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Tonio, Son of the Sierras: A Story of the Apache War

by Charles King · English · Gutenberg #23487 · 522,239 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tonio, Son of the Sierras: A Story of the Apache War

Author: Charles King

Illustrator: Charles Johnson Post


        
Release date: November 15, 2007 [eBook #23487]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TONIO, SON OF THE SIERRAS: A STORY OF THE APACHE WAR ***




Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)






Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have
been retained.


[Illustration: Tonio, Son of the Sierras, erect and slender.
                                              _Frontispiece_]




TONIO

SON OF THE SIERRAS

_A Story of the Apache War_



By

GENERAL CHARLES KING


AUTHOR OF

"NORMAN HOLT," "THE IRON BRIGADE,"
"THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER,"
"A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX," ETC.


Illustrations by

CHARLES J. POST


G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK

Copyright, 1906, by

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
_All rights reserved_

Issued June, 1906.




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                 PAGE

Tonio, Son of the Sierras, erect and slender    _Frontispiece_      8

Scrambling down the adjacent slope every man for himself           81

"Keep watch now all around, especially east and southeast"        175

"They've opened on Case and Clancy"                               188




TONIO

SON OF THE SIERRAS




CHAPTER I.


"Does it never rain here?" asked the Latest Arrival, with sudden shift
of the matter under discussion.

"How is that, Bentley?" said the officer addressed to the senior
present, the surgeon. "You've been here longest."

"Don't know, I'm sure," was the languid answer. "I've only been here
three years. Try 'Tonio there. He was born hereabouts."

So the eyes of the six men turned to the indicated authority, an Apache
of uncertain age. He looked to be forty and might be nearer sixty. He
stood five feet ten in his tiptoed moccasins, and weighed less than
little Harris, who could not touch the beam at five feet five. Harris
was the light weight of the --th Cavalry, in physique, at least, and
by no means proud of the distinction. To offset the handicap of lack of
stature and weight, and of almost cat-like elasticity of frame and
movement, he saw fit to cultivate a deliberation and dignity of manner
that in his cadet days had started the sobriquet of "Heavy," later
altered to "Hefty"; and Hefty Harris he was to the very hour this story
opens--a junior first lieutenant with four years' record of stirring
service in the far West, in days when the telegraph had not yet strung
the Arizona deserts, and the railway was undreamed of. He had only just
returned to the post from a ten days' scout, 'Tonio, the Apache, being
his chief trailer and chosen companion on this as on many a previous
trip. The two made an odd combination, having little in common beyond
that imperturbable self-poise and dignity. The two elsewhere had met
with marked success in "locating" _rancherias_ of the hostile bands,
and in following and finding marauding parties. The two were looked
upon in southern Arizona as "the best in the business," and now,
because other leaders had tried much and accomplished little, it had
pleased the general commanding the Division of the Pacific to say to
his subordinate, the general commanding the Department of Arizona, that
as the "Tonto" Apaches and their fellows of the Sierra Blanca seemed
too wily for his scouting parties sent out from Whipple Barracks, and
the valley garrisons of McDowell and Verde, it might be well to detach
Lieutenant Harris from his troop at old Camp Bowie and send him, with
'Tonio, to report to the commanding officer at Camp Almy.

Now the commanding general of Arizona had thought of that project
himself, and rejected it for two reasons: first, that the officers and
men on duty at Almy would possibly take it as a reflection; second,
that 'Tonio would probably take it as an affront to himself. 'Tonio, be
it understood, was of the Apache Mohave tribe, whose hunting grounds
had long been the upper Verde and adjacent mountains. 'Tonio had no
scruples as to scouting and shooting Chiricahuas and Sierra Blancas or
the roving bands of Yaquis that sometimes ventured across the "Gadsden
Purchase" from Mexico. 'Tonio had done vengeful work among these
fellows. But now he was brought face to face with a far different
proposition. The renegades of northern Arizona in the earliest of the
seventies were mainly Tontos, but many a young brave of the Apache
Mohave tribe had cast his lot with them. Many had taken their women and
children, and 'Tonio would be hunting, possibly, his own flesh and
blood. The junior general had ventured to remonstrate by letter, even
when issuing the order indicated, but the senior stood to his
prerogative with a tenacity that set the junior's teeth on edge, and
started territorial and unbecoming comparisons between the division
commander's firmness on the fighting line a decade earlier, and far
behind it now. San Francisco was perhaps five hundred miles from the
scene of hostilities, and those farthest away seldom fail to see
clearer than those on the spot, and to think they know better, so
Harris and his dusky henchman came up to Almy with little by way of
welcome, and back from their first scout with nothing by way of result.
Therefore, the sextette of officers that had been but lukewarm at the
start became lavish in cordiality at the close. The failure of Harris,
the favorite of the chieftain of the big Division, meant that no
further criticism could attach to them. If Harris could accomplish
nothing worth mention, what could be expected of others?

Therefore, while awaiting the return of the courier sent up to
Prescott, with report of what Harris had not accomplished, and asking
instructions as to what the gentleman would have next, the commanding
officer of the old post, built by California volunteers during the
Civil War and garrisoned later by reluctant regulars, set a good
example to his subordinates by doing his best to console the "casuals,"
as visitors were officially rated, and his subordinates loyally
followed suit.

But Harris seemed unresponsive. Harris seemed almost sulky. Harris had
added silence to dignity, and spent long hours of a sunny day sprawled
in a hammock, smoking his pipe and studying 'Tonio, who squatted in the
shade at the end of the narrow porch of the old officers' mess
building, still more silent and absorbed than his young commander.

And this was the condition of things when the Latest Arrival appeared
on the scene, fresh from head-quarters, some ninety miles northwest and
two thousand feet higher. He had come late the previous afternoon. He
had skated down the flinty scarp of Misery Hill, with the wheels of his
buckboard locked, and hauled up at the adjutant's in a cloud of dust
and misapprehension, with barely time for a bath and a shave before
dinner. He was a new aide-de-camp of the department commander. He had
served him well and won his notice on Indian campaigns afar to the
north in the Columbia valley, where gum boots and slickers were as
indispensable as here they were superfluous. He had never been, he
said, so dry in his life as when he scrambled from his mud-colored
chariot to the steps of the official residence. The temporal wants had
been spiritually removed, but not the impression. Now, some eighteen
hours later, he wished to know if it never rained at Almy, and there
was no white man could tell him. So, one and all, they looked to
'Tonio, whose earliest recollections were of the immediate
neighborhood.

And 'Tonio proved a reluctant witness. Urged by Stannard, the senior
captain referred to, Harris put the question in "Pidgin" Apache, and
'Tonio, squatting still, gazed dreamily away toward the huge bulwark of
Squadron Peak, and waited for respectful cessation of all talk before
he would answer.

At last he rose to his full height and, with a sweeping gesture the
length of his arm, pointed to the domelike summit, dazzling in the
slant of the evening sunshine, that seemingly overhung the dun-colored
adobe corrals on the flats to the south, yet stood full five miles
away. 'Tonio so seldom opened his lips to speak that the six men
listened with attention they seldom gave to one another. Yet what
'Tonio said was translatable only by Harris:

"When the picacho hides his head in the clouds, then look for rain."

"Lord," said the doctor, "I doubt if ever I've seen a cloud above
it--much less on it! If it weren't for the creek yonder the whole post
would shrivel up and blow away. Even the hygrometer's dead of
disuse--or dry rot. But, talk of drying up, did you ever see the beat
of him?" and the doctor was studying anatomy as displayed in this
particular Apache.

Five feet ten 'Tonio stood before them, not counting the thatch of his
matted black hair, bound with white cotton turban. Five feet ten in
height, but so gaunt and wiry that the ribs and bones seemed breaking
through the tawny skin, that in flank and waist and the long sweep of
his sinewy, fleshless legs, he rivalled the greyhound sprawled at his
feet. "'Tonio has not half an ounce of fat in his hide," said Harris,
in explaining his tireless work on the trail. "'Tonio can go sixty
miles without a gulp of water and come out fresh as a daisy at the
end." 'Tonio's eminently fit condition had been something Harris ever
held in envy and emulation, yet on this recent scout even 'Tonio had
failed him. 'Tonio had complained. To look at him as he stood there
now, erect, slender, with deep chest and long, lank arms and legs,
trammelled only by the white cotton breechclout that looped over the
waist belt and trailed, fore and aft, below the bony knee, his back and
shoulders covered by white _camisa_ unfastened at the throat and
chest, his feet cased in deerskin moccasins, the long leggings of which
hung in folds at the ankles, one could liken him only to the
coyote--the half-famished wolf of the sage plain and barren, for even
the greyhound knew thirst and fatigue,--knew how to stretch at full
length and luxury in the shade, whereas 'Tonio, by day at least, stood
or squatted. Never in all their long prowlings, by day or night, among
the arid deserts or desolate ranges along the border, had Harris known
his chief trailer and scout to hint at such a thing as weariness. Yet,
within the week gone by, thrice had he declared himself unable to go
farther. Did it mean that at last 'Tonio would purposely fail him, now
that there were some of his own people among the renegades?

'Tonio had stoutly denied such a weakness. The few young men with the
hostiles, said he, were more Tonto than Mohave--fools who had offended
their brothers and dishonored their tribe. Chiefs, medicine men, even
the women, he said, disowned them. The braves would kill, and the women
spurn, them on sight. 'Tonio pointed to the "hound" scouts with the
Verde company--Hualpais, some of them--splendid specimens from the
mountains; Apache Yumas, some of them, not quite the peer of the
Hualpais; but many of them--most of them, in fact--Apache Mohaves,
fiercest, surest trailers of the wild Red Rock country, familiar with
every canon and crag in all the rude range from Snow Lake to the Sierra
Blanca. "All brothers," protested 'Tonio. "All soldiers. All braves,
unafraid of a thousand Tontos, eager only to meet and punish their
traitor fellows who had taken the White Chief's pay and bread, pledged
their best services and then gone renegading to the fastnesses of the
Mogollon," adding with scorn unspeakable, "taking _other_ women with
them."

And still Harris was not content. Harris had sent a runner back when
the scout was but half finished, with a note to be relayed to Prescott,
to tell the general of his ill success and his evil suspicions, and the
chief being himself out a-hunting, what did his chief of staff do but
order the Newly Arrived down to Almy to meet the home-coming party and
see for himself--and his general!

And of all men chosen to meddle in matters concerning "Hefty" Harris,
perhaps the latest suitable, in some ways, was his classmate and
comrade lieutenant, though in different arms of the service--Hal
Willett of "The Lost and Strayed," so called from the fact that they
had been sent to desert wilds in '65, scattered over three territories,
and despite some hard fighting and many hard knocks, had never, said
their detractors, been heard from since.

Rivals they had been in cadet days and more than one pursuit. Rivals
they still were in the field of arms, for the name Harris had won for
himself in Arizona Willett had matched in the Columbia, and now, fresh
from the ill-starred campaign of the Lava Beds, was one of the few men
to get something better than hard knocks, censure and criticism. Until
the previous evening, not since the day they parted at West Point had
they set eyes one on the other, and, knowing nothing of what had gone
before and never dreaming of what would come to pass, a benighted
bureau officer had sent the one down to find out what was the matter
with the other.

And thereby hangs this tale.

For, as luck would have it, there was even then stationed in that
far-away land a luckless lieutenant-colonel of infantry who had started
with good prospects in the Civil War, had early been given command of a
brigade of volunteers and within the month had had his raw concourse of
undrilled, undisciplined levies swept from under him in the first
fierce onset at Shiloh. What else could have been expected of men to
whom arms had been issued but ten days before, and who had not yet
learned which end to bite from the cartridge? Hurled from his terrified
horse, the general had been picked up senseless, to see no more of
fighting until Stone's River, eight months later, where with a more
seasoned command the same thing happened. And still he persisted, when
well of an ugly wound, and, while juniors in years and length of
service were now heading corps and divisions, with double stars on
their shoulders, and he had to begin again with a brigade, he got into
line for Chickamauga with his usual luck just within range of the fatal
gap left by a senior in command--the gap through which poured the
impetuous gray torrent of the Southland--and for the third time
everything crumbled away in spite of him, while he was left for dead
upon the field. He had done his best, as had other men, and had fared
only the worst. It was a case of three times and out. The impatient
North had no more use for names linked only with disaster. When,
finally exchanged, he limped back to duty, they put him on courts,
boards and other back-door business until the war was over, then sent
him to the Pacific Slope, with the blanket brevet of March, 1865, and
here he was, eight long years thereafter, "The General" by way of
title, without the command; silver leaves where once gleamed the stars
on his shoulders; silver streaks where once rippled chestnut and gold;
wrinkled of visage and withered in shank; kindly, patient, yet
pathetic; "functioning" a four-company post in a far-away desert, with
grim mountain chains on east and west, and waters on every side of
him, four long weeks and four thousand miles by mail route from home,
and much longer by sea; with nothing to do but send out scouts, sign
papers, sing an old song or two when the spirit moved him; with not a
thing in his soldier past to be ashamed of, nothing much in his soldier
present to rejoice in, nothing whatever in his soldier future to hope
for, finding his companionship in the comrades about him, and his
sweetest comfort in the unswerving love of a devoted wife, and their
one unstinted pride and delight, Lilian, their only daughter--their
only surviving child.

Many of these eight years of what then was exile, while he, at first as
a major of foot, was campaigning in regions long since reclaimed from
savagery, and rusticating at frontier forts long since forgotten,
Lilian and her mother had dwelt in lodgings at "The Bay" that the child
might have the advantage of San Francisco's schools. Only once each
year, until of late, had he been able to visit them, usually at
Christmas-tide, but by every runner, courier, stage or post there came
to them his cheery letters, bearing such old-time, outlandish
post-marks or headings as "Lapwai," "Three Forks, Owyhee," and later
"Hualpai," or "Hassayampa," until finally it became mild, civilized,
pacific, even "Almy."

The uniform of a general, that the law had let him wear just as long in
peace as had been the war in years, was finally packed in camphorated
hope of resurrection, and the garb of actual rank resumed in 1870. He
could bear the title _ad infinitum_, but not the sign.

The silver leaf, as said, had come to replace the worn and tarnished
gold by '73, then mountain fever had seized and laid him by the heels,
and then all the Indians in Arizona, or the army women out of it, could
not dissuade Mrs. Archer from her duty. She and Lilian were the
heroines of a buckboard ride from Drum Barracks to the Colorado, from
the Colorado to Prescott, from Prescott down through wild and tortuous
canons to and beyond the valley of the Verde--to the wondering eyes of
the waiting garrison and the welcoming arms of the fond husband and
father at Almy.

And this was but the week gone by, just before the "Newly Arrived" had
reached Prescott--just before "Hefty" Harris had returned from scout.
Not until this very morning--the first since their reunion of that
warm, yet winter's evening of the previous day--had the two classmates
set eyes on Miss Archer (it was as she rode away by her father's side
for a canter up the valley), and not until this late afternoon, as the
sun was dipping behind the black range of the Mazatzal, did they have
opportunity to speak with her.

Even as 'Tonio stood, silent and statuesque, while the doctor went on
record as to the rainfall of the Verde watershed, there came suddenly
into view, jogging quietly up the winding road from the lower ford,
three riders, followed by half a pack of lagging, yapping hounds--"The
Old Man," the maiden and the orderly--and all men on the wooden porch
of the unpainted mess building, rose to their feet in deference to the
united "powers above," rank and age, youth and beauty, and presently
the commander was saying for the benefit of the two new-comers: "My
daughter, gentlemen. Lilian, Mr. Harris, Mr. Willett."

Inadvertently he had named them in the inverse order of rank--a small
matter, though Willett had been promoted to his bar a year ahead of
Harris. Otherwise, it was with a fair field and no favor the old-time
rivals of cadet days stood for the first time in the presence of the
only army girl at that moment to be found in the far-flung shadow of
the Mazatzal--stood side by side, facing both the starter and the prize
in what was destined to be the last great contest of their lives.




CHAPTER II.


"Come and dine with us this evening, you two," the "Old Man" was
saying, a few minutes later. He had been home long enough to consult
the "Commanding General," as he frequently referred to that smiling
better half, and to compare notes as to the condition of the larder and
cellar. He had flung conventionality to the winds, as most of us had to
in early Arizona days. "You others," he said, "have suffered so often
from my steaks and stories, you're glad not to be included. To-day I'm
bidding only these two youngsters. You know our dining table holds only
six. No, never mind about the call!" he interposed, with uplifted
hands, one to receive the toddy Briggs was stirring for him, the other
in kindly protest, for both the youngsters were on their feet
confusedly striving to make it understood that they had only been
waiting for the cool of the evening to come to pay their respects. "And
never mind about spike tail and shirt fronts either--come just as you
are!"

"Indeed, I'll _have_ to, sir," said Willett, whose undress uniform
fitted him like a glove and was cut and made by the then expert
military artist of the far East. They had not taken it too kindly,
these others in white cotton sack coats, hewed and stitched by the
company tailor, or even in canvas shooting rig, as was Harris, that the
young aide-de-camp, after brief siesta in the mid-day lazy hour, should
have appeared among them all, fresh-shaved and tubbed, and in
faultless, bran-new, spick-and-span cap and blouse and trousers, with
black silk socks and low-cut patent leather "Oxford ties." Harris,
hammock slung, and moodily studying 'Tonio, looked approvingly, but
made no remark whatever. Stannard, ever blunt and short of speech, had
shoved his hairy hands deep in his trousers' pockets, a thing no sub
would twice venture in his presence, looked Willett over from head to
foot, then, with a sniff, had turned away, but Bentley and Turner had
indulged in whimsical protest, "Gad, man, but you put us all to shame,"
said the surgeon. "I've seen no rig to match that since I came to this
post. It's rarer than rain."

"What _do_ you wear when you call on the commanding officer?" queried
the Latest Arrival, with jovial good-nature. "Thank you, Briggs. That
_was_ a good toddy."

"Never had a family here until this week," said Bentley, "and such
calling as I've done has been in what I happened to have on, and even
then I've wished we dressed like 'Tonio there. Why, Mr. Willett, only
once since I came to this post has there been an officer's daughter
with us. Only twice has there been an officer's wife. Even Mrs. Archer
wouldn't have tried it if the general hadn't been sick."

Willett laughed again, good-naturedly as before. "Well," said he, "in
the field 'The Lost and Strayed' didn't dandy much, but here I had not
even unpacked my trunk; had a whole buckboard to myself after we left
Captain Wickham at the Big Bug, so I just fetched 'em along. This is
light, you see--nothing but serge," and he held forth his arm. "Up
there, of course, we had no use for white. Gunboats and 'plebeskins'
was full dress half the year round----" And just then it had occurred
to him to put that question: "Does it never rain here?" and in so doing
he had appealed rather to Stannard and his fellows of the line, quite
as though he thought Bentley doing too much of the talk, especially
since Bentley's bent was criticising. But Stannard, as we have seen,
had referred back the question, whereat the doctor, defrauded of his
game, yawned languidly and turned over the matter to 'Tonio, thus
dragging Harris, all unwilling, into the tide of talk, and presently
out of his hammock. Next thing noticed of him he had disappeared.

