The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-03-03
CHAPTER w.


Cooke in compliance with orders from
division headquarters at Frisco had
three weeks later practically finished
the case of Brevet Captain Nevins, and
that debonair person, who had appeared
before it on the first day suave, laugh
ing and almost insolently defiant, had
wilted visibly as day after day the judge
advocate unfolded the mass of evidence
against him.
All that Nevins thought to be tried
for was charge of misrepresentation of
public funds and property, and it was
his purpose to plead in bar of trial that
he had offered to make complete resti
tuition, to replace every missing item
and doubly replace if need be every dol
lar This indeed he had lost no time in
doing the moment he was handed over
to tie post commander two days after
the exciting episode at Sancho's, but he
coupled with the offer a condition that
all proceedings against him should be
dropped, and the veteran major COM
handing, while expressing entire will
ingness to receipt for any funds the ac-
cused might offer, would promise moth
ing whatever in return.
That Nevins should be charged with
desertion and breach of arrest the ac-
cused officer regarded as of small inn
portance He was merely going to Tue
son as fast as he could to get from bust
ness associates. as he termed them, the
money deposited with them and owed
to him, and this must also excuse his
having borrowed the majors best horse.
His friends in congress would square
all that for him, even if the court
should prove obdurate. That grave
charges should have followed him from
a former sphere of operations; that his
record, while retained in the volunteer
service until the spring of 1866 aud as
signed to some mysterious bureau func-
tions III the south, should have been
ventilated and made part and parcel Of
the charges; that it should be shown
that he as newly commissioned officer
of the army had made the journey from
New Orleans to the isthmus and thence
to San Francisco with men whom he
knew to be deserters from commands
stationed in the Crescent City; that he
should have gambled with them and
associated with them and brought one
of them all the way with him to Yuma
and concealed from the military author
tiles his knowledge of their crime; that
it should be proved that he was a pro-
fessional "card sharp" expert manipu-
lator and blackleg he never had con-
templated as even possible and yet,
with calm and relentless deliberation,
that cold blooded, merciless martinez
Of West Pointer, as he referred to
the judge advocate at an early stage in
the proceedings, had laid proof after
proof before the court and left the case
of the defense at the last without a leg
to stand on.
And then Nevins dropped the debonair
and donned the abject, for the one friend
or adviser left to him in the crowded
camp, an officer who said he always took
the side of the under dog in a fight, had
told him that in its present temper that
court, with old Turnbull as one of it's
leaders, would surely sentence him to
term of years at Alcatraz, as we'll as to
dismissal from the military service of
the United States. Dismissal he expect
ed, but cared little for that. He had
money and valuables more than enough
to begin life on anywhere, and the pick
ings of his accustomed trade were all too
scant in Arizona. He needed broader
field and crcwding population for the
proper exercise Of his talents, aud the
uniform of the officer, after all, had not