d buried, and that was the end of him. The
quartermaster got "transportation" for them to New Orleans. A sum
sufficient for their immediate needs was placed in their hands. Another
sum, which did not receive immediate acknowledgment, was also sent to
the disconsolate widow, and now they were going, and that was all.
Going, too, was Loring, though not on that trip, shaking, so to speak,
the dust of California from his feet, a silent but much-disgusted man.
For nearly five weeks he had lived a life that would have tried the
endurance of the patriarch of Holy Writ and wrecked the sunny nature of
a Tapley. Hounded day after day by the so-called agent of the Escalantes
with insolent demands for property that was never in Loring's
possession; threatened with arrest if he did not make restitution or
propose an equivalent; sent practically to Coventry by officials at
headquarters, to whom he was too proud or too sensitive to dilate upon
his wrongs or to tell more than once the straight story of his
innocence; saved from military arrest only by the "stalwart" letter
written by the Yuma surgeon in response to his urgent appeals; comforted
measurably by Blake's eloquent, but emphatically insubordinate, outburst
at the expense of department headquarters; unable to bring to bear for
nearly five weeks the mass of testimony as to character forthcoming from
the superintendent and officers at West Point, and the letters of
classmates and comrades who knew him and felt that the charges must be
false, our Engineer passed through an ordeal the like of which few men
have had to encounter. Then the unexpected happened. The captain of the
Idaho slowly recovered his mind and strength, and with convalescence
came keen recollection of all that had occurred. He too made full report
to the owners of Loring's coolness and determination the night of the
wreck, and was amazed to be told of the charges against that officer.

"Who says so? Who makes such accusations?" he demanded angrily, and was
informed that his friend and shipmate, Purser Traynor, was the person;
whereat the big skipper gave a long, long whistle, looked dazed again,
smote his thigh with a heavy fist, and presently said, "Just you wait a
little;" wherewith he took himself off. Traynor and the first officer
had been very "thick" for a fortnight or so, though that dinner had
never come off. Traynor and the first officer had both been promised
excellent berths the moment the new steamer