To no man as yet, save the lieutenant-colonel commanding, had Willett
told the purpose of his coming. Late the previous evening Archer had
come to his office to receive the aide-de-camp, and there listened to
his message. "The Old Man" looked up suddenly as he sat in the
lamplight at the rude wooden table that served for his official desk,
surprise and concern mingling in his kindly face.

"The _general_ said that?" he asked.

"No, sir: the adjutant-general who was left in charge. The general is
away hunting."

"I might have known that," said Archer to his inner self. To the
aide-de-camp he merely bowed--bowed most courteously. He liked boys,
and the Lord had seen fit to take back to himself the one lad poor
Archer had liked most, and loved unspeakably.

"I think I shall say--nothing of it," said he, presently, after some
reflection, "and--you can find out, through Harris, all there is to be
told."

And not a word had he said, even to the post adjutant, from the moment
of Willett's reporting to him at nine the night before, yet every man
of the officers' mess knew well that something had sent the young staff
officer to Almy--that something was to be looked into--and every man,
including Harris, felt it in his bones that that something was the
recent and unprofitable scout. That being the case, it placed them all
on the defensive, and Willett, unhappily, upon his mettle.

A silence fell upon the party when it was found Harris was gone. 'Tonio
himself had risen again, had stood gazing awhile along the eastward
mountains, tumbling up toward a brazen sky, then had slowly vanished
from sight round the corner of the adobe wall.

"Sticks closer'n a brother," said Stannard, epigrammatically, with a
look at Turner, his comrade captain, whereat the latter shot a warning
glance, first at Stannard, then toward the unconscious N.A., now
hobnobbing with Briggs at the mess-room door.

"Harris doesn't like the young swell! What's the matter, d'ye s'pose?"
asked Bucketts, the post quartermaster, a man of much weight, but not
too much discrimination.

"Bosh! They're classmates and old chums," was Stannard's quick reply.
"Harris is hipped because his scout was a fizzle, and he simply doesn't
feel like talking."

"All the same, he doesn't like Willett, classmate or no classmate. You
mark my words," persisted the man of mops and brooms, and Stannard, who
had seen the youngster's face as he turned away, knew well the
quartermaster was right. Therefore was it his duty, for the sake of the
regiment, said he, to stand by Harris as hailing from the cavalry. He
scoffed at the quartermaster and began to pace the veranda. 'Twas high
time for evening stables, and the brief and perfunctory grooming the
short-coupled, stocky little mountain climbers daily received. The
herds had been driven in, watering in the shallows as they forded the
stream full fifteen minutes before. There were only the surgeon, the
adjutant, the quartermaster, and Lieutenant Willett seated on the
veranda when Harris presently came back, silent as before, but clad in
undress uniform, as neat and trim as that of the Latest Arrival, if not
so new. Then came General Archer, his daughter, and the meeting. Then,
a few minutes later, the bid to dinner, and then, barely an hour from
that time, the dinner itself--a function the classmates marched to
almost arm in arm when either would rather have been without the other.

The members of what there was of the mess, six officers in all, sat
waiting the summons to their own board, and gazing idly after. Stannard,
the only married captain whose wife had had the nerve to go to that
desolate and distant station, was sitting under his own figurative vine
and fig-tree represented by a pine veranda, about which neither vine
nor fig nor other tree had ever been induced to grow, but that was not
without other extravagances, since it represented to Uncle Sam an
aggregate sum that could be best computed at a shilling a shingle.
Stannard, hearing footsteps on the sandy soil, glanced up from the
columns of an _Alta California_, ten days old, and growled through the
adjacent blinds "They're coming now," whereat there was sound of
rustling skirt within, and between the slats there came a glimpse of
shining, big blue eyes, alive with womanly interest, and parted lips
disclosing two opposing rows of almost perfect teeth, all the whiter by
contrast with the sunburned, "sonsy" face that framed them. Together,
yet separated, this Darby and Joan of the far frontier sat and watched
the coming pair. "Isn't it good to see the real uniform again?" said
she. "Isn't it absurd to think of trying a dinner here?" said he. Then
both subsided as the two young officers stepped upon the resounding
boards of the next veranda to the south, knocked at the commander's
open door and were promptly welcomed.

"Now, Luce, they're going to have a very _nice_ dinner," protested
Mrs. Stannard. "I was in there helping over an hour, and Mrs. Archer's
a wonder! Even if the dinner didn't amount to much, there would be
Lilian."

"They can't eat _her_," persisted, grimly, the man.

"She looks sweet enough to eat," responded the woman. "You ought to see
her. After a six hours' ride she looks fresh as a daisy, all creamy
white with--but you wouldn't understand----"

"What on earth kept them out so long?"

"Didn't I tell you? Why, they went away to Bennett's ranch. Couldn't
find a vestige of vegetables nearer. Mrs. Bennett has a little patch
where she raises lettuce and radishes. The orderly carried a basket
full of truck, and leaves and flowers, poppies and cactus, you know,
and you've no idea how pretty they've made the table look."

Stannard sniffed. "Take their Sauterne hot or lukewarm?" he asked.
"Fancy a dinner without ice, fruit or cream!"

"Of course they haven't white wine here, Luce! But there's claret--famous
claret, too, and the water in the big _olla's_ even cooler than the
spring. They'll have French dressing for the salad. They have tomato
soup even _you_ couldn't growl at, and roast chicken, with real potatoes,
and _petits pois_, and corn, and olives; then salad cool as the spring;
then there's to be such an _omelette soufflee_--and coffee!--but it's
the way the table _looks_, Luce!"

"Men don't care how a thing looks, so long as it tastes right. How
_does_ it look?"

"So white and fresh, and sprinkled with green and purple and crimson,
the leaves and the poppies, you know. She----" But Mrs. Stannard broke
off suddenly. "What is it, Wettstein?" she asked, for their own
particular _chef_, a German trooper, with elementary culinary gifts,
appeared in the hallway.

"It's Suey, mattam, says would Mrs. Stannard come over a minute. He's
stuck, mattam."

"Stuck! Heavens! how?" cried Mrs. Stannard, up at once in alarm, and
vanishing through the dim light of the blanketed window. The presumably
punctured Chinaman was even then in full flight for his own kitchen
door, some fifty feet away, and Mrs. Stannard followed. No Roman in
Rome's quarrel was ever more self-sacrificing than were our army women
of the old days in their helpfulness. Had the hounds ravished the roast
again, as once already had happened? If so, the Stannard dinner stood
ready to replace it, even though she and her captain had to fall back
on what could be borrowed from the troop kitchen. No, the oven door was
open, the precious chickens, brown, basted and done to a turn, were
waiting Suey's deft hands to shift them to the platter. (No need to
heat it even on a December day.) Mrs. Stannard's quick and
comprehensive glance took in every detail. The "stick" was obviously
figurative--mere vernacular--yet something serious, for Suey's
olive-brown skin was jaundiced with worry, and the face of Doyle, the
soldier striker, as he came hurrying back from the banquet board, was
beading with the sweat of mental torment. Soup, it seems, was already
served, and Doyle burst forth, hoarse whispering, before ever he caught
sight of the visiting angel.

"Sure I _can't_, Suey! _The General's sittin' on it!_"

And Suey's long-nailed Mongolian talons went up in despair as he turned
appealingly to their rescuer.

"Sitting on what, Doyle? Quick!" said Mrs. Stannard.

"The sherry, ma'am! The doctor sent it over wid his comps to s'prise
him, an' my orders was to fill the little glasses when I'd took in the
soup, an' I put it under the barrel chair----"

But Mrs. Stannard had heard enough. Even though convulsed with
merriment, she seized a pencil and scribbled a little line on a card.
"Give this to Mrs. Archer," she said, and a moment later, in the midst
of his first story, the veteran was checked by these placid words from
the head of the table:

"Pardon me, dear, but you are on the lid of the wine cooler. Let Doyle
get at it a moment."

The general was not the nimblest-witted man in the service, but long
experience had taught him the wisdom of prompt observance of any
suggestion that came from his wife. Dropping his napkin, and the thread
of his tale, he rose to his feet. Blushing furiously, Doyle bent, and
with vigorous effort pried off a circular, perforated top, revealing a
dark, cylindrical space beneath, from the depths of which he lifted a
dripping bucket of galvanized iron, and sped, thus laden, away to the
kitchen, to the music of Mrs. Archer's merry laughter and a guffaw of
joy from the general's lips.

"How came you to put it there, sir?" demanded he, a moment later, as
Doyle circumnavigated the table, filling, as ordered, the five little
glasses with fragrant Amontillado. "I must tell you, gentlemen, this is
one of the pleasant surprises that most admirable woman yonder is
forever putting up on me. Life would be a desert without such."

"Indeed it wasn't mine!" expostulated madam, "though I'm deeply
indebted to somebody. Who was it, Doyle?"

"Docther Bentley, ma'am. He said I was to keep it dark, ma'am--'an' in
the coolest place I could find----"

But here the peals of laughter silenced the words and rang the glad
tidings to listening, waiting ears in the kitchen that all was well.
Mrs. Stannard scurried away to explain to her Luce, and the dinner went
blithely on.

"You did right, Doyle! you did right!" shouted the general, "and we'll
drink the doctor's health. Keep it dark, indeed! Haw, haw, haw!" And
then nothing would do but he must tell the story of this precious and
particular chair. Furniture, even such as he bought at San Francisco,
and would live to a green old age along the Pacific, came speedily to
pieces in the hot, dry atmosphere of Arizona. Little enough there was
of cabinet ware, to be sure, because of the cost of transportation; but
such as there was, unless riveted in every seam and joint, fell apart
at most inopportune moments. Bureaus and washstands, tables, sofas and
chairs, were forever shedding some more or less important section, and
the only reliable table was that built by the post carpenter, the
quartermaster.

And so these pioneers of our civilization, the men and women of the
army, had had no little experience in cabinetmaking and upholstering.
While the emigrants and settlers, secure under its wing, could turn
swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks, as saith the
Scriptures, their soldier folk turned clothing boxes into couches, soap
boxes into cradles, and pork barrels into _fauteuils_. Chintz and
calico, like charity, covered a multitude of sins, as declared in
unsightly cracks and knotholes. The finest reclining chair in all Camp
Almy belonged to the doctor, a composite of condemned stretchers and
shelter tent. The best dining-room set was sawed out from sugar
barrels, and, being stuffed with old newspapers and gayly covered with
cheese cloth and calico, rivaled in comfort, if not in airy elegance,
the twisted woodwork of Vienna. When it was known that Mrs. and Miss
Archer had descended upon the camp, and their beloved commander had
next to nothing by way of furniture with which to deck their army home,
every officer hastened to place his household goods--such "C. and G.E."
as did not belong to the hospital--at the general's disposal. The
Stannards sent three riveted, cane-bottomed, dining-room chairs and
their spare room outfit complete. Captain Turner, whose fair-complected
partner had not yet ventured to these destructive suns, sent bedstead
and bureau, the latter without knobs, but you could pry the drawers
open with the point of a sabre. The post trader drove up from the store
with a lot of odds and ends. Even the bachelors were keen to do
something. All of which Mrs. Archer most gratefully and smilingly
accepted and made mental note of for future return in kind. But, in
spite of the Stannards' contribution, the general stood firmly to his
prerogative and sat close on his throne--"The finest dining chair in
all Arizona, sir," as he often declared. "Sawed out from a standard oak
whiskey barrel at Old Port Buford in '58, according to my own ideas and
lines, and sound as a dollar to-day, sir, and it's only been covered
three times in all. Look at it!" And here, with a flourish, he would
whip off the seat. "Combination chair and butler's pantry, sir. Used to
keep my whiskey and tobacco there when the redskins had the run of the
post and thought nothing of searching our quarters. And now Doyle's
used it as the doctor prescribed, and then gone and forgotten it! Haw,
haw, haw! By Jove, but that's capital sherry! Cool almost as if it had
been iced! Harris, my boy, you don't drink!"

There was a moment's silence. Then the young officer answered, simply,
yet almost apologetically:

"Why--I never have, sir."




CHAPTER III.


It happened at a moment when Willett, seated at the right of "the lady
of the house," with Lilian at his dexter side, had caught the eye of
his hostess, and, after the manner of the day, had raised his brimming
sherry glass and, bowing low, was drinking to her health, a feat the
general had thrice performed already. "If I'd only known of this,
gentlemen," said their host, but a moment earlier, with resultant
access of cordiality, "and could have found a drop of Angostura about
the post, we'd have had a 'pick-me-up' before dinner, but d'you know
I--I seldom have bitters about me. I've no use for cocktails. I never
touch a drop of stingo before twelve at noon or after twelve at night.
I agree with old Bluegrass. Bluegrass was post surgeon at the Presidio
when the Second Artillery came out in '65, right on the heels of the
war, and he did his best to welcome them--especially Breck, their
adjutant, also a Kentuckian. Then he was ordered East, and he left
Breck his blessing, his liquor case, and this admonition--Breck told it
himself. 'Young man,' said he, 'I observe you drink cocktails. Now,
take my advice and don't do it. You drink the bitters and they go to
your nose and make it red. You drink the sugar and it goes to your
brain and makes it wopsy, and so--you lose all the good effects of the
whiskey'! Haw, haw, haw!" It was a story the genial old soldier much
rejoiced in, one that Stannard had bet he would tell before dinner was
half over, and it came with Doyle and the chickens. The kindly,
wrinkled, beaming face, red with the fire of Arizona's suns, redder by
contrast with the white mustache and imperial, was growing scarlet with
the flame of Bentley's cherished wine, when in sudden surprise he noted
that the junior officer present, seated alone at his right (there was
no other girl in all Camp Almy to bid to the little feast, and Mrs.
Stannard, in mourning for a brother, could not accept), had turned down
the little sherry glass. Thirty years ago such a thing was as uncommon
in the army as fifty years ago it was unheard of in civil life. For one
instant after the young officer's embarrassed answer the veteran sat
almost as though he had heard a rebuke. It was Mrs. Archer who came to
the relief of an awkward situation. "Mr. Harris believes in keeping in
training," she ventured lightly. "He could not excel in mountain
scouting without it. The general's scouting days are over and we
indulge him." Indeed, it wasn't long before it began to look as though
the general were indulging himself. Claret presently succeeded the
sherry, but not until Bentley's health had been drunk again and the
orderly summoned from the front porch to go, with the general's
compliments, and tell him so. "This claret," he then declared, "is some
I saved from the dozen Barry & Patton put aboard the Montana when I
came round to Yuma last year. It's older than Lilian," this with a fond
and playful pinch at the rosy cheek beside him, "and almost as good. No
diluting this, Mr. Willett," for he saw that young officer glancing
from the empurpled glass to the single carafe that adorned the table,
its mate having met dissolution when the general's chest was prematurely
unloaded in Dead Man's Canon _en route_ to the post. "Dilute your
California crudities all you like, but not the red juice from the sunny
vines of France. No, sir! Moreover, this and old Burgundy are the wines
you must drink at blood heat. No Sauturnes or Hocks or champagnes for
us fire worshippers in Arizona! Lilian here and my blessed wife yonder
don't like these red wines for that reason. They want something to cool
their dainty palates, but men, sir, and soldiers---- What's this,
Bella, Bellisima? Salad--French dressing--and cool, too! Bravissima, my
dear! How did you manage it? The olla? Why, of course! Cool anything.
Cool my old head, if need be. Hey, Willett?"

And all this time, when not chatting with the debonair officer at her
side or saying a word to his bronzed, sun-dried, silently observant
comrade opposite, Lilian's fond eyes forever sought her father's
rubicund face, love and admiration in every glance. All this time, even
while in cordial talk with her guests, Mrs. Archer never seemed to lose
a look or word from her soldier liege; never once did her winsome smile
or joyous laugh fail to reward his sallies; never once came there shade
of anxiety upon her beaming face. "The General" was the head of that
house, and they were his loyal subjects. They even sipped at the
outermost ripple of the thimbleful of claret each had permitted Doyle
to pour. Even when a loud "cloop" in the dark passageway to the kitchen
told that another bottle was being opened as the omelet came in, borne
aloft by white-robed Suey, crowned with red poppies and blue blazes,
and set triumphantly before the mistress of the feast, Harris could
detect no flutter of disapprobation. Even when, later still, the
general's eager hand, stretching forth for the dusky flagon (it was
sacrilege to sweep away those insignia of age and respectability),
managed to capsize the candelabrum and sent the fluid "adamantine"
spattering a treasured table-cloth (how quick the dash of the young
trooper's hand upon the flame--and its extinction!), a gentle smile was
the sole rebuke, followed by a "Thank you, Mr. Harris. I hope you
didn't burn your hand! That's all my fault." The general declared it
foolish to put candles on the table when we could have sconces by the
dozen on the walls.

Indeed, there must have been a dozen candles, not to mention the big
lamps of forbidden kerosene upon shelf and sideboard, each backed by
its reflector of glistening tin. "We were vain, you see," continued
Mrs. Archer, "of our two old-fashioned heirlooms. Those quaint
three-socket sticks were brought by the general's grandfather from
England in Colonial days." It was so with everything they had, though
they had so little. The massive silver forks, the worn old spoons, the
squat little sugar bowl and creamer that came in later, all bore a
crest and a single word. All had been "The General's" before ever that
well-descended veteran had bent the knee in wooing. All had been stored
in San Francisco until their coming to cheer his exile, but now were
duly paraded in honor of their first guests at Almy, the young scout
leader from the southern border, and his classmate, the new
aide-de-camp of the commanding general; both, as was understood, to
leave them on the morrow.

And all this time, too, though the windows, Arizona fashion, were
blanketed to exclude all heatful light throughout the day (those of the
dining-room being hidden behind Navajo fabrics in black and white, and
blue and crimson), the hallways were wide open that no breath of air
might be lost. The hounds clustered whimpering and wondering at the
doorways, front and rear, resentful of the vigilance with which the
orderlies on duty withstood their dashes, they who long weeks and
months had had the run of the house. Darkness had settled down upon the
sandy parade. The lights gleamed along the opposite front, the long
barracks of the soldiery, and the stars were glinting bright above the
beetling pine crests beyond the murmuring stream. Over at the mess the
surgeon, the adjutant, quartermaster, Captain Bonner of the infantry,
with his subaltern, and solemn Captain Turner, sat on the veranda,
smoked their pipes, and even while keeping up a semblance of talk, had
an eye and an ear on the bungalow--the "Old Man's" quarters not three
hundred feet away. The boom of his jovial laughter still rang out upon
the air, and presently the tinkle of guitar, the swish of feminine
garments, the rasp of chairs and the merry mingling of voices told that
the little dinner party, the first the camp had ever known--for what is
a dinner party without women--had quit the table and gathered on the
porch. By this time, too, an unclouded moon had sailed aloft from
behind the screen of eastward heights, and its beams were pouring
slantwise upon the group, that portion of it, at least, that now was
seated near the southern end. They who watched were not slow to see
that Lilian had taken a chair within a few feet of the edge, with
Willett still in close attendance. The red heart of the general's cigar
was visible midway between the window and the central doorway, but the
jovial host was wrapped in shade. The light from the doorway fell upon
the white gown of Mrs. Archer and the trim, slender, undersized figure
of Lieutenant Harris, standing before her. They heard the general's
voice, cordial and resonant, uplifted presently in protest: "No, don't
go yet, boy. Let 'Tonio take care of himself to-night. I want you both
to hear Lilian sing. Here, orderly, you go find 'Tonio and give him my
compliments--No! you just tell 'Tonio _I_ want to see him."

The orderly with Archer, as with many another post commander, was the
final resort, the cure-all, the infallible means of settlement of all
matters in dispute. The orderly went and stood not on the order of his
going. He knew not 'Tonio, nor where to find him, but he knew better
than to say so--to say anything. He went straightway to the sergeant of
the guard, than whom no man is supposed to know more what is going on
about the post. That Harris might have the pleasure of hearing the
promised song (he surely could not think of going now) the mess
devoutly hoped, and were in nowise too content when the sound of
moving, of people getting to their feet, and of Archer's jocund
welcome, told that callers had come to join the recent revellers, and
that meant, of course, the Stannards, for there was really no one else.
And then it was remembered that Stannard had said that Mrs. Archer had
asked that they should come over after dinner, since they could not
well attend it. Lilian's singing was something all save these two young
soldiers had already heard, enjoyed and longed to hear again, and the
mess could not but wish that old Stannard had not been so exact in his
interpretation, and punctual in his acceptance of that invitation.
There followed a few minutes of general talk and laughter, and then
Archer's voice was again dominant. Nothing would do but that the
Stannards both come in and taste that famous claret (which neither
desired _after_ dinner, however much it might then have been enjoyed).
Then all went trooping in-doors again, all save Lilian and Lieutenant
Harris, for presently these two came sauntering into the moonlight at
the southward end of the veranda. The girl resumed her seat and guitar;
the young officer the chair lately occupied by Willett, and here full
ten minutes were they in conversation when the orderly came stalking
back from the guard-house; the quintette came flocking forth from the
hallway, and Willett, coming to resume his seat and chat, found his
classmate in possession. It was the first opportunity that had fallen
to Harris, and if Willett hoped or expected that he would rise and
surrender in his favor he was doomed to disappointment. Harris never so
much as turned his head.

They were an odd contrast, these two young graduates of the nation's
soldier school, as they looked to Captain Stannard that November night.
He spoke of it to his wife and thought of it long after, for he, too,
had come toward the little group a bit impatient, it must be owned, of
the general's mellow monologue, and wearying of a conversation in which
_he_ had no part. But here again Stannard found scant opportunity.
Miss Archer, bending slightly forward, was, with much animation
describing to Mr. Harris the brilliant ball given by the artillery at
the Presidio just before they were hurried off to that fatal Modoc war.
Harris, caring little for the affair, and possibly hearing little of
what she was saying, sat as though drinking in every word, and gazing
enthralled upon the beauty of her sweet young face. He, too, was
bending forward, his lithe, slender, supple frame clad in the trim
undress uniform of the day, his clear-cut face, with its thin, almost
hollow cheeks, tanned brown by the blazing suns of the southern desert,
his hair cropped close to his shapely head, his gray-blue eyes, large,
full and steady, fixed unswerving upon her. Leaning on his elbow, one
lean brown hand was toying with the sun-bleached ends of his mustache,
the other, with the class ring gleaming in the moonlight, lay idly on
his knee. Lacking stature, size or weight, the physical attributes that
make a man impressive, he looked the picture of the young athlete, firm
and fit and trained for speed and staying power, yet cold in his
steel-like strength and quality.

Overtopping him, standing where he, too, could hear and gaze, elegant
in form, graceful in pose, and precise in dress, the picture of
chivalric officer and gentleman, Hal Willett had the advantage of
nearly six more inches in height, a presence that was at once
commanding and assured, and a face as strikingly handsome as that of
Harris was severely plain. Willett's eyes and hair were of a deep,
lustrous brown, his eyebrows thick and heavily arched, his mouth soft,
sensitive, with lips that were beautifully curved and teeth that were
white and well-nigh perfect. His mustache, though long and curling, was
carefully trained away so as to hide none of the charms that lurked
beneath. He looked at once the knight of the ballroom and the
battlefield, a man to make his mark in either contest, love or war, and
make it he had. Life had been full of gifts to Harold Willett. He came
from old border stock. His name was first of the presidential ten the
year he entered the Point, first on the list of cadet corporals in the
yearling June and first among the first sergeants the following year.
An uncontradicted rumor had it that he could have been sergeant-major,
but that he told the commandant his ambition lay in the senior
captaincy, and first captain he had been named his first class summer,
only to lose it late in August, the penalty of a rash and forbidden
exploit for the sake of a smile, and possibly a caress, and lose it to
the man who, starting at the foot of the list of his chevroned fellows
two years before, had risen only to "late sergeant" of a centre company
when they came from furlough, but, standing foremost in "Tactics," well
up in every subject but French and drawing, and impeccable in conduct,
won a captaincy in spite of his lack of inches. Graduating a dozen
files ahead of his brilliant comrade, Harris had sought and won
commission in the cavalry, was sent to duty in New Mexico and then in
Arizona, ever roughing it in the deserts or the mountains until in
physique he was hard as hickory, and in spirit wellnigh as elastic.
Never until this recent experience in the Apache Mohave country had he
shown symptom of discouragement. Now it was the more noticeable because
coupled, it would seem, with distrust--distrust of him who had been for
two years past an inseparable guide and even comrade, 'Tonio, "_gran
capitan_" of Indian scouts.

And even as he sat there absorbed in the sweet vision in the moonlight
before him, studying the play of her sensitive lips, forgetful for the
moment of all else about him, there fell across the glistening boarding
at her feet the shadow of a turbaned head, at sight of which she
started, with faint, half-suppressed cry of fright; then, as though
ashamed, broke into a nervous little laugh. Harris was in an instant on
his feet, and whirling, confronted 'Tonio, tall, gaunt, silent,
impassive.

"_Que quiere?_" he demanded, in the blunt vernacular of the service. It
annoyed him that subordinate of his should thus appear unseen, unheard,
unsummoned, and to her affright. He forgot the noiseless sand, the
soft-soled moccasins, the native stealth; forgot at the moment the
general's mandate and the orderly's mission. It flashed upon him at
'Tonio's quiet answer, grave, unresentful, and in the Apache tongue.

"My chief called me."

"Pardon me just one moment, Miss Archer. I'll come back at once," said
Harris, bending over the still trembling girl. Then, turning sharply
and bidding 'Tonio follow, his eyes met those of Willett, smiling
affably.

"I'll keep it while you're gone, Hefty," said he, with laughing ease of
manner, sliding promptly into the vacated seat. "Now, Miss Archer, if
you'll be so good as to go right on where you left off, I'll be all
gratitude and attention."

Without answer, Harris stepped lightly over to where the general and
Stannard were now deep in one-sided argument over the merits of a
war-time leader, known well to men of the Union Army east or west; the
general declaiming, the junior listening, unconvinced. It was one point
on which they differed widely, one on which the general was apt to
dilate when warmed by wine. He had had only moderate aid from Willett
in disposing of two bottles of sound old claret, and one was enough to
set the garrulous tongue to wagging. He would not cease at sight of
Harris, standing silent and respectful before him. Stannard had to
interpose and say, "You sent for 'Tonio, sir, as I happened to hear,"
as indeed they all did, far and near, whereat the veteran turned.

"Bless my soul, boy, so I did! What for, I wonder?"

"To save my going over with night orders for the scouts, I think, sir,"
said Harris promptly, "and, unless you wish to see him personally, I'll
tell him now."

"_Must_ you make so early a start, Harris? It's only thirty miles to
the canon."

"I know, sir, but I need to be at Bennett's before sunrise. Their
scouts would see us if we started later. We go on to the canon after I
have examined that neighborhood."

"All right, then. Buckets will issue rations at once. Start when you
think best. But now, Stannard, see here; if he was such a stayer and so
energetic in Virginia, how do you account for----"

But Harris had saluted and turned away, 'Tonio at his heels. As they
passed the end of the veranda, where sat Lilian and her listener,
Harris noted that the latter had drawn his chair much closer than he
had dared, and was bending forward until the handsome dark head was
almost over the fair hand toying with the guitar that lay idly in her
lap. The modern vernacular for the successful squire of dames was then
unknown. The girl, who had been leaning forward, all chat and animation
when Harris sat there, now lay dreamily back in the rude but easy
chair, her eyelids drooping, her long lashes sweeping the soft cheek,
listening, drinking in the murmurous flow of Willett's almost inaudible
words, and the stern young face of his classmate hardened in the
moonlight, for Harris had seen and heard before. Briefly he gave his
instructions to the silent Apache and closed with the sign, "I have
spoken. That is all."

But 'Tonio did not stir. Something, possibly, in Willett's devotional
attitude vaguely troubled the girl, and, edging back in her chair, she
had lifted a little slippered foot from the floor. The general at the
moment was talking loud enough to drown other sounds about him. The
aide-de-camp, his dark eyes glowing and riveted on those of the fair
face so near him, seemed deaf to everything but his own eloquence. But
the Indian had placed one hand on his young officer's wrist, and with
the other stood pointing at some object coiled underneath Lilian's
chair, not half an arm's length from the little foot that dangled in
its silken stocking but a hand's-breadth from the floor. At that moment
Willett bent impressively, still nearer, and instinctively Lilian moved
a hand as though about to edge farther away. It was at this very
instant that Harris spoke, his voice, absolutely calm, even to the
semblance of a drawl, but every word told clear, distinct, and, in
spite of its courtesy, commanding, compelling.

"Miss Archer and--ah--Willett, be good enough to sit perfectly still a
moment. Don't--move--a muscle!"

Even the general, for a wonder, had ceased--for breath, perhaps--and
sat speechless and startled, for noiseless and stealthy as a cat, with
long strides, 'Tonio had skirted the edge of the veranda, and with
agile spring was at the back of Lilian's chair. There he swooped
instantly. There was sound of strident, rasping sk-r-r-r-rr: then a
lightning snap, as of a whip. Something black and writhing went flying
into the sand, and then squirming blindly away, and 'Tonio straightened
to his full height, and without a word strode from the veranda.

"In God's name, what was that?" cried the general, springing from his
chair and hastening to his daughter's side.

"Nothing but a snake, sir," said Harris quietly, strolling toward them.
"_That_ one's done for, anyhow!"




CHAPTER IV.


An hour later the lights were out among the barracks, and the silence
of the summerlike winter's night had settled on the garrison. Over at
the Mess and office buildings all was darkness. Along the log and adobe
facade of the officers' quarters, from occasional open doorways the
gleam of lantern was thrown across the wooden verandas. The moonbeams
flooded the sandy parade and the rough-hewn roofs and walls with
tender, silvery radiance that put to shame the twinkling lights, down
at the store on the lower flats, and the bleary eye of the big,
triangular, glass-faced, iron-bound cresset at the log guard-house,
perched at the edge of the mesa. Afar off, through dim vistas of the
valley, the silver ribbon of the stream wound and twisted among the
willows, but the heights, as a rule, were wrapped in the shadows of
their own pines. A game of goodly proportion was going on down at the
card room, a brace of ranchmen and prospectors, a venturesome "sub" and
the "contract doctor" making up the party, but the general, his
household and near neighbors had retired or were retiring for the
night. Only the guard and the "owls" were "on deck." Army folk in those
days and regions had a way of turning out at dawn for the cool of the
morning, turning in at taps for the needed six hours' beauty sleep,
lunching lightly at noon, snoozing drowsily an hour or two, then after
tub and fresh linen, venturing forth, those who had to, for the
afternoon duties. All social enjoyment, as a rule, began when the sun
could not see, but had dropped back of the screen of the mountains.

But there was still faint stir at the camp of the scouts, out beyond
the corrals. Rations had been drawn at tattoo, and a limited portion
issued to the lithe, swarthy fellows, squatted in semicircle in front
of their chief, patiently awaiting their share, no man of their number
opening so much as the end of a package, either of cartridge or
cracker, until the last had his dole and all were served. It was known
that before dawn they were again to set forth, whither, not even 'Tonio
had been told, and 'Tonio had noted and felt it. Hitherto there had
been counsel between his young commander and himself. This night there
had been none. Instead, only half an hour after the exciting episode at
the commanding officer's and the despatching of the intruding rattler,
'Tonio had been summoned to the adjutant's office and then questioned
by Lieutenant Willett, with _cargador_ Munoz, not Lieutenant Harris,
serving as interpreter. Hitherto 'Tonio had conducted his conference
with the Great Father's captains with Lieutenant Harris translating. It
was significant both to that officer and to 'Tonio that this time a
pack train employe had been selected, his name having been suggested at
head-quarters at Prescott, and an orderly sent for him early by way of
caution, for Munoz loved monte and mescal. Another significant thing
was that Harris had declined an invitation to be present at 'Tonio's
examination. "If Mr. Willett has any question to ask me," he said,
"he'll find me at Dr. Bentley's," whither, indeed, he had repaired, as
it were, awaiting summons.

Moreover, it was patent to Stannard and Turner and Dr. Bentley, too,
that Harris took it much amiss that Willett should at last disclose the
fact that he was there to "investigate." He had said nothing of it the
night before. He had put up at the adjutant's, after quite a long
session at the Mess, an affair attended by Harris only an hour or so,
and even then only as an absorbed listener, with other fellow-soldiers,
to Willett's brilliant description of the recent campaign in the lava
beds, culminating as it had in the brutal massacre by the Modocs of
their would-be best friends, the peace commissioners, and General
Canby. After taps, however, despite his long and dusty buckboard ride,
Willett saw fit to "sit in" to the game almost always in progress down
at the trader's store. Whereupon Stannard, Turner and Harris,
non-participants ever, took themselves off to bed. It was not much of a
game, said Strong, who was there, only Willett, Craney, Watson, Briggs
and himself, and was remarkable for only one fact, that Case, the
bookkeeper, who never before had seemed to care to play, had happened
in late, looked curiously on a moment, and then, without having been
presented to Willett, seemed desirous of taking a hand. Craney wondered
if Case had been drinking again, but Willett took no notice. Willett
was feeling very jolly, said Strong, and it was quite late when they
finally quit.

Harris was up with the sun looking over his pack train and observing
'Tonio and his fellows. Willett did not turn out until office hours,
when he had a conference with General Archer, ending in his expressing
a wish to "look about" him for the day. He had asked no questions of
Harris; had met him heartily, as classmates should, but with just a
suspicion of superiority of manner that Harris could not like, and
without a word of appreciation of the capital soldier work Harris had
been doing.

There was another reason why Harris resented Willett's investigating
his scout that second evening. A total abstainer himself from boyhood,
reared by a careful mother and aware for many a year that his father's
occasional lapses were her perennial dread, Harris had set his canon
against the practice from the day he doffed the gray at West Point, and
never swerved from his creed after donning the blue. Not so with
Willett. Not so with nine-tenths of his associates. Harris had seen,
without remark, that Willett enjoyed the occasional beverages mixed for
him at the Mess in the late afternoon, and again had noted that his
comrade did quite his share this second evening toward finishing the
doctor's sherry, though it was the "Old Man," after all, who "got away
with" most of the Bordeaux. Twice after dinner Archer had ushered his
guests within doors, once to try what was left of the claret, and
later, after the snake episode, when some nerves might be in need of
bracing, to sample some phenomenal Monongahela. Then when Harris was
through, after saying good-night, he was presently followed by Willett,
flushed in face and abrupt in manner. Miss Archer had been spirited off
by her mother, and presumably gone to bed. She'd get used to snakes if
she stayed long in Arizona, said Willett. What was the sense in scaring
her, anyway? Why hadn't Harris quietly given him the tip? _He_ could
have snapped Mr. Rattler's head off without anybody being the wiser,
and Harris saw that the night-caps, taken on top of all that preceded,
had tangled Willett's ideas, despite which fact Willett now announced
that he had summoned the interpreter and desired Harris to send 'Tonio
to the office for investigation at once.

And Willett represented the commanding general, who knew nothing of
what was going on, and Harris could only obey.

It was a dramatic scene as it opened. Willett had not failed to hand a
copy of his instructions to the post commander and had left entirely to
his judgment the question as to whether the officers should be present.
Archer had decided against it. 'Tonio might be alarmed. It were better,
he said, that no one except the post adjutant, the interpreter, and
Lieutenants Willett and Harris appear, and then Harris, whose letter
from the field announcing the ill success of the scout was the original
cause of the investigation, said he preferred to be excused. Harris did
not wish to appear to 'Tonio in the light of an accuser, and Willett
was secretly better content that his classmate should stay away.

Down in the bottom of his heart Willett felt that four years of such
experiences as Harris had encountered made him a far better judge of
Apache methods and motives than he, Willett, could expect to be.
Moreover, he knew well that, were he in Harris's place, he should
resent it that an officer no higher in grade, and inferior in Arizona
craft, should be sent to inquire into the conduct of his scout. It was
just one of those things a tactless chief of staff would sometimes do;
but, even though Willett appreciated, none the less did he welcome the
order. It put him at once in position of ascendency over a classmate of
whose record and success he was both jealous and afraid. If he had felt
this earlier in the day the feeling was intensified now, for though he
had seemed to some of the officers, to Archer and his family, especially
to Lilian, far the more accomplished and attractive of the two, the
entrance of that disturbing rattler on the scene had destroyed the
equilibrium of affairs. Willett had had no experience with the venomous
little reptile, Harris had had much, and Harris's utter _sang froid_,
and cool, commanding words had averted what might have been a tragedy.
One start, one sudden move of the girl at that critical moment might
well have been fatal. The snake, alarmed and angered by previous stir
and by Willett's approaches, was actually coiled for the spring. The
tiny fangs would have fastened in a flash on that slender, unprotected
ankle, and the rest could only be conjectured.

And so, it was in no judicial mood that Willett began his questioning.
Accustomed as he was to the hang-dog, dissolute specimens of degenerate
red men he had seen in the Columbia country and the lava beds, he
hardly knew what to make of 'Tonio, this ascetic of the mountains,
clear eyed, trained to a fineness almost unhuman, all wire and sinew,
an Indian withal who looked him straight and fearless in the eye, and
held himself as proudly as ever did chieftain of the Aztecs or the
Sioux. Summoned from the camp fire to this unsought council, finding
himself confronted by strangers, missing his own friend and commander,
and instinctively scenting accusation, 'Tonio stood and faced his
judges without so much as a tremor.

For a moment Willett sat and studied him. "Siwashes" of Puget's Sound,
Klickatats of the Columbia, and scowling, beetle-browed Modocs of upper
Nevada he had often met, and their shifting eyes dropped before the
keen gaze of the dominant soldier, but this son of the Sierras never so
much as suffered the twitch of a muscle, the droop of an eyelash. In
the language of the "greaser" cargador, whose border vernacular had
suffered through long contact with that of the gringo, "'Tonio didn't
scare worth a damn, even when the lieutenant tried bulldozing," but
that may merely have been the expression of civilian jealousy of
military methods. Being in the pay and under the protection of the
United States, 'Tonio could be called on for explanation at any time,
only--there were two ways of calling.

"Tell him," said Willett, "the chief-of-chiefs believes the Apache
Mohaves are hiding in the Mogollon,--many of them--bucks, squaws and
children, and he was sent to find them and to bring them to the
reservation. Why did he fail?"

Munoz, as nearly as he could, put the question, but none too
confidently.

"Because my people were driven beyond sound of 'Tonio's voice," was the
calm reply, the eyes for the officer, the words for the man, and Munoz
again translated.

"How so? Was not word sent them by Arahawa?"

"Arahawa said the white brother would come with food and presents to
lead them home. What they saw was guns and scouts and soldiers.
Therefore, they were afraid and fled. Soldiers with guns catch no
Mohaves who fear. Therefore was it useless, and I tired."

"Could _you_ have caught them and persuaded them had you gone alone?"
And Willett asked as he had been instructed at headquarters.

"Caught? Yes! Persuaded? No! They say white soldiers killed Comes
Flying, brother to Chief Lone Pine."

"How does he know Comes Flying was killed? We heard it only the night I
reached Prescott. No one has told it--here." And now the officer's eyes
were glittering. The adjutant shifted uneasily in his chair. This was
news to him. Comes Flying stood second only to Lone Pine in the tribe,
yet Camp Almy had not heard it. 'Tonio had told it not even to Harris.

"The mountain eagle is 'Tonio's friend; the bear, the lynx, the birds
are his brothers."

"Then you _knew_ the Apache Mohaves were in the Verde Valley--and in
Dead Man's Canon as late as last week--that they had raided Stoner's
Ranch?"

"They were not there, nor did they raid Stoner's Ranch! My people
stayed not even on the East Fork. They fled deep in the Mogollon."

Willett gave vent to impatient "Pish!" The Indians he had known all
lied, of course, but looked it. This man looked him full in the face,
even as he lied, and looked the truth.

"I'll show you why we know you lie," said he impulsively, but the
adjutant held up a warning hand, saying, "Listen!"

Through the open doorway, barred against unauthorized intruder by the
single soldier, standing beyond earshot upon the level of the parade,
there came the prolonged cry of a sentry at the upper end of the
garrison. Number Three had repeated, but Number Four was impatient,
imperative, and the yell came again: "Corporal of the Guard, Number
Four!"

"That _means_ something," said the adjutant, springing to his feet.
"I'll be back in a minute if it doesn't," and away he went,
swift-speeding under the flagstaff, and Munoz followed straight to the
base of the staff, where the trumpeter of the guard and three or four
men from the barracks were already gathered, their own surreptitious,
blanket-shrouded game for the moment forgotten. They were staring
through the moonlight straight away to the northeastward chain of
heights, rocky and precipitous, that spanned the valley in that
direction, and suddenly two of them gave tongue:

"There it is again! Didn't I tell you?"

Far away among the pines at the crest a tiny blaze shot into the skies,
brilliant even in the moonshine. "Signal fire, sure!" said three voices
at once. "Signal fire, sure!" echoed other voices, as more men came
running forth from the barracks to join the watchers on the parade.
"Signal fire, sure, and right up over the Bennett Ranch--where the
general was to-day!"

"My God, I wonder have they jumped it! Yonder comes the
corporal--back--running!"

Back, indeed, and running and straight for the doctor's, where he could
be heard banging at the open door. So away went the trumpeter, full
tilt for tidings, and others, impatient, followed. Instead of coming
back the trumpeter kept on, running still harder toward the brow of the
hill and the post of Number Four. It was the corporal who called to his
halting and anxious fellows:

"It's Bennett's Ranch! His dago's in with the news--mos' dead down
there on Number Four; says they've killed the whole family--'Patchie
Mohaves!"

There was awed silence one moment. Then a deep voice broke it, and all
eyes turned on the speaker. 'Tonio.

"Apache Mohave? No! _No!!_"




CHAPTER V.


Bennett's "dago," when halted by Number Four, was as limp a specimen of
humanity as that drowsy young trooper had seen in all his soldier days.
Bennett's dago was no stranger to the post, having occasionally come
thither on errands for his employer, and semi-occasionally appeared
without such semblance of authority, but, whether his mission was for
master or man, it had never hitherto failed to lead to the store and
monte. Small as was the garrison, and few as were the neighboring
ranches, there was generally business enough to support two card rooms,
one for officers and the "_gente fino_"--the trader, his partner, the
chief packer, forage master, and an occasional rancher or prospector;
the other, a big one, and often a riotous, for the soldiery, scouts,
packers and riffraff of the frontier, and for this establishment
Bennett's dago had an indescribable fascination. Here he had met and
differed with Munoz, the two coming to a knife duel, promptly
suppressed by the gun butts of the guard. None the less was Munoz
called into requisition as interpreter, for between peril, exhaustion
and defective English the "dago" could only splutter an unintelligible
jargon that might have been Sicilian, Maltese, or Calabrian, but could
not be Spanish. Bennett, it seems, had picked him up for dead on the
Verde road, early in the spring of the year, and Mrs. Bennett had
nursed the poor devil back to life. Then it turned out that he knew how
to cook. Later it transpired that he had been with a Mexican "outfit,"
prospecting for gold; had taken mountain fever, become a burden to
them, and was left to look out for himself at a tank in Dead Man's
Canon. He paid for his keep in cooking and chores, said Bennett, and
picked up enough English to enable him to get along about the ranch. He
presently showed desire to care for the horses and mules and to ride
them, and one day he disappeared with Bennett's best saddle mule and
was gone forty-eight hours, and on his return gravely tendered Bennett
a five-dollar gold piece in payment for his time and mule while away.
He said he won it at monte, and it was proved that he had found his way
to the card room, as a mule does to water, and, without knowledge of
English, displayed consummate skill in the game; had played only two
hours, had won twenty dollars and departed at dusk. But his winnings
were in greenbacks and silver. Whence had come the gold? The trader's
people said he stabled his mule; introduced himself as "Bennett's
_mozo_--me," and "sat into" the game then in progress as though long
accustomed; showing silver, mainly Mexican, the only credentials the
players required. At sunset he quit, easy winner, and went without
taking so much as a "snifter." Once having found the way, and the
means, the dago came again and yet again, neither giving nor having
trouble until he ran foul of Munoz, the Mexican, whom he seemed to hate
at sight. Whatever his lingo, or that employed by the polyglot Mexican,
they understood each other, and the misunderstanding that followed was
purely personal.

Now, in spite of his craze for gambling the dago had points that
appealed to Bennett. He found him valuable in many a way. He was almost
doglike in his devotion to Bennett's wife and children. He was a
"bang-up" cook, barring a heavy hand at first with _chile_ and onions.
He patched up an old guitar of Mrs. Bennett's and strummed delightfully
all manner of strange Mexican and Mediterranean melodies, and,
encouraged by her, had even been betrayed into song. He was kind to the
stock, and the mules took to him from the very start, which the two
horses did not do. The dogs tolerated at first and then "tied" to him.
So, too, the cat adored him. He got along smoothly with the one negro
and two Maricopa Indian boys Bennett had brought with him from the
Gila. He did not drink even when at the post, and in the course of six
months had come to be a feature, almost a fixture of the ranch, yet
"Dago" was the only name by which he was known, even among his
benefactors. Bennett said he believed he had forgotten he ever had
another.

That very morning, showing all his white teeth, he had whipped off a
battered old hat of Mexican straw at sight of the general and his fair
daughter, had taken the basket while the orderly led the horses to the
corral, had followed them about the little garden patch while Mrs.
Bennett delightedly showed her lettuce and spinach and the gorgeous bed
of poppies. Then he had brewed delicious chocolate, though condensed
milk was poor substitute for whipped cream, and had prepared such an
appetizing little luncheon, and had made himself so useful, that the
general was moved to say to Bennett that any time the dago tired of his
job he could find one at the fort. "I wonder he stays," said Bennett.
"I only give him five dollars a month, even now, and he could get
twenty, and unlimited monte, at the store; besides, he is mortal 'fraid
of these 'Patchie Mohaves; hell knows why, and hides when he sees 'em
coming."

"Do they never bother you stealing or--some way?" asked the general,
with an anxious glance at the two sturdy little ranchers, five and
three-year-old Bennetts, rolling and wrestling in the sand, showing off
for the benefit of the visitors.

"'Patchie Mohaves?" asked Bennett, looking up in surprise. "Never have!
You know I drove mule team to the agency two years ago, and sort of
grew to them. Why, Minnie, now, thinks as much of them, or most, as she
does of the boys at the post. They're a sort of police, sir. The Tontos
don't dare come down so long as the Mohaves are about here."

"I know," said the general reflectively. "Yet some few bucks drifted
off to the Tontos, and the agent's been raising a row because so many
of them roost down here instead of staying on the reservation, bringing
in game. Did you know that two bands were out--women and all--without
permits, and that was one thing that brought Lieutenant Harris and his
scouts up here?"

"Well, that accounts for our having seen none of them for over two
weeks. They must have gone clean out to the Mesa. General," he
continued anxiously, "they don't like their agent, or that agency.
They're herded in there with Apache Yumas and sick Tontos and Sierra
Blancas--fellows that get better treatment because they're bigger
devils and raise merry hell. _I_ know 'em and the agent don't. I'd move
in to the post if _they_ were out, but we're safe with the 'Patchie
Mohaves."

That was what poor Bennett was saying not twelve hours earlier, and now
the homelike ranch had gone up in flames, and Bennett, wailed the dago,
lay butchered among the ruins. So, too, the negro. The Maricopa boys
had fled only, probably, to be run down and killed, but what had become
of the poor, helpless little wife and mother, with her bonny, blue-eyed
boys, God alone knew.

By this time half the enlisted strength of the post was up and out and
flocking to hear the tidings. Bentley, the surgeon, had shuffled over
in his slippered feet and was giving Dago first aid to the demoralized
in the shape of _aguardiente Americano_, that made him sputter and
sneeze, but speedily braced him. The adjutant hurried over to call the
commanding officer, passing Harris on the way, and Harris, already in
campaign dress, was hastening to the camp of his scouts. Turner, silent
and sombre, as was his wont, had elbowed his way through the throng and
stood glowering at Dago and the beetled-browed Munoz, as though
weighing them in mental balance, and finding both wanting. Mrs.
Stannard, through the blinds, had hailed the adjutant as he went
bounding by to say the captain would be out in a moment. Already
Wettstein had told them the fearful news. The adjutant stepped inside
the open hallway at the general's and banged on the swinging door of
the little front room, answered almost instantly by the subdued and
gentle voice of Mrs. Archer from the head of the stairs. The general
was sound asleep. Was it necessary to wake him?

Strong expected as much. Not once a month did that genial veteran
permit himself an over-indulgence, but, when he did, the quicker he
slept it off the better. He had taken his night-cap and turned in
betimes, so as to be up at reveille. But Strong knew what the "Old Man"
would say to him later if he failed to rouse him now. "It's immediate,
Mrs. Archer," said he. "We have bad news from Bennett's Ranch."

A pale, frightened, white little face had come peering over the
motherly shoulder at the moment, even whiter in the flickering light of
Mrs. Archer's candle, and at sound of the name there went up a low cry
of distress.

"Oh, Mr. Strong, is it Mrs. Bennett--or the boys?"

"We don't--know--yet, Miss Archer. The dago's here, scared to death;
galloped all the way with a story of an Indian raid. I'm hoping it
isn't as bad as he thinks. God forgive me the lie," he added under his
breath.

"But they haven't hurt _her?_ They surely would not hurt _her_!" came
the piteous wail, as the girl clung to the rude balustrade, while her
mother hastened to rouse the sleeping warrior. "Heaven pity her,"
thought Strong, "unless they have killed her outright and _not_ carried
her away."

Then came a step in the hall behind him, and Willett was there, alert
and resourceful. "Pray don't be troubled _yet_, Miss Archer," he called
reassuringly, and barely noticing Strong. "The messenger's been
stampeded before this, the men tell me. He's too badly scared to know
the truth. It may be there's been a fire. I think there has, for the
light could be seen, and so he imagined Indians and never stopped to
see. I'm going right up there and will send back word. _Please_ don't
worry yet!"

How thoughtful he was for her, and for dear mamma! How kind! Strong
knew full well that the light they had seen was the glare of no burning
ranch, but a beacon far up in the hills--a signal fire, of course. The
ranch lay in a deep valley ten miles to the north-east, with high
ridges intervening. In the brilliant moonlight a glare that might
otherwise have been seen on the sky would pass unnoted. Strong knew,
deep down in his heart, that whatever the fate of the family, the ranch
was a thing of the past, but Willett's words were soothing. It was
better to let them go unquestioned.

Then out came the general on the landing above, his towzled gray poll
poking over the rail. "What is it, Strong? I'll be down quick as I can
half dress." Indeed, he was losing no instant of time, though it cost
him some items of toilet. With his feet in "flip-flaps," his legs in
loose linen trousers, and buttoning a sack coat over his nightgown, the
veteran was already shuffling downstairs. "Run back to your room,
dear," he said, as he passed his little girl. "You shall know
everything presently," and then in a moment was out in the free air of
heaven, the two young officers with him.

Briefly, cautiously, the adjutant murmured the dago's story, adding his
fear as to its truth. Blankly Archer looked at them an instant, aghast,
appalled, as well he might be, and for the moment unable or unwilling
to trust himself to speak. There had been no time, he said, to souse
his head in the big basin of cool water his wife would have given him.
He was still heated, flushed, suddenly roused from heavy slumber, and
by no means at his best. Strong knew just how to act in the premises
and would have given him time to recover, but there was Willett, alert
and insistent,--Willett who represented the commanding general, and
whose words carried weight--Willett who was quick to seize the
opportunity and to say:

"This is just in line with what we thought at headquarters, sir, and
the quicker I can get to the spot the better. With your consent,
general, I'll push out at once with the scouts, and we'll get back word
to you before daylight."

And even Strong, loyal soul, had to admit later that the general's
answer was practically "Yes, yes, by all means, Willett, and I'll send
a troop in support," whereupon Willett darted away to the adjutant's
quarters to doff his natty uniform and don something older and more
suitable. Twenty minutes thereafter he had swung a leg over one of
Stannard's troop horses and spurred away down to the north-eastward
slope, toward the upper ford of the stream, where dimly in the distance
another horseman could be seen, with a dozen shadowy, ghost-like forms
gliding along in tireless jog trot in line with him--Harris and his
mountain hounds, the Apache scouts, already _en route_ for the scene of
disaster. Bentley, Stannard and Turner, standing at the edge of the
bluff, with fourscore soldiers clustered about them, while others had
gone with Dago to hear again his tale, gazed thoughtfully after the
disappearing shadows and then at each other.

"Humph!" said Stannard, in words meant for his fellows, but in tones
that went farther. "There'll be conflict of authority now or _I'm_ a
duffer!"

Ten minutes they stood and watched; then came the orderly with the
general's compliments, and he'd be glad to see Captain Stannard at
once.

"That means you're going, Stan," said the surgeon. "I suppose he'll
send my assistant with you."

They found the commanding officer on the porch of his quarters, very
grave and quiet now, perfectly calm and self-possessed. The dago had
squatted at the edge of the steps, his face bowed in his hands,
shivering as though from cold. Munoz slouched near by, eying him in
aggressive contempt. Several sergeants, with many of the men, were
grouped at respectful distance, eager and waiting the word. Strong was
with the ladies, for Mrs. Stannard had dressed hurriedly and come over,
and between them the two elders were gently striving to console or
encourage Lilian, who had been quite overcome by the particulars as
translated by Munoz. The dago claimed that from his pallet, under the
"linter" of the corral, he had been roused by the sudden yell at the
ranch, followed by swift shooting, screams and cries of Mrs. Bennett
and the children, the outburst of flame, and then he saw them, the
Indians, coming for him, and he sprang on the best horse and lashed him
all the way to the post.

Stannard came at the moment, solid, stocky, and reliable--a man it was
a comfort to look at in moments of peril or excitement, and such
moments were frequent in the old days of the frontier. Silently he
saluted, stood before the commander and received his brief
orders--mount the troop, follow the scouts, and if it should appear
that Mrs. Bennett and the children had been carried off by the Indians,
to pursue and do his best to recapture. Rations would follow by mule
train.

Stannard had just one question to ask.

"Shall I call on Mr. Harris or Mr. Willett for scouts, sir?" And even
then it was noted that he named Harris first.

"Why--on Mr. Harris. He is in command."

"Very good, sir," said Stannard, and turned on his heel. Mrs. Stannard,
hastily kissing Lilian's pale and tear-wet cheek, started to follow,
but through the little knots of soldiery a strange figure came forcing
a way, a lithe Apache on resentful mule--'Tonio, already back from the
front, a little folded paper in his hand. Lashing the obstinate brute
he bestrode, 'Tonio dove straight at the general, and all men waited to
learn the tidings. Hastily Archer opened the paper, glanced it over in
the moonlight, looked up, and nodded to Stannard.

"Willett says from round the point they can see two more signal fires
toward the north-east, just the way to the Apache Mohaves!"

Then came a dramatic incident. Sitting his saddle mule like a chief of
the Sioux, 'Tonio straightened to his full height, his strong face
gleaming in the brilliant, silvery sheen, his bare right arm, with
clinching fist uplifted, and in a voice that rang out like a clarion on
the hushed and breathless night, shouted his response for his people:

"Apache Mohave! No! _No!_ No!"




CHAPTER VI.


Barely a mile away to the north-east of the site of old Camp Almy a
ridge of rock and shale stretches down from the foothills of the Black
Mesa and shuts off all view of the rugged, and ofttimes jagged,
landscape beyond--all save the peaks and precipitous cliffs of the
Mogollon, and some of the pine-crested heights that hem the East Fork.
Time was, toward the fag end of the Civil War, when the volunteers from
the "Coast" kept a lookout on the point, a practice that yielded more
scalps to the Indians than security to the inmates. The system,
therefore, fell into disuse, and the post became unpopular because of
the mutilated condition in which the pickets were twice found by the
relief, and the amount of reliable information received from the point
never quite paid for the cost. With the disappearance of the Tontos,
who were not such fools as their Spanish name implied, the practice of
stationing outlying sentries was dropped. The Tontos seemed to have
abandoned the valley to their distant cousins, the Apache-Mohaves,
whose presence there, in small, itinerant parties, was objected to less
by the few scattered settlers than by the one badgered agent at the
distant reservation.

This, at least, was the case at first. Bennett and Sowerby, from above
Camp Almy, and two others from below, found them friendly and
peaceable. But presently complaints were heard from settlers over at
McDowell, in the Verde Valley to the west, and other settlers away up
the Verde toward Camp Sandy. Then Sowerby swore his stock was run off,
and Bennett presently remained the only ranchman to stand up for them.
The agent declared them contumacious and tricky. Other whites--Arizona
white was then a reddish-brown--added their evil word to the
official's. It was the old adage over again: "Give a dog a bad name,"
etc., and the department commander had sent for scouts to coax them in,
before despatching troops to enforce their coming, and Harris had found
nobody--nothing but abandoned _rancherias_ and unsavory relics.

And then had come the tidings of a clash--the killing of Comes Flying,
son of a chief, and brother to a tribal leader, and then in reprisal,
probably, the burning of Bennett's home and the butchery of Bennett.
Then Harris had stayed not a moment, but, acting on the understanding
of the previous evening, had gone forth at once.

It is well to be prompt, yet oftentimes wise to be prompted. Post
commanders like to be able to say in their reports, "I ordered" this,
or "By my direction" that, and Harris had gone at the word of alarm
without other word with the general.

That Harris was to choose his own time was the understanding between
them when they parted, almost affectingly, at night, for between the
snake episode and the successive toddies the good old gentleman was
quite effusive. There would have been, probably, no change in the
instructions had Harris started at reveille or even at dawn. But to
"pull out" at midnight, with the situation changed and without another
word with the commander, was something open to criticism. Moreover,
Harris knew it.

But he had two reasons, neither of which might count with a court of
his peers, but were of mighty account to him. 'Tonio had come to him
actually ablaze with indignation. 'Tonio had said his people were
accused when his people were innocent. 'Tonio had begged that they
start at once, and he would show it was not Apache-Mohaves at fault. He
would show who were the real raiders, and might even rescue the
prisoners. So Harris never hesitated. Leaving a brief note in the hands
of Dr. Bentley, he had ridden away with 'Tonio and a dozen of his best,
only to be overtaken a mile or so out by the man of all others he least
desired to see. Hal Willett was the second reason Harris had for
wishing to get well away. If ever there came opportunity for a man to
step in, and upon, another man's plans and purposes, Harold Willett
could be relied upon to take it. Harris knew him of old, knew
instinctively that, if a possible thing, his classmate, ever selfish
and self-seeking, would rob him of the fruits of his long service with
the scouts, and would not scruple in such an emergency to take over the
command.

Harris was right. Just as the leaders rounded the huge shoulder of
hillside jutting so boldly to the bank of the stream, and were eagerly
pointing to the two distant flames far up in the foothills, Willett
came galloping to his side. "Signal fires, of course!" said he. "It's
just as I said, and this fellow of yours denied. They're making for the
Mesa. I'll send back word at once." With that he set to scribbling a
note on a page of his scouting book, then again galloped forward,
catching Harris and 'Tonio riding side by side.

"Tell 'Tonio to take this straight to General Archer," said he.

Then Harris turned on him:

"I don't recognize your right to order my scouts about, Willett. I need
'Tonio here."

"You'll have him again in twenty minutes," was the conciliatory answer.
"This is by Archer's own order, Harris. I've come straight from his
side. Otherwise I'll interfere with you as little as possible."

And Harris, with one look of distrust in his comrade's flushing face,
turned quietly to 'Tonio, said barely ten words to his second, not one
to his senior, then bitterly spurred ahead.

He was not the first man in the profession of arms to realize what it
is to faithfully and persistently labor to develop, instruct and
discipline a body of men until he and they are working in absolute
accord, all the intricate parts of the human machine nicely adjusted
and moving without the faintest friction, and then to find himself at
the eleventh hour set to one side, a stranger to his men and a rival to
himself set in his stead, and be bidden to move on as a sort of martial
second fiddle, while the credit and reward go to the new first violin.
Nor was Harris the last by any manner of means. As General Archer had
himself been heard to say, "One essential of military preferment is a
knowledge of the game of euchre--your neighbor." Couple this with utter
indifference to the rights of fellow-soldiers, and a catlike capacity
to work by stealth in the dark, and there is no starry altitude to
which one may not aspire. Harris made the same mistake older soldiers
had sometimes made in higher commands, that of sticking to their own
men, and duties, without keeping an eye on, and a friend at,
headquarters. Anomalous as it may sound, the absent are ever wrong,
even when "present for duty," where they should be. If Harris that
night had only gone to headquarters instead of his camp; had stopped to
see the general instead of starting promptly to the rescue, there would
have been less to tell by way of a story.

Possibly a realization of this had already come over him, as angering
yet unswerving, he once again overtook the eager leaders among his
scouts,--lean, wiry fellows, ever gliding swiftly on in that tireless
Apache running walk. Once there again, he kept his broncho at the trot
to hold his own, and a broncho trot, after a mile or two of warming up,
becomes something besides monotonous. Away to the far front, the
north-east, flickered the tiny blazes; guiding lights, as Willett would
have it; bale fires, as Harris began to believe--fires set by
confederates to blind the eye of the pursuit, or lure pursuers to a
trap. Away to the far front, seven miles now, and deep in a nook of the
foothills, lay the site of Bennett's ruined ranch, and thither, at top
speed of his scouts, was the young leader pressing. Not even a dull
glow in the heavens above, or a spark on the earth beneath, could the
sharp-eyed scouts discover to tell of its lonely fate. Only the dago's
horrified words, only the confirmative symptoms of these farther fires,
had these fly-by-night rescuers to warrant their mission. The story had
its probable side. Peaceable as had been the Apache-Mohaves, the fact
that a clash had occurred between them and some of the agent's
forces,--a clash in which Comes Flying had been killed,--might readily
turn the scale and send them on the war-path. If so, the first and
nearest whites were apt to be the victims. If so, Bennett and his
beloved wife and boys might well have been murdered in their beds--or
spared for a harsher fate. In any event, the first duty--the obvious
one--for Harris and his scouts was to reach the spot with all speed;
ascertain, if possible, the fate of the ranch folk, then act as their
discoveries might direct. All this Harris was turning over in mind as
he hurried ahead. The road, though little worn, was distinct, and now
that they were out of the bottom and skirting the stony bed of a little
mountain stream, quite firm and dry. Six miles an hour, easily, his
swarthy, half-naked fellows were making without ever "turning a hair."
His own lean broncho, long trained to such work, scrambled along in
that odd, short-legged trot, and Harris himself, trained to perfection,
hard and dry, all sinewy strength, rode easily along--he could have
done almost as well afoot--at the head of his men, keeping them to
their pace, yet never overdriving.

But with Willett the case was different. For him there had been no hard
and dry scouting. It had been wet work in the Columbia country. It had
been "hunt-your-hole business" in the lava beds, where the hat that
showed above the rocks was sure to get punctured. Then the month of
feasting in that most lavish of cities, "'Frisco, the Golden," and the
fortnight's voyage by sea, with further symposiums, and finally some
hours of frontier hospitality at Prescott and at Almy, all had combined
to spoil his condition, and before he had ridden forty minutes Hal
Willett found himself blown and shaken. He lagged behind to regain
breath, then galloped forward to lose it. He knew that Harris had left
him in anger and indignation not unjustifiable. He knew he had not full
warrant for his authority. He knew Harris was entitled to unhampered
command, and that he had hampered. Yet, now, believing that Harris was
pushing swiftly ahead as much to "shake" him as to reach the scene, he
again dug spurs to his laboring troop horse, and came sputtering over
the loose stones to the young leader's side.

"Harris," he puffed, "this is no way to work your men. They'll be blown
when you get there, and of no earthly use."

"You don't know them," answered Harris, with exasperating calm, and
without so much as a symptom of slowing up.

"But--I know how it affects--me,--and I'm no novice at scouting."

"You are to--this sort of thing, anyhow," was the uncompromising
answer, and then with a cool, comprehensive glance that seemed to take
in the entire man, he added, "You're out of training, Willett--the one
thing a man has to watch out for in Apache work. Better let me leave a
couple of men with you, and come on easily. You won't be very far
behind us."

And then, as bad luck would have it, 'Tonio came cantering up from the
rear, his big, lop-eared mule protesting to the last, and 'Tonio bore a
little folded paper.

He was not versed in cavalry etiquette, this chieftain of the frontier,
nor had he learned to read writing as he did men. The two officers at
the moment were side by side, Willett on the right, his charger
plunging and sweating with back set ears and distended nostrils; Harris
on the left, his broncho jogging steadily, sturdily on, showing no
symptom of weariness. "To Gran Capitan--Willett" were the general's
words, it seems, when he sent 'Tonio on his way with the note, but in
'Tonio's eyes Harris was "Gran Capitan," even though hailed at times as
"_Capitan Chiquito_," and to Harris's left 'Tonio urged his mount and
silently held forth the missive.

There was never any question thereafter that it was meant for the
other. Archer had his reasons. Willett was there as the aid, the
representative, of the department commander, charged with an important
duty. Willett had come to him, volunteered to go with the scouts, and
he had bidden him God speed. Willett was the senior in rank as first
lieutenant, promotions in the "Lost and Strayed" having been livelier
than in the "Light Dragoons." Moreover, Willett had shown proper
deference to him, the post commander, whereas, Harris, said he, in his
first impulsive, self-excusing mood, even though warranted in going,
had gone without a word. Sensitive and proud, the veteran of many
fights and many sorrows, ruefully bethinking himself of Harris's
abstinence and his own conviviality, saw fit to imagine Harris guilty
of an intentional slight.

Like noble old Newcombe, the gentlest and humblest-minded of men, "he
was furious if anybody took a liberty with him," and in his sudden
rousing and wrath this was what he thought Harris had done. It was to
humble him rather than to exalt Willett that he ignored the one and
hailed the other. "To Gran Capitan Willett," he said, and 'Tonio handed
the missive to the one "gran capitan" he knew and served and loved.

And Harris, never noting the pencil scrawl upon the back, proceeded to
tear it open, when Willett stretched forth his hand:

"I think you will find that is for me, Harris--an answer to what I
wrote," and his words had the distinct ring of authority. Harris
flushed, even in the moonlight; turned it over, read the unsteady
characters, "Lieutenant Willett, A.D.C.," surrendered it without a
word, and a second time drove ahead, while Willett reined up to read.

It was ten minutes before Willett again overtook the pale-faced young
officer at the front. Harris's mouth looked like a rigid gash, and his
battered felt was pulled down over a deep-lined forehead, as with stern
eyes he turned his head, but never his shoulder, in answer to his
classmate's imperative call.

"Rein in now, and listen to this, Harris. If you must have it, it's--by
order."

And Harris slowly checked his horse; silently inclined an ear.

    "Lieutenant Willett, it says," began the senior, with the sweat
    rolling into his eyes, "Your despatch received. The fires you
    mention indicate further hostile parties, 'Tonio insists not
    Mohaves. If not, must be Tontos. Therefore, move with caution.
    Stannard just saddling. Use your discretion as to waiting for him.

    "ARCHER, Commanding Post."

Then Willett turned. He had begun to refold, but ceased, and held it
forth. "Read it yourself, if you like." Harris's gauntlet came up in
protest. He bit his lip hard, but said no word. The scouts were but
white specks in the distance now. There was sudden cry, low, like that
of the night-bird, and 'Tonio dug his moccasined heels in his lop-eared
charger's ribs and drove out to the front, then turned in saddle,
looked back at his chief and pointed. Both officers instantly followed.

The trail led over a low spur, and the scouts had halted and were
squatting at the crest. Straightway before them, possibly four miles, a
dull red glow lay in the midst of the moonlight, with occasional
tongues of lurid flame lazily lapping at some smouldering upright. The
fire had spent its force; gorged itself on its prey and was sinking to
sleep.

"Come on then!" said Harris, speaking for the first time impetuously.
"If you can't stand the pace let us shove ahead!"

"And run slap into ambush? No. My orders are to move with caution.
We've got to _feel_ our way now. Hold your hand, Harris--and your men."

Barely fifty minutes had they been in coming these six miles from Almy.
Barely fifty minutes thereafter, and with less than three miles more to
their credit, halted for cautious reconnaissance, with the ruined ranch
still a long mile away, there came sound of feeble hail from a patch of
willows down by the brookside, and presently, in fearful plight, they
dragged forth Bennett's colored man-of-all-work, unharmed, but half
dead with terror. Yes, Indians had suddenly come in the early evening.
First warning was from the Maricopa boy who came running from the
spring, saying they had killed his brother. Bennett grabbed his gun and
ran out to see, telling him, Rusty, to take a rifle and hurry with Mrs.
Bennett and the children and hide in the willows down the creek. They
heard firing and yelling, and 'twas all Rusty could do, he said, to
keep Mrs. Bennett from running back to her husband, and the children
from screaming aloud, but he made them go with him still farther down
the valley, down to that patch yonder, and there they lay in hiding
while the Indians burned the ranch, and seemed hunting everywhere for
them, and at last things quieted down, but Mrs. Bennett was wild and
crazy and crying to go back and find her husband, dead or alive, and he
had to hold her. Just a few minutes ago, not fifteen minutes before,
she broke away, and he found it was no use trying. She started to run
back, telling him to save her boys. She kissed them both and went, and
it wasn't five minutes after that before he heard her scream awfully,
and the boys began to cry again, and then--then he saw two Indians
coming running, and he knew they'd got her and were coming for the
children, so what could he do but run and save himself?

"Lead on where you left them!" ordered Harris instantly, never waiting
for Willett to speak. Ten minutes brought them to the farther shelter,
a dense little willow copse, empty and deserted. "Come on to the
ranch," was the next order, but there Willett interposed.

"Carefully now. Let your scouts open out and feel the way," he ordered,
and Harris would not hear. Harris had thrown himself from his horse to
lead the search. He never stopped to remount. He ran like a deer up the
stony creek bed until he regained the road, his scouts following
pell-mell, and in ten minutes more they found him bending over the
lifeless body of brave, sturdy Jack Bennett, weltering in his blood at
the side of the spring house, and with no sign of the hapless, helpless
wife and mother anywhere.

"By God, Hal Willett!" cried Harris, as he sprang to his feet, all
dignity and deliberation thrown to the winds. "You may 'proceed with
caution' all you damned please. 'Tonio and I go after that poor woman
and her children. We'd have saved them _here_ if it hadn't been for
you!"




CHAPTER VII.


The dawn was breaking in sickly pallor over the jagged scarp of the
Mesa, bounding the chaotic labyrinth of bowlders, crag and canon
beneath. Far up the rugged valley, jutting from the faded fringe of
pine, juniper and scrub oak that bearded the Mogollon, a solitary butte
stood like sentry against the cloudless sky, its lofty crown of rock
just faintly signalling the still distant coming of the heralds of the
god of day. Here in the gloomy depths of the basin, and at the banks of
the murmuring stream, all was still silence and despond. The
smouldering ruins of Bennett's cosey home lay a mass of dull red coal,
with smoke wreaths sailing idly aloft from charred beam or roof-tree.
The mangled body of the stout frontiersman had been gathered into a
trooper's blanket and lay there near the pathetic ruin of the house he
had so hopefully builded, so bravely defended, for the wife and little
ones. Half a dozen Indian scouts, silent and dejected, were squatting
inert about the little garden, irrigated from the main _acequia_,
where the heavy-headed poppies, many of them, were still nodding on
their stalks, while others lay crushed and trampled. A little distance
away down the stream a little troop of cavalry, in most business-like
uniform, had dismounted and was watering some fifty thirsty horses,
while its stocky commander, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his
riding breeches, his slouch hat pulled down to his brows, his booted
foot kicking viciously at a clump of cactus, was listening impatiently
to the words of the young aide-de-camp, who seemed far less at ease
than when he trod the boards of the general's quarters some six hours
earlier in the night.

"Do I understand you then," and Stannard spoke with a certain asperity,
"that Mr. Harris, with just two or three scouts, has gone out hunting
on his own hook?--that even 'Tonio isn't with him?"

"He claimed the right to go, and I told him to take half a dozen--half
a score of the scouts, if need be, and leave the other half with me,
only I drew the line at 'Tonio. I needed him here. He is the only
Indian in the lot who understands enough English to catch my meaning
and to translate. I could let Harris go, or 'Tonio, separately, but not
both together. That left me powerless. Oh, yes, he objected. He said
'Tonio had always been his right bower--always had worked with him and
for him. But 'Tonio, not Harris, is the chief of scouts, the man they
look to and obey. Now he and most of his followers are here to do your
bidding. If Harris had been allowed his way, I'd have been probably
alone."

Stannard sniffed. "Which way'd he go?" he bluntly asked.

"I'm not sure. We were going to trail the moment it was light enough to
see. One thing is certain, they did not start in the direction of the
signals, though they may have veered off that way. 'Tonio is the only
one who claims to know anything. 'Tonio says 'Apache Tonto' was the
murderer, not Apache-Mohave, and 'Tonio's in the sulks. Look at him!"

Stannard glanced an instant toward the gaunt figure of the Apache,
standing dejectedly apart from all others and gazing fixedly toward the
dawn. The light was stronger now. The red was in the orient sky. The
distant butte was all aglow with the radiance of the rising yet
invisible sun. Stannard seemed more concerned in the whereabouts of Mr.
Harris than in the worries of Mr. Willett. Again he returned to his
questions.

"Well, did Harris give any inkling of his purpose--whether he meant to
follow the trail till he found captives and captors, or only till he
found where it probably led to? I've got to act, and lose no time.
Sergeant, tell the men to hurry with their coffee," he called, to the
brown-eyed, dark-featured soldier who was coming forward at the moment.
A salute was the only answer, as the sergeant turned about in his
tracks and signalled to the boy trumpeter, holding his own and the
captain's horse. Another moment and Stannard was in saddle.

"Harris didn't say," was the guarded answer. "You know, I suppose, that
he left the post without consulting the general, and he took it much
amiss that, in compliance with the general's orders, I exercised
certain authority after reaching him. Now you are here to take entire
charge, I turn over the whole business to you. There's what's left of
the scouts; there's what's left of the ranch; and there," with a glance
at the blanket-shrouded form, "is what's left of the Bennetts. I'll jog
back to the post by and by."

"Oh, then you're not going on with us?" said Stannard, relieved in
mind, he hardly knew why.

"No, sir, I only rode out here to investigate and report. We, of
course, hoped to save _some_thing."

"Pity you hadn't spared yourself and not spoiled the pie," thought
Stannard as he looked about him over the scene of desolation. The men
were snapping their tin mugs and the refilled canteens to the saddle
rings. The captain rode over to 'Tonio, a kindly light in his blue-gray
eyes. He whipped off the right gauntlet and held forth his hand.

"No Apache-Mohave!" said he stoutly. "Apache Tonto. Si! Now catch 'em
Teniente Harris." Poor lingo that "pidgin" Indian of the desert and the
long ago, but it served its purpose. 'Tonio grasped the proffered hand,
a grateful gleam in his black eyes; warned with the other hand the
captain's charger from certain tracks he had been jealously guarding;
then pointed eagerly, here, there, in half a dozen places, where
footprints were still unmarred in the powdery dust. "Si--si--Apache
Tonto!" and the long, skinny finger darted, close to the ground, from
one print to the other. "No Apache-Mohave! No!"

"Then come! Mount!" called Stannard. "Leave a corporal and four men
here as guard until the ambulance gets out from the post," he added, to
the first sergeant. "Mount the troop, soon's you're ready. I'm going
ahead with 'Tonio and the scouts. _Ugashi_, 'Tonio! Good-by, Mr.
Willett. Take one of the men, if you need an orderly," he shouted back,
over a flannel-shirted shoulder, innocent of badge or strap of any
kind. In point of dress or equipment there was absolutely no difference
between the captain of cavalry and his fifty men.

A moment later, spreading out over the low ground like so many hounds
throwing off for a scent, 'Tonio and his scouts were trotting away
toward a dip in the rugged heights to the north-east, for thither, the
moment it was light enough even faintly to see, the keen eyes of the
Apaches had trailed the fugitives, and now with bounding feet they
followed the sign, Tonio foremost, his mount discarded. Afoot, like his
fellows, and bending low, pointing every now and then to half turned
pebble, to broken twig or bruised weed, he drove ever eagerly forward,
the stolid bearing of the Indian giving way with each successive minute
to unusual, though repressed excitement. Thrice he signalled to
Stannard and pointed to the crushed and beaten sand--to toe or heel or
sole marks to which the Caucasian would have attached but faint
importance had not the aborigine proclaimed rejoicefully
"Apache-Mohave!" whereat Stannard shook his head and set his teeth and
felt his choler rising.

"Thought you swore Apache _Tonto_ awhile ago," said Stannard wrathfully.
"Now you're saying Apache _Mohave_!"

"Si! Si! Apache Tonto--kill--shoot. Apache-Mohave good Indian. Look,
see, _carry_," and with hands and arms in eager gesture he strove to
illustrate.

Could he mean that they who killed Bennett were hostile Tontos, and
that these who bore the poor widowed creature were of the Mohave blood?
If so, why should 'Tonio seem really to rejoice? Had he not strenuously
denied that his people took any part in the outrage? Was he not now
insisting that they were active in bearing her away--probably to
captivity and a fate too horrible? Stannard, riding close at his heels,
his men still following in loose skirmish order until they should reach
the ravine, studied him with varying emotion. Harris had certainly
betrayed a fear that 'Tonio was but half-hearted in the matter of
scouting after Apache-Mohaves. Now the suspected scout was trailing for
all he was worth, with the pertinacity of the bloodhound.

Broad daylight again, and the sun peering down from the crest of the
great Mesa, and the morning growing hot, and some new hands already
pulling eagerly at the canteens, despite their older comrades' warning.
And still the advance went relentlessly on. They were climbing a
rugged, stony ravine now, with bare shoulders of bluff overhanging in
places, and presently, from a projecting ledge, Stannard was able to
look back over the rude landscape of the lowlands. There to the west,
stretching north and south, was the long, pine-crested bulwark of the
Mazatzal, the deep, ragged rift of Dead Man's Canon toward the upper
end. Winding away southward, in the midst of the broad valley, the
stream shone like burnished silver in the shallow reaches, or sparkled
over rocky beds. Far to the south-west, the dull, dun-colored roofs and
walls of the post could barely be discerned, even with the powerful
binocular, against the brown barren of the low "bench" whereon it lay.
Only the white lance of the flagstaff, and the glint of tin about the
chimneys, betrayed its position. From north to far south-east ran the
palisade-like crest of the Black Mesa, while the Sierra Ancha bound the
basin firmly at the southward side. Deep in the ravines of the
foothills, where little torrents frothed and tumbled in the spring
tide, scant, thread-like rivulets came trickling now to join the gentle
flood of the lower Tonto and the East Fork of the Verde, and, at one or
two points along the Mesa, signal smokes were still puffing into the
breathless air. Below them, possibly six miles away, yet looking almost
within long rifle-shot, the square outline of the abandoned corral, the
blackened ruin of the ranch, with the adjacent patches, irrigated,
tilled, carefully tended--all Bennett's hard and hopeful toil gone for
nothing--told their incontrovertible tale of savage hate and treachery.
It was a sorry ending this, a wretched reward for the years of saving,
self-denial and steadfast labor of him who had lived so long at amity
among these children of the mountain and desert, giving them often of
his food and raiment, asking only the right to build up a little lodge
in this waste land of the world, where he need owe no man anything, yet
have home and comfort and competence for those he loved, and a welcome
for the wayfarer who should seek shelter at his door. It was the old,
old story of many a pioneer and settler, worn so threadbare at the
campfires of the cavalry that rough troopers wondered why it was that
white men dared so much to win so little. Yet, through just such
hardships, loneliness and peril our West was won, and they who own it
now have little thought for those who gave it them.

Stannard sighed as he closed his signal glass and turned again to the
duty in hand. "What's the trouble?" he bluntly asked his faithful
sergeant; lieutenants at the moment he had none.

"Check, sir. All rock and half a dozen gullies. Scouts are trying three
of them. Don't seem to know which way they went from here. Even a mule
shoe makes no print."

The troop, following its leader's example, without sound or signal had
dismounted, and stood in long column of files adown the ravine. 'Tonio
and his fellow-scouts had disappeared somewhere in the stony labyrinth
ahead. Up this way, before the dawn, the dusky band must have led or
driven their captives, two of Bennett's mules having been pressed into
service. Up this way, not an hour behind them, must have followed
Harris and his handful of allies, four Indians in all. Up this way,
swift and unerring thus far, 'Tonio, backed by half a dozen half-naked
young braves, had guided the cavalry, and never before, so said old
Farrier Haney, who had 'listed in the troop at Prescott, and had served
here with the previous regiment in '69--never before had he known
'Tonio so excited, so vehement. Beyond all question, 'Tonio's heart was
in the chase to-day.

[Illustration: Scrambling down the adjacent slope every man for
himself. Page 81]

But this delay was most vexatious. Every moment lost to the pursuit was
more than a minute gained by the pursued. Lighter by far and trained to
mountain climbing, the Apache covers ground with agility almost
goatlike. It was long after seven, said Stannard's watch, and not a
glimpse had they caught of Indian other than their own. It was just
half past the hour, and Stannard with an impatient snap of the
watch-case was about thrusting it back in his pocket, when, far to the
front, reechoing, resounding among the rocks, two shots sounded in
quick succession, followed in sudden sputter by half a dozen more.
"Turn your horses over to Number Four, men!" shouted Stannard.
"Sergeant Schreiber, remain in charge. The rest of you come on."

Scrambling up a rocky hillside, he led on to the divide before him--the
crest between two steep ravines--his men coming pell-mell and panting
after, every now and then dislodging a stone and sending it clattering
to the depths below. Two hundred yards ahead, at a sharp, angular
point, one of the Yuma scouts stood frantically waving his hand, and
thither Stannard turned his ponderous way. No lightweight he, and the
pace and climb began to tell. Eager young soldiers were at his heels,
but grim old Stauffer, the first sergeant, growled his orders not to
crowd; hearing which their captain half turned with something like a
grin: "Tumble ahead if you want to," was all he said, and tumble they
did, for the firing was sharp and fierce and close at hand, augmented
on a sudden as 'Tonio's little party reached the scene and swelled the
clamor with their Springfields. Another moment and, springing from rock
to rock, spreading out to the right and left as they came in view of a
little fastness along the face of a cliff, the troopers went scrambling
down the adjacent slope and, every man for himself, opened on what
could be seen of the foe. Some men, possibly, never knew what they were
firing at, but the big-barrelled Sharp's carbine made a glorious chorus
to the sputtering fire of the scouts. Five hundred yards away, bending
double, dodging from bowlder to bowlder, several swarthy Indians could
be seen in full flight, apparently. Then old 'Tonio threw up a hand
from across the stony chasm, signalled to his friends to cease, sprang
over a low barrier of rock, disappeared one moment from view, then a
few yards farther signalled "Come on." And on they went and came
presently upon an excited, jabbering group at a little cleft in the
hillside. A mule lay kicking in death agony down the slope. Another lay
dead among the bowlders. An Apache warrior, face downward in a pool of
blood, was sprawled in front of the cleft, and presently, from the
cavelike entrance, came Lieutenant Harris and 'Tonio, bearing between
them the form of an unconscious woman, and Stannard, as he came panting
to the spot, ordering everybody to fall back and give her air, and
somebody to bring a canteen, slapped Harris a hearty whack on the
shoulder, whereat that silent young officer suddenly wilted and dropped
like a log, and not until then was it seen he was shot--that his sleeve
and shirt were dripping with blood.

And just about that hour, less than thirty miles away, based on
Lieutenant Willett's verbal report, the commanding officer of Camp Almy
was writing a despatch to go by swift courier to department
head-quarters--a report which closed with these words:

    "The presence at this juncture of Lieutenant Willett, aide-de-camp
    to the department commander, was of great value and importance, and
    I trust that his decision to remain may meet approval. On the other
    hand, it is with regret that I am constrained to express my
    disapproval of the action of Lieutenant Harris, commanding scouts,
    who left the post with his men immediately after the alarm and
    without conference with me; was only overtaken by Lieutenant
    Willett after going several miles, and, when informed of my
    instructions, practically refused to be guided by them. Persuading
    a few of the scouts to follow him, he left the detachment, in spite
    of Lieutenant Willett's remonstrance, and started in pursuit of the
    marauders. As these must largely outnumber him, it is not only
    impossible that he should rescue the captives, but more than
    probable he has paid for his rashness with his life."




CHAPTER VIII.


"The Gray Fox" had but just received his promotion to the star, jumping
every colonel in the army. He had been doing mighty work among the
recalcitrant Apaches at a time when other commanders were having hard
luck in their respective fields--one, indeed, forfeiting his own
honored and valued life through heeding the sophistries of the Peace
Commissioners rather than the appeals of officers and men who long had
known the Modocs. For long years the warriors of the Arizona deserts
and mountains had bidden defiance to the methods of department
commanders who fought them from their desks at Drum Barracks, or the
Occidental, but George Crook came from years of successful campaigning
after other tribes, and in person led his troopers to the scene of
action. One after another the heads of noted chiefs were bowed, or
laid, at his feet. The pioneers, the settlers, the ranchmen and miners
took heart and hope again, and the marauders to the mountains. Then
came "our friends the enemy," from the far East, with petition and
prayer. Suspension of hostilities, on part of the troops at least, was
ordered, while most excellently pious emissaries arrived inviting the
warriors to come in, to be reasoned with, taught the error of their
ways and persuaded to promise to be good. The astute Apache had no
objection to such proceedings. He was certainly willing to have the
soldier quit fighting, just as willing to come and hear exhortation and
prayer, when coupled with presents and plenty to eat; most Indians
would be. So the new general stepped aside, as ordered, and left the
elders a fair field. "The Gray Fox" went hunting bear and deer, and
while the Apache chieftains went down to the Gila to reap what they
could from the lavish hands of the good and the gentle, their young men
swooped on the stage roads and scattered ranches, and made hay after
their own fashion while shone the sun of peace and promise. So happened
it along the Verde and Salado that the Apache came down like the wolf
on the fold, and so Harris had come up from the Southern Sierra, and
'Tonio had sworn that, all signs to the contrary notwithstanding, his
people were not, as the agent declared, the pillagers and pirates.
"Apache-Mohave? _No!_ No!!"

"The Gray Fox" had ventured to give his views to the War Department,
which in turn had ventured to express itself to the Secretary of the
Interior. But let us lose no time in following further. The Eastern
press, and such of the Eastern public as had any leisure to devote to
the subject, persisted in looking upon Indian affairs from the
viewpoint and remoteness of Boston, where once upon a time Miles
Standish and our Puritan forbears handled such matters in a manner
anything but Puritanical. Nothing was left to the military arm of the
Government but temporary submission, so, as has been said, "the Gray
Fox" went off on a hunt for bear, mountain lions, and such big game as
was reported to be awaiting him toward the Grand Canon to the north. An
adjutant-general of the old school was left in charge of the desk and
the department, and all on a sudden found that while Peace and its
commissioners held their sway far to the south, grim-visaged War had
burst upon the northward valleys, and chaos had come again.

The couriers bearing Archer's report to Prescott found others,
similarly burdened, from the upper reservation, from Camp Sandy, and
even from points to the west and south of department head-quarters, all
telling of death and depredation. So, while the chief of staff ruefully
digested these tidings at the office, the couriers proceeded to have a
time in town, to the end that, when replies and instructions were in
readiness to be sent out, only two of the six were in shape to take
them, and Archer's runner--one of the frontier scouts, half Mexican,
half Apache--was one of the two.

Now, the chief of staff had been nearly three years in Arizona, had
served in similar capacity to predecessors of "the Gray Fox," and
naturally thought he understood the Apache, and the situation, far
better than did his new commander, and the fact that he had allowed
this conviction to be known had led to a degree of official friction
between himself and the one aide-de-camp left that was fast verging on
the personal. Bright, almost invariably the companion of the general in
his journeyings, was even now with him, lost in the mountains ninety
miles in one direction; Willett, the newly appointed aide-de-camp, was
with the commander of Camp Almy, ninety miles away in another, while
black-bearded Wickham stood alone at Prescott. Wickham had not been
consulted when Willett was sent with confidential instructions to Almy.
Wickham would have disapproved, and the chief of staff knew it. Wickham
_had_ to be shown Archer's despatch, though the adjutant-general
would gladly have concealed it, and now, in chagrin at the outcome of
affairs at Almy, and in consternation at the ebullition all around him,
the adjutant--general was quite at a loss what to do. Wickham, if
asked, would have said at once, "Send for General Crook," but that
would be confession that he, the experienced, did not know how to
handle the situation. So again he took no counsel with Wickham, but
issued instructions in the name of the department commander and ordered
them carried out forthwith.

Then it transpired that only two couriers were fit to go. Thereupon,
the commanding officer of the one cavalry troop at the post was ordered
to detail three non-commissioned officers, with a brace of troopers
apiece, as bearers of despatches to Date Creek, Wickenberg, Sandy and
the reservation, while Sanchez, the Mexican-Apache Mercury, was ordered
to hasten back to Almy by way of the Mazatzal. It was then but ten
A.M., and to the annoyance of the adjutant-general, Sanchez shook his
black mane and said something that sounded like _hasta la noche_--he
wouldn't start till night. Asked why, the interpreter said he feared
Apache Tontos, and being assured by the adjutant-general that no Tonto
could be west of the Verde, intimated his conviction of the officer's
misinformation by the only sign he knew as bearing on the matter--that
of the forked tongue, which called for no interpreter, as it concisely
said, You lie. Sanchez meant neither insult nor insolence, but the
adjutant-general regarded it as both, ordered another sergeant and two
men got ready at once to ride to Almy, and bade the interpreter take
Sanchez to the post guard-house and turn him over for discipline to the
officer of the day. The sergeant started forty minutes later, with his
two men at his back, and just thirty-five minutes behind Sanchez, who
left the station on the spur of the moment, and the interpreter with a
cleft weasand. It is a mistake for one man to attempt the incarceration
of an armed half-blood of the Indian race. Sanchez started in the lead,
afoot, and, in spite of his fear of Tontos, kept it all the way to the
Mazatzal, where, as was later learned, he abandoned the paths of
rectitude and the trail to Almy, and joining a party of twenty young
renegades, complacently watched the coming of that sergeant and
detachment from behind the sheltering bowlders of Dead Man's Canon, and
thus it happened that the orders Archer had been expecting three long
days and nights were destined never to get to him.

It was this situation he had been puzzling over when at ten P.M. the
officer of the day came in to say that new signal fires in the east
were now being answered by others in the west, away over in the
Mazatzal, and the general went forth to the northern edge of the
"bench" to have a good look at them, wishing very much he had Stannard
or Turner or "Capitan Chiquito"--little Harris--to help him guess their
meaning.

But Stannard, with his sturdy troop, was still far afield, scouting the
fastnesses of the Mogollon in hopes still of overtaking the marauding
band that had ruined Bennett's ranch, murdered its owner, and borne
away into the wilds two helpless little settlers for whom a
half-crazed, heart-broken woman at Almy was wailing night and day.
Turner, following another route and clew, was exploring the Sierra
Ancha south of Tonto Creek, and Lieutenant Harris, in fever and
torment, was occupying an airy room in the post surgeon's quarters, the
object of Bentley's ceaseless care, and of deep solicitude on part of
the entire garrison.

Borne in the arms of Stannard's men, poor young Mrs. Bennett, raving,
had been carried back to the ruins, and thence by ambulance to the
post. There now she lay with her reason almost gone, nursed by the
hospital steward's wife, and visited frequently by three gentle women,
whose hearts were wrung at sight of her grief. Mrs. Stannard sometimes
spent hours in the effort to soothe and comfort her. Mrs. Archer was
hardly less assiduous, but was beginning now to have anxieties of her
own. Lilian, her beloved daughter, fancy free, as the mother had reason
to know, up to the time of their coming to this far-away,
out-of-the-way station, seemed dangerously near the point of losing her
heart to that very attractive and presentable fellow, Willett, the
aide-de-camp, and Mrs. Archer did not half like it.

When the news was brought in to Almy that Mrs. Bennett had been
recaptured, and that Lieutenant Harris was wounded in the fight which
scattered her abductors, Willett was the first to mount and away to
meet them. It was his orderly who came galloping back for the ambulance,
and Willett who, before the arrival of the surgeon, had caused to be
rigged up a capital litter on which, later, by easy stages his
suffering classmate was borne to the post. Harris was indeed sorely
hurt, so sorely that the faintest jar was agony. Harris was weak and
pallid from suffering when lifted to his couch in the doctor's
quarters, bearing it all with closed eyes and clinching teeth,
suppressing every sound. The general was there to bear a hand and speak
a word of cheer, all the time wishing it were possible to overtake the
courier, by that time nearly twenty-four hours on his way to Prescott,
that he might amend the wording of that report. He was for sending a
"supplementary" that very evening, but who was there to send? Sanchez
was the only available post courier. The scouts were away with the
cavalry. Both troops were now afield. Barely a dozen horses were left
at the post, and every able-bodied, ambitious cavalryman was with his
comrades on the trail. They who remained were the extra duty men, or
the weaklings. Moreover, when Archer spoke of it to Willett, the latter
very diplomatically argued against it. Wait a day and something _worth_
sending would surely turn up. Two such captains as Stannard and Turner
could not fail to accomplish something. They could be counted on to
find the hostiles and punish them wherever found. Moreover, as yet,
there were only evil tidings to send, for so the wounding of Harris
would be regarded, and the recapture of poor Mrs. Bennett without her
children would hardly compensate. There was still another thing to be
considered, but even Willett balked at saying this. He had said enough
to induce Archer to hold his hand another day at least, so why use more
ammunition until he had to?

Two days, therefore, had gone by without news from the field column or
further message to Prescott. Then it was easy to persuade Archer that
it was best to wait the return of Sanchez, and, for Willett, those two
days, especially the long, exquisite evenings, had been full of- sweet
and thrilling interest. "I should be more with Harris, I suppose you
are thinking," he had said to Lilian Archer, "and there I would be,
but--I cannot rid myself of the feeling that he would rather be alone.
He always was peculiar, and I seem to worry rather than to help him."

"But you were classmates," said she, "and I thought----"

"Classmates, yes," he answered, "but never much together. Even
classmates, you know, are not always intimates."

"Still I should think that now--here----" she began again, her hand
straying listlessly over the strings of her guitar, her slender fingers
trying inaudible chords.

He glanced over his shoulder to where Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard,
fast becoming warm friends, were in chat near the open doorway. Then
his handsome head was lowered, and with it the deep, melodious voice.

"Can you not think that here, and now, I might have greater need of
every moment? Any hour may bring my marching orders."

She drew back, just a little. This was only the evening after his
return with the wounded. "You always welcome field orders," she
ventured.

"I always have--hitherto."

The voice of Mrs. Archer was uplifted at this juncture, just a bit.
"Lilian, dear, you and Mr. Willett would be wise to pull your chairs
this way. I've never liked that corner since 'Tonio's discovery. Where
_is_ 'Tonio, Mr. Willett?"

"I wish I knew, Mrs. Archer," said Willett, rising and holding forth a
hand to aid Miss Archer to her feet--something she did not need, yet
took. "He was with Stannard when I left. He was with him when they
rescued Mrs. Bennett. He was said to be all distress when he saw that
Harris was hit--and then he disappeared. Stannard's last despatch said
he had not rejoined."

It was another beautiful, moonlit evening, and the post was very still.
The men of Archer's two infantry companies were clustered about their
log barracks or wandering away by twos and threes to the trader's store
on the flats. The general was pacing the parade in earnest and murmured
talk with the post adjutant. Bentley, the surgeon, was busy with his
charges, having left Harris in a fitful, feverish doze. Not since the
night of the calamity at Bennett's had the sentries reported sign of
signal fire in the hills, but this night, before the last filament of
gold had died at the top of the peak, Number Four had caught a glimpse
of a tiny blaze afar over to the east, and instantly passed the word.
Only half an hour it was observed, and then, away toward the
south-east, an answering gleam burned for a moment against the black
background of the Sierras. Then both went out as suddenly as they
started.

The general was dining at the moment, and, believing that the fires
would not so soon be extinguished, the officer of the day had not at
once reported them. He was at Archer's door as the veteran came forth,
haranguing Willett, again his guest at dinner, but with anxious eyes
turned at once to hear the report. "No matter what time it happens," he
said, "hereafter, when signals are seen, let the guard notify me at
once." And the officer retired musing over this bit of evidence that
the commanding officer was growing a trifle irritable.

It was soon after guard mount next day that two runners from Sandy had
come in, weary and hungry. "'Patchie sign--_todas partes_," said the
leader, after delivering his despatch. But he, too, was half Apache and
had squirmed through without mishap. For two hours after reading Archer
kept the contents to himself. The adjutant-general wished to consult
him at Prescott. Ninety miles north-west by buckboard, through a
country infested by hostile Indians! It was a trip he little cared to
take and leave his wife and daughter here! At noon he had had to tell
them, and tell Willett, who was teaching Lilian a fandango he had heard
on the Colorado. Mother and daughter looked anxiously at each other and
said nothing. It was decided he should wait until night before
arranging when to start. Surely this night should bring news of some
kind.

And surely enough, at ten came the summons that took him, field-glass
in hand, to the northward edge of the little mesa again. Somewhere in
the direction of Diamond Butte, almost due east, one fire was brightly
blazing. Over in the Mazatzal to the westward there were two, and even
as they stood and studied them, Archer dropped his glasses at an
exclamation of surprise from one of his officers, and there, gaunt and
weary, yet erect and fearless, stood 'Tonio. Like a wraith he seemed to
have blown in among them, and now patiently awaited the attention of
the commander; yet, when accosted, all he would say in answer to
question, for they knew not his native tongue, was "_Capitan Chiquito_!"

So they led him to the doctor's quarters, and Bentley tiptoed in to see
what Harris was doing. He was awake, in pain and fever, but clear-headed.
"Of course I'm able to see 'Tonio," said he. "I _need_ to see him."
Whereupon shufflings were heard in the hallway without, and presently
in the dim lamplight 'Tonio knelt by the young chief's side, took the
clutching white hand and laid it one instant on his head. To no other
of their number had 'Tonio ever tendered such homage. Rising to his
feet, he looked about him, his glittering eyes fixed one moment in mute
appeal; another moment, and gloomily, they studied Willett's handsome
face. Then he spoke, Harris half haltingly explaining. It began
languidly on the latter's part. It quickly changed to excitement, then
to vehement life. 'Tonio was telling of some sharp encounter wherein
women and children had been slain, whereby the mountain tribes were all
aroused, and then he had gone on to declare what Indian vengeance would
demand. Impassioned, 'Tonio threw himself at the first pause on his
knees by the side of the cot whereon lay his beloved _Capitan_, and it
was to him he spoke. It was he who translated:

"No one," said 'Tonio, "should venture beyond sentry post either day or
night. Even now the rocks and woods about the station were full of
foemen. Get ready to fight them and to take care of the women and
children. They mean revenge! They mean attack! Renegade Apaches!" said
he, "all renegade! Apache-Mohave, no!"




CHAPTER IX.


The night was still young. The conference at the surgeon's house was
brief, for Bentley, fearing for his patient, hustled all but 'Tonio out
into the open air just as soon as the Indian signalled "I have spoken,"
which meant he would tell no more. Brief as it was, the interview had
sent the wounded officer's pulse uphill by twenty beats, and Bentley
knew what that meant. Still it had to be. 'Tonio brought tidings of
ominous import, and the public safety demanded that his warning should
be made known, and who was there to translate but Harris? "If it were
only Chinook, now," said Willett, "I could have tackled it, but, except
a few signs, Apache is beyond me."

So while the doctor was giving sedatives to his patient, and the
doctor's servant giving food to 'Tonio, Archer gathered his few
remaining officers about him in the moonlight and discussed the
situation. From 'Tonio's description, the affray that had aroused the
Apaches far and wide had occurred three days earlier, just at dawn,
among the rocky fastnesses of the Mogollon, perhaps "two sleeps" to the
north-east, the very direction in which Stannard was scouting. But it
wasn't Stannard's command. 'Tonio said the soldiers were from up the
Verde, and the scouts were Hualpais, and then Archer understood.
Between the Hualpais, finest and northernmost of the Arizona tribesmen,
and the Tonto Apache there had long been feud. It was evident from
'Tonio's description that a _rancheria_ of the latter had been
surprised--"jumped" in the vernacular--just about dawn; that the
Hualpais, rushing in, rejoicing in abundant breechloaders and
cartridges, had shot right and left, scattering the fugitives and
slaying the stay-behinds, who, crippled by wounds or cumbered by squaws
and pappooses, could not get away. The soldiers, though only a hundred
yards or so behind, were slow climbers as compared with the scouts, and
though the few officers and men did what they could to stop the
wretched killing, a few women and children were found among the dead,
and the word was going the length of the Sierra, far to the south-east,
and would never stop till it reached Sonora and Chihuahua, that the
white chief had ordered his soldiers to kill, so they might as well die
fighting.

"If they were to concentrate now, first on Stannard, and then on
Turner," said Archer--"ambuscade them in a canon, say--I'm afraid we'd
see few of their fellows again."

"Or if they only knew their strength," spoke up the only captain left
at the post, "and were to concentrate, say, five hundred fighting men
upon us here, it's little the rest of the world would ever see of
_us_."

Archer turned half-angrily upon the speaker. "You never yet, Captain
Bonner, have heard of Apaches attacking a garrisoned post, even though
the garrison was smaller than ours, and I believe you never will. The
question _I_ have to settle is how to send warning to our two field
columns."

For a moment there was none to offer suggestion. There were present
only seven officers, all told, Bentley being still with his young
patient. Anxious eyes were watching the little group, their white coats
gleaming in the moonlight. Over at the barracks a score of soldiers,
slipping from their bunks, clustered at the wide-open doors and
windows. Over at the hospital two or three convalescents, with the
steward and the nurse, sat gazing from the shaded piazza. Over at the
commander's quarters Mrs. Archer, Mrs. Stannard and Lilian, sitting
closer for comfort, murmured occasional words, but their eyes seldom
quit their anxious scrutiny. To Mrs. Stannard it was no novel
experience. To Mrs. Archer and her daughter, despite their longer years
in the army, it was thrillingly new. In the utter silence on the line
and throughout the garrison the rhythmic tramp of feet, muffled by
distance, could not fail to catch their straining ears, and far over
across the parade, behind the barracks, betrayed by the glint of the
moonlight on sloping steel, a shadowy little detachment went striding
away toward the nearest sentry post.

"They are doubling the guard," said Mrs. Stannard. Then the group at
the flagstaff broke up. Three officers went with the commander toward
the office, others toward the company quarters. One came swiftly,
purposely, toward the waiting trio. Lilian knew it was Willett even
before they could recognize his walk and carriage. Mrs. Archer rose to
meet him. All they yet knew was that 'Tonio was in with tidings of some
kind--Doyle had told them that.

"Tell us what you can," was all she said.

"The time-honored tale of Indian uprising," said Willett airily.
"Something I've heard every six weeks, I should say, since they gave me
a sword."

"But they've doubled the guard."

"Only changed it, I fancy. The general wants some few cavalrymen for a
scout in the Mazatzal."

Mrs. Stannard knew better, but held her peace. The object at least was
laudable, if not the lie. All three had risen now and were standing at
the edge of the veranda, Mrs. Archer's gentle, anxious eyes following
the soldierly form just vanishing within the shadows at the office,
Lilian's gaze fixed upon the handsome features of the young soldier
before her.

"'Tonio brought news, did he not?" asked Mrs. Stannard.

"'Tonio had to tell _some_thing, you know, to cover his mysterious
movements. 'Tonio's story may be cock and bull for all we know. It is
just such a yarn as I have heard told many a time and oft in the
Columbia basin. Most Indians are born liars, and 'Tonio has everything
to gain and nothing to lose in telling a believable whopper now. 'Tonio
says his people are persecuted saints, and all others perjured sinners."

And just then, through the silence of the night, there rose upon the
air, distant yet distinct, the prolonged, anguished, heart-broken wail
of a woman in dire distress--a Rachel mourning for her children, and
refusing to be comforted. There was instant scraping of chairs on the
hospital porch, and one or two shadows vanished within the dimly
lighted doorway. "Oh, poor Mrs. Bennett!" cried Mrs. Archer. "I'm going
over a little while. Come, Lilian."

"Let me go with you," said Mrs. Stannard, ever sympathetic with young
hearts and hopes. But Lilian had been well trained and--went, the two
wives and mothers walking arm in arm in front, the other two, the girl
of eighteen, the youth of twenty-five, gradually dropping behind. The
elders entered the building, following the wife of the hospital
steward; the juniors paced slowly onward to the edge of the low bluff
overlooking the moonlit valley, with the shining stream murmuring over
its shallows in the middle distance. Lilian's white hand still rested
on the strong arm that drew it so closely to the soldier's side, and
both were for the moment silent. He seemed strangely quiet and
thoughtful, and she stood beside him now with downcast eyes and
fluttering heart, for, as she would have followed her mother, he had
bent his head and, almost in whisper, said:

"Come--one minute. It may be my last chance."

And the girl in her had yielded, as what girl would not?

Presently he began to speak, and now his head was bowing low; his eyes,
though she saw them not, were drinking in the lily-like beauty of the
sweet, downcast face. One quick look she flashed at him as he began,
then the long lashes swept her cheek.

"I could not tell your mother the whole truth, just then," he began.
"I've got to tell you something of it now. Until to-night I never knew
what it was to--to shrink from news of action. Now--I know."

She wanted to hear "why," even when her own heart was telling her. She
wanted him to say, yet coquetted with her own desire. "Is--it serious
news?" she faltered.

"So serious that Stannard, or Turner, or both, may be in grave danger,
and there's no one to go and warn them but--me!"

"You?" and up came the troubled, beautiful eyes.

"Yes. Ask yourself who else there is. The scouts are gone. Sanchez has
not returned. There's but a baker's dozen of troopers and troop horses
left at the post. The general needs to send a little party to explore
the Mazatzal. 'Tonio can't be trusted. Harris has--practically--put
himself out of it. Don't you know me well enough to know--I've got to
go?"

She was only just eighteen. She had lived her innocent life at that
fond mother's side. She had read of knightly deeds in many an hour, and
her heroes were such as Ivanhoe and William Wallace, Bayard and Philip
Sidney, the Black Prince and Henry of the snow-white plume. Four days
agone her heart had first stood still, then thrilled with girlish
admiration when they told her how Harris had met his serious wound,
and, for just that day, that soldierly young trooper was the centre of
her stage. Then Willett returned, with a different version, and other
things to murmur to her listening ears. Then Willett had been at
leisure two--three--long days, and, save that mournful tragedy at the
ranch, casting its spell over the entire post, sufficient in itself to
strike terror to a girlish soul, to inspire it to seek strength and
protection of the stronger arm, what else was there to occupy the heart
of a young maid here at sun-baked, mud-colored, monotonous old Almy?
The one thing that would transform a desert into paradise had blossomed
in her fair, innocent, girlish bosom, and he who had marked the
symptoms many a time knew that the pretty bird was fluttering to his
hand. The one precaution needful was--no sudden shock--no word or deed
to bring rude awakening.

But even now she stood, trembling a bit, trying _not_ to believe that
he must leave the post--must leave her, and on so dangerous a mission.
She was silent because she knew not what to say, yet knew that what he
had said almost turned her cold with dread. He saw the hesitancy, and
struck again:

"Must go--to-night."

"Oh, Mr. Willett!" And now the little face, uplifted suddenly, was
piteous as he could wish. It fell again for shame at her self-betrayal,
for sheer helplessness and dismay, for the sudden realization of what
the long days now would be without him, for what life might be if he
never came back. With all her pride and strength and maidenly reserve
she was struggling hard to fight back the sob that was rising to her
throat, the tears that came welling to her eyes, but he _would_ have
the tribute of both, and murmured again:

"Lilian, little girl, don't you _know_ why I cannot bear to go--just
yet?"

And then, shaking from head to foot, she bowed her face upon her hands,
and Willett's arms were around her in the instant, and after one little
struggle, she nestled in a moment, sobbing, on his heart. She did not
even see the sentry coming slowly up the path, and when girl or woman
is blind to all about her but just one man, her love is overwhelming.

It was he who whispered word of warning, as his lips pressed their
kisses on her soft and wavy hair. It was he who calmly hailed the
guardian of the night, asking if further sign had been seen, adding,
"Runners may well be coming in to-night, just as did 'Tonio." It was he
who promptly, cordially answered Mrs. Archer, calling Lilian from the
angle of the hospital, kneeling instantly as though to fasten a
loosened bootlace. And then, as he presently led his silent captive
back toward the parade, talked laughingly of the sentry's broken
English, imitating so well the accent of the Rhineland.

"No word of this just yet," he murmured, ere they reached the general's
door, and saw that veteran hospitably awaiting them. "It is so sudden,
so sweet a surprise. Come what may now, I shall not go until I have
seen _you_ again. What, general? Sangaree? I'd like it above all
things!"

Two horsemen came trotting across the parade, threw themselves from
saddle, and one stepped swiftly to the group, his hand at the hat brim
in salute.

"Well, sergeant, you _have_ been prompt!" the general was saying. "You
have your letter for Captain Turner?--and Woodrow is to follow Captain
Stannard? Good again! Do most of your trailing by night. The Apaches
are cowards in the dark, and you can't miss the trail. God be with you,
my men! Your names go to General Crook in my first report!"

Another moment and they were away, and two more had taken their
place--two who waited while Mrs. Stannard pencilled a few hurried words
to her "Luce," while Lilian, with a world of rapture, thanksgiving and
rejoicing in her heart, was striving to regain self-control, and avoid
her mother's eye, a thing she never before had done, nor would she now
be doing but for that splendid, knightly, heroic, self-poised,
soldierly fellow, standing so commandingly, gracefully there,
conferring one minute with her soldier father, and the next--helping
Mrs. Archer to more small talk and sangaree.




CHAPTER X.


The night had gone by without alarm. No further signals were seen. No
runners came in. Poor Mrs. Bennett, under the influence of some
soothing medicine, had fallen asleep. The doctor, coming in late from a
visit to the hospital, found Harris still wakeful, but not so feverish,
and 'Tonio, worn and wearied, stretched on a Navajo blanket, seemed
sleeping soundly on the side piazza, just without the door. The general
and Willett had sat and smoked, with an occasional toddy, until after
the midnight call of the sentries, the former still expectant of the
return of Sanchez; the latter pondering in mind certain theories of
Wickham as to the Apache situation, to which at first he had paid
little heed. If Wickham were right, then Sanchez might never have
reached Prescott. If so, the general need never have to amend that
report.

And that the matter troubled Archer more than a little Willett was not
too pleased to see. Moreover, it was evident that not only Bentley, the
surgeon, but Strong, the young adjutant, Bucketts, the veteran cavalry
subaltern doing duty as post quartermaster, and the three company
officers of Archer's regiment stationed at Almy--all were determined to
consider Harris decidedly in the light of the hero of the recent
episode. It was a matter Willett would not discuss with them, nor, when
they somewhat pointedly referred to Harris and his part in the affair,
was it Willett's policy to say aught in deprecation. As "the
representative of the commanding general" temporarily at the post, and
observing the condition of affairs, it was his proper function to give
all men his ear and none his tongue, to hear everything and say
nothing. But the adjutant knew, and had not been able to keep entirely
to himself, the fact that Sanchez was the bearer of a report adverse to
Lieutenant Harris--that no modification thereof had been prepared--even
after Harris was brought in dangerously wounded, the result of his
daring effort to rescue an unfortunate woman from a fearful fate. The
adjutant had gone so far as to hint to that much-loved lieutenant-colonel
of infantry, Brevet Brigadier-General Archer, that he should be glad to
write at his dictation a report setting Harris right, as surely as the
other had set him wrong, and for the first time Strong found his
commanding officer petulant and testy. It was exactly what Archer
himself thought it his duty to do, yet he was annoyed that any one else
should think so. Moreover, he had taken counsel with Willett, and
Willett had said that he would be the last man to deny a classmate and
comrade any honor justly his due, nor would he stand in the way of
General Archer's writing anything he saw fit, _but_, as the officer
present on the spot and cognizant of all the circumstances connected
with Harris's going, _he_ had yet a report to make to the department
commander.

"Frankly, general," said he, "I do not wish to say what I know unless I
have to--and your changing your report might make it necessary."

This had occurred the night before 'Tonio's coming, and now, in the
silence of midnight, as the two sat smoking on the veranda, while
Lilian lay in her little white room listening in wordless rapture, in
sweet unrest, to the murmurous sound of the deep voice that had
enthralled her senses, while Mrs. Archer, wife and mother, slept the
sleep of the just and the wearied, the old general turned again to that
subject that weighed so heavily on his heart and soul.

"By heaven, Willett," he said, "here it is midnight and no Sanchez. If
he isn't in by mail-time to-morrow I'll have to send a party--or else a
courier--to Prescott."

"Does the mail usually reach you Sunday, sir?"

"Hasn't failed once since my coming! They send it by way of McDowell,
over on the Verde. If Sanchez isn't here, or the mail either, I'll know
that 'Tonio was right, that we're hemmed in, and that they have killed
our messengers. And they are expecting to hear from me at
head-quarters, and probably wondering at my silence. Another thing to
be explained."

"Another?" said Willett.

"Another. Of course I must straighten out that matter about Harris. I
own I sent it under wrong im--impressions. I thought at first he had
ignored my authority, but that was unjust. The more I think of it, the
more I blame myself."

"Then--how you must blame _me_!"

"Well--no! You doubtless feel that he did ignore you and your authority,
though I own it wasn't my intention that you should assume _command_
over him. You are both young and you perhaps judge more sharply than I,
but I've learned to know the fallibility of human judgment. I've
suffered too much from it myself, and the fact stares me in the face
that Harris knew just what ought to be done, and went and did it. He
rescued that poor creature at the risk of his life, and he--deserves
the credit of it."

Willett was silent a moment. He seemed reluctant to speak. Finally and
slowly he said:

"General Archer, it is an ungracious thing to pull down another man's
reputation, especially when, as in this case, Harris and I are
classmates and I, at least, am _his_ friend. And, therefore, I still
prefer to say nothing. I was in hopes that Captain Stannard and his
fellows might be back by this time, with the Bennett boys for one
thing, and with--the truth for another."

"What truth?" demanded Archer.

"The real truth--as I look upon it--the real credit of that rescue, you
will find, sir, belongs to Stannard and his troop, with such little aid
as they may have received from those who advised and guided them--the
scouts. _But_ for Stannard the hostiles would have gotten away, not
only with Mrs. Bennett, but with Harris. Harris made a hare-brained
attempt to rescue her single-handed. He only succeeded in running his
own neck into a noose. Your wisdom, and God's mercy, sent Stannard just
in the nick of time, and there's the whole situation in a nut shell."

For a moment Archer was silent. Who does not like to hear praise of his
wisdom, especially when self-inclined to doubt it?

"But the doctor tells me Harris had the Indians on the run before ever
Stannard was sighted--that he and his handful of scouts alone attacked,
defeated and drove them, that his scouts were chasing them and were
mistaken themselves for hostiles, and were fired at by Stannard's men
at long range."

"Yes," said Willett, with calm deliberation. "That is just the story I
should expect Harris to tell."

And sore at heart, and far from satisfied, the general suggested a
nightcap, and Willett presently left him, though not, as it
subsequently transpired, for the adjutant's quarters and for bed. It
was late the following day before his next appearance near the Archers.

Sunday morning had come, as peaceful and serene as any that ever broke
on New England village, and Sunday noon, hot and still, and many an
hour since early sun up anxious eyes had scanned the old McDowell
trail, visible in places many a mile before it disappeared among the
foothills of the Mazatzal, but not a whiff of dust rewarded the eager
watchers.

Archer's binocular hung at the south-west pillar of the porch, and
another swung at the northward veranda of the old log hospital. The
road to Dead Man's Canon wound along the west bank of the stream,
sometimes fording it for a short cut, and that road, the one by which
Sanchez should have come, was watched wellnigh as closely as the other.
Nothing up to luncheon time had been seen or heard of human being
moving without the limits of the post; nothing by Lilian Archer of her
gallant of the night before.

In times of such anxiety men gather and compare notes. The guard had
been strengthened during the night, and its members sat long in the
moonlight, chatting in low tone. The officer of the day, making the
rounds toward two o'clock, noted that the lights were still burning at
the store, and, sauntering thither, found a game going on in the common
room--Dago seeking solace from his sorrows in limited monte with three
or four employes and packers, while in the officers' room was still
another, with only one officer present and participating. To Captain
Bonner's surprise Lieutenant Willett, aide-de-camp, was "sitting in"
with Bill Craney, the trader, Craney's brother-in-law and partner, Mr.
Watts, Craney's bookkeeper, Mr. Case, a man of fair education and
infirm character who had never, it was said, succeeded in holding any
other position as long as six months. Here, as Craney admitted, he
hadn't enough to occupy him three weeks out of the four, and, so long
as he could tend to that much, he was welcome to "tank up" when he
pleased. That clerk had been a gentleman, he said, and behaved himself
like one now, even when he was drunk. The officers treated him with
much consideration, but to no liquor. Willett, knowing nothing of his
past, had been doing the opposite, and Mr. Case's monthly spree was
apparently starting four days ahead of time. Moreover, Mr. Case seemed
inspired by some further agent, for though unobtrusive, almost, as
ever, he was possessed with a strange, feverish impulse to pit himself
against Willett, and almost to ignore all others in the game. A fifth
player was a stranded prospector whom Craney knew, and presumably
vouched for. Luck must have been going Willett's way in violation of
the adage, at the time of Bonner's entrance, for the table in front of
him was stacked high with chips, and four men of the five were
apparently getting excited.

Bonner seldom played anything stronger than casino and cribbage, nor
did he often waste an hour, night or day, in the card room. This night,
however, he was wakeful, and had seen that which even made him a trifle
nervous. He had visited every sentry post, finding his men alert and
vigilant. 'Tonio's words had already been communicated to the guard,
and self-preservation alone prompted every man to keep a sharp lookout.
Bonner had noted as he stepped out on the side porch of his quarters,
where hung the big earthen olla in its swathing bands, that 'Tonio lay,
apparently sound asleep, at the side door of the doctor's quarters, and
Bonner found himself pondering over the undoubted devotion of this
silent, lonely son of the desert to the young soldier lying wounded
within. Bonner left him as he found him. 'Tonio had not stirred. Barely
twenty minutes thereafter, as he finished examination of the two
sentries on the north front, and came down along the bank at the rear
of the officers' quarters, he found Number Five, a Civil War veteran
and, therefore, not easily excited, kneeling at the edge, with his
rifle at "ready," gazing steadily toward a clump of willows at the
stream bed, some five hundred feet away, listening so intently that the
officer halted, rather than mortify him by coming on his post
unchallenged. The brilliant moonlight made surrounding objects almost
as light as day, and Bonner could see nothing unusual or unfamiliar
along the sandy flat to the east. So, finally, he struck his scabbard
against a rock by way of attracting Number Five's attention, and
instantly the challenge came.

"What was the matter, Five?" asked Bonner, after being advanced and
recognized, and the answer threw little light upon the subject.

"I wish I knew, sir, but there was some one--crying--down there in the
bush--not five minutes ago."

"Crying! You're crazy, Kerrigan!"

"That's what _I_ said, sir, when first I heard it, but--whist now!"

Both men bent their ears--the veteran sentry, the veteran company
commander. Both had spent years in service, in the South in the war
days, in the West ever since, and neither was easily alarmed.

As sure as they stood there somebody was sobbing--a low,
heart-breaking, half-stifled sound, down there somewhere among the
willows, that for two hundred yards, at least, lined the stream. "Come
with me," said the captain instantly, and together the two went
plunging down the sandy slope and out over the flats beneath, and into
the shadows at the brink, and up and down the low bank between the
fords, and not a living being could they find.

"What first caught your ear?" asked Bonner, as together, finally, they
came plodding back.

"Sure, I heard the captain come out on his side porch for a drink at
the olla, sir, and saw him step over and look at the doctor's place
before starting for the guard-house, and I knew he'd be around this way
and was thinking to meet him up yonder where Number Four is, when I
heard Six down here whistling to me, and when I went Six said as how
the dogs way over at the store was barking a lot, and he said had I
seen or heard anything in the willows--he's that young fellow that
'listed back at Wickenburg after the stage holdup--and while we was
talkin' he grabbed me and said, 'Listen! There's Indians out on the
bluff! I heard 'em singing.' I told him he was scared, but when I came
back along the bank I could have sworn I saw something go flashing into
the willows from this side, an' then came the cryin', and then you,
sir."

Bonner turned straightway to his own quarters, to the side porch at the
doctor's--and 'Tonio was gone. Peering within the open doorway, he saw
the attendant nodding in his chair by the little table where dimly
burned the nightlamp, close to the cot where Harris lay in feverish
slumber. Next, the captain started for the post of Number Six, near the
south-east corner of the rectangle, and there was the corporal and the
relief, just marching away with "the young feller that 'listed in
Wickenburg." A new sentry, another old soldier, had taken his place.
There was nothing to do but tell him to keep a sharp lookout and report
anything strange he saw or heard, particularly to be on lookout for
'Tonio. Then he pushed on after the relief, and then, catching sight of
the lights at the trader's, strode briskly over there and stopped a few
minutes, asking himself should he tell Willett what had been heard, and
incidentally to watch the game. Willett, however, was engrossed. His
eyes were dilated and his cheeks were flushed, albeit his demeanor was
almost affectedly cool and nonchalant, and Bonner had not been there
five minutes before a queer thing happened. Willett, playing in
remarkable luck, had raised heavily before the draw. Case, with
unsteady hand, had shoved forward an equal stack. The prospector and
Craney shook their heads and dropped out. Only three were playing when
Willett, dealing, helped the cards according to their demands, and for
himself "stood pat." It was too much for the brother-in-law, but the
bookkeeper, who had been playing mainly against Willett, and apparently
foolishly, now just as foolishly bet his little stack, for without a
second's hesitation Willett raised him seventy-five dollars. It was a
play calculated to drive out a small-salaried clerk. It was neither a
generous nor a gentleman's play. It was, moreover, the highest play yet
seen at Almy, where men were of only moderate means. Even Craney looked
troubled, and Watts and the prospector exchanged murmured remonstrance.
Then all were amazed when Case drew forth a flat wallet from an inner
pocket, tossed it on the table, and simply said, "See--and raise
_you_."

Now there was audible word of warning. Watts looked as though he wished
to interpose, but was checked instantly by Case himself. "Been saving
that for--funer'l expenses," said he doggedly, "but I'm backin' this
hand for _double_ what's in that."

Craney lifted the wallet, shook it, and three fifty-dollar bills
fluttered out upon the table. Willett looked steadily at Case one
moment before he spoke:

"Isn't this a trifle high for a gentleman's game?" said he.

"That's what they said at Vancouver, two years ago, when you bluffed
out that young banker's son."

Willett half rose from his chair. "I _thought_ I'd seen your face
before," said he.

"What I want to know," said the bookkeeper instantly, all deference to
rank or station vanished from tone and manner, "is, do you see my raise
now?"

There was a moment's silence, during which no man present seemed to
breathe. Then slowly Willett spoke:

"No, a straight isn't worth it." Whereupon there was a moment of
embarrassed silence as the stakes were swept across the blanket-covered
table, then a guffaw of rejoiceful mirth from the prospector. Case, as
though carelessly, threw down his cards, face upwards, and there was
not so much as a single pair.

"The drinks are on me, oh, yes," said he, "but the joke's on the
lieutenant."

Yet when Bonner left, five minutes later and the game again was going
on, there was no mirth in it. Nor was there mirth when the sun came
peeping over the eastward range this cloudless Sabbath morning, shaming
the bleary night lights at the store--the bleary eyes at the table.
Bonner found them at it still an hour after reveille, and ventured to
lay a hand on Willett's shoulder. "Can I speak with you a moment?" he
said.

Willett rose unsteadily, but with dignity unshaken by change of
fortune. He had lost as heavily, by this time, as earlier he had won.

"May I be pardoned for suggesting that you would be wise to get out of
this and--a few hours' sleep? The general is up and worried. 'Tonio is
gone!"




CHAPTER XI.


The fact that the post was cut off from the rest of the world, that
neither runner from the field columns, courier from Prescott, nor mail
rider from McDowell had succeeded in getting in, while 'Tonio, head
trailer, had easily succeeded in getting out, was a combination
calculated to promote serious reflection on part of the garrison this
ideal Sunday morning. Perhaps it did, but so far as talk was concerned
a very different fact ruled as first favorite. It was known all over
the barracks by breakfast time that Case, the bookkeeper, had bluffed
out the young swell from the Columbia who had come down to teach them
how to play poker and fight Apaches. "Willett stock" among the rank and
file had not been too high at the start, had been sinking fast since
the affair at Bennett's Ranch, and was a drug in the market when the
command, as was then the custom of the little army, turned out for
inspection under arms, while Willett was turning in for a needed nap.
Strong, his official host, knew instinctively where Willett must be,
when he tumbled up to receive the reports at morning roll call and
found the spare bed untouched. He said nothing, of course, even at
guard mounting, when, together, he and Captain Bonner walked over to
the office, where sat the post commander anxiously awaiting them. It
seems that even after Bonner's friendly hint the game had not ceased at
once. Willett had played on another hour in hopes that luck would
change, but by seven Craney called a halt, said that he and Watts must
quit, and intimated that Willett ought to. Case, though well along in
liquor, still kept his head and lead, and would have played, but by
this time Willett was writing I.O.U.'s. The prospector's cash was gone.
The hitherto modest, retiring, silent man of the desk and ledgers had
won heavily from the officer, yet only a trifle from his employers, and
Craney suggested a recess until night. "Then we'll meet again--and
settle," said Willett, half extending his hand.

"You bet we'll settle," said Case, the bookkeeper, wholly ignoring it,
and even then the fact was noted and thereafter remembered.

"I think I won't go up t-o the post just now," said Willett to Craney.
"Perhaps you have----"

"Certainly, Mr. Willett. Come right in here," said the trader
hospitably, leading the way into a darkened room. "Take a good nap;
sleep as long as you want to. I'll send you in a tub if you like." The
tub was gratefully accepted, and then they left him. At noon when the
general asked Strong if Willett "wasn't feeling well," Strong said
Willett had been up late and was probably still asleep. Bonner, it was
known, had not turned in again after two o'clock, and the discovery
that 'Tonio was missing. He was dozing on the porch in his easy-chair
when first call sounded for reveille, and Lilian, like gentle-hearted
Amelia, lay dreaming of her wearied knight as having kept vigil with
the sentries to the break of day that she and those she loved might
sleep in security, and now, of course, he must indeed be wearied.

Therefore there came a surprise to her, and to the fond and watchful
mother, when toward four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Stannard dropped
in to chat with them awhile, and to tell about Harris, by whose bedside
she had been sitting and reading for nearly two hours. Mrs. Archer
welcomed the news. The doctor had promised to let her know as soon as
he considered it wise for her to go, and the general was so anxious and
disturbed on Mr. Harris's account. It so happened that the general,
with a small escort, had ridden over to search the valley with glasses
from the peak, and then the first thing Mrs. Stannard said was, "I
thought that Mr. Willett might have been glad to go with the general."

"And did he not?" asked Mrs. Archer, after one quick glance at Lilian's
averted eyes.

"Why, no," and now Mrs. Stannard hesitated; "I saw, at least I think I
saw, him coming up from the river a little while ago. He may have been
following 'Tonio's trail, you know. It was easy enough in the sand,
they said, but once it reached the rocks along the stream-bed they lost
it." Then wisely Mrs. Stannard changed the subject.

But if she and they knew not where and how Willett had spent the night
and hours of the day, they and Harris, by this time, were the only ones
at Almy in such ignorance. Moreover, Almy was having a lot of fun out
of it. No one had ever heard of Case's playing before in all the time
he had silently, unobtrusively, gone about his daily doings at the
post. Three weeks out of four he sat over the books and accounts, or
some writing of his own, saying nothing to anybody unless addressed,
then answering civilly, but in few words. The other week, just as
quietly and unobtrusively, he was apt to be busy with his bottle,
sometimes in the solitude of his little room, sometimes wandering by
night down along the stream, sometimes stealing out to the herds,
petting and crooning to the horses, sometimes slyly tendering the herd
guard a drink, and always accompanied by a pack of the hounds, for by
them he was held in reverence and esteem. He never accosted anybody,
never even complained when a godless brace of soldier roughs robbed him
of his bottle as he lay half-dozing to the lullaby of the babbling
stream. He simply meandered a mile and got another.

From this plane of inoffensive obscurity Case had sprung in one night
to fame and, almost, to fortune. A single field had turned the chance
of war, and the placid Sunday found him the most talked of man at the
post. Rumor had it that he had quit five hundred dollars ahead of the
game, and the most conservative estimate could not reduce it more than
half. For the first time Camp Almy awoke to the conclusion that an
experienced gambler was in their midst--one who had spared the soldier
and his scanty pay that he might feed fat, eventually, on the officer.
Rumor had it that Case's trunk contained a roulette wheel and faro
"layout." In fine, long before orderly call at noon, in the whimsical
humor of the garrison, he was no longer Case, the bookkeeper, but
"Book, the Case Keeper," and every frontiersman, civil or military, in
those days knew what that meant.

And even as they exalted Case, who toward afternoon had disappeared
from public gaze, refusing to be lionized, so would they have abased
Willett, who likewise had concealed himself, on the plea of needed
sleep, yet had done but little sleeping. Willett was haunted by a
memory, and not pleasantly. The fact that he had lost over a month's
pay troubled him less by far than that he had lost repute. He had
suffered much in pocket, but more in prestige. He had been a successful
player in the Columbia country, too much so for the good of scores of
comrades, but especially himself. He could have found it in his heart
to throttle that guffawing clown, whose rude bellow of rejoicing over
Case's brilliant bluff and his own defeat, had brought even the dago
and his fellows in staring wonderment to the open door. He would have
pledged another month's pay could he have throttled the story he knew
now would be going the rounds. He was even more humiliated--far
more--than they knew. They all would have shouted had they seen the
hand he laid down, but he had striven to carry it off jocosely, to say
_he_ had only been bluffing, and was very properly caught at his own
game. Oh, he had shown a game, sportsman-like front, and had striven to
pass it all off as a matter that worried him not in the least, but
Craney, clear-headed, believed otherwise, and Case, muddle-headed as he
was by noon, knew better, and had his reasons for knowing--reasons as
potent as were those that moved him wholly to ignore Willett's
half-proffered hand.

Case had nothing in particular to do all day, and could sleep if so
minded. Willett, not knowing what moment he might be called upon to
take active part in stirring service, should sleep, and so prepare
himself, yet could not. Case's personality, and Case's one reference to
Vancouver, two years previous, haunted and vexed him sorely. Where and
under what circumstances had he seen the man? Only for three weeks had
he been at the fine old post referred to, while a big court-martial was
there in session, and he, with other subalterns, had come as witnesses.
There had been dinners and dancing and fun and flirtation, both at the
post and in Portland. There had been card-playing in which he was easy
winner, and not a little of his winnings had gone for wine. There had
been foolish things said in pink little ears, and even written in silly
missives that now he would have been glad to recall, but--