d
of this battalion in which Devers was senior captain, the colonel
himself had said, "Be on your guard with Devers. He's the trickiest of
subordinates." Old Riggs, lieutenant-colonel commanding the Twelfth, had
remarked, "So Devers is in your battalion, is he? Well, when you want
him to do anything you stand over him while he's at it, or else do it
yourself." An intimate friend and classmate whom he had not seen for
years had given the new major this significant pointer: "There's a man
who could be one of the most valuable officers in service if he devoted
to obeying an order one-tenth the energy he throws into finding a way of
avoiding it." Yet, in the honesty and earnestness of his own character,
Warren was slow to suspect a fellow-soldier of disloyalty. The campaign
had gone on without special friction, though he remembered that he had
heard Hastings swearing _sotto voce_ more than once at Devers's
cantankerous ways, and he recalled now two or three incidents--little
things--in which Devers claimed to have misunderstood instructions; but
this was so glaring, so gross a departure from both the spirit and
letter of the orders he had given when face to face with the captain,
that for a moment or two he was at a loss what to say. He was indignant,
too, but it was a rule of his to control his temper and never speak to a
subordinate in wrath. He had broken it that morning and was sorry; so
when at last he trusted himself to speak, he said,--

"It must have been more than six hours ago that I told you to bury those
two men and then go on. Surely, captain, you could not have taken all
this time."

"It was nearly five o'clock, sir, when you ordered me to bury my dead as
well as I could, and only a little after eight when we finished it;
meantime, we had to march seven or eight miles before we could find a
place where we could bury them at all well."

"Why, I meant you to bury them right then and there, just where you
were, not go marching in search of a place."

"But we couldn't bury them there; major, I had no tools to dig graves in
a hard prairie----"

"Then you mean that you failed to go on after Davies,--failed to support
him?--that you haven't seen him since I gave those orders? My heaven,
Captain Devers! I told you never to let him out of your sight."

"Oh, he wasn't out of sight until darkness,--that is, he was frequently
in sight. I not only saw, but communicated with him until that time."

"Thank God for tha