silent, clerk-like
young man, better at "paper work" than campaigning, but even as a
soldier he had never come upon the books. And he had seen service in
two campaigns, and was supposed to cherish ambitions toward a
commission. But, as he kept much to himself, his fellow non-coms could
only guess that.

On his captain's account he was loyally distressed over the
court-martial, and in his testimony tried to shield Swanson, by
agreeing heartily that through his own carelessness the keys might have
fallen into the hands of some one outside the post. But his loyalty
could not save his superior officer from what was a verdict virtually
of "not proven."

It was a most distressing affair, and, on account of the social
prominence of Swanson's people, his own popularity, and the name he had
made at Batangas and in the Boxer business, was much commented upon,
not only in the services, but by the newspapers all over the United
States.

Every one who knew Swanson knew the court-martial was only a matter of
form. Even his enemies ventured only to suggest that overnight he
might have borrowed the money, meaning to replace it the next morning.
And the only reason for considering this explanation was that Swanson
was known to be in debt. For he was a persistent gambler. Just as at
Pekin he had gambled with death for his number, in times of peace he
gambled for money. It was always his own money.

From the start Swanson's own attitude toward the affair was one of
blind, unreasoning rage. In it he saw no necessary routine of
discipline, only crass, ignorant stupidity. That any one should
suspect him was so preposterous, so unintelligent, as to be nearly
comic. And when, instantly, he demanded a court of inquiry, he could
not believe it when he was summoned before a court-martial. It
sickened, wounded, deeply affronted him; turned him quite savage.

On his stand his attitude and answers were so insolent that his old
friend and classmate, Captain Copley, who was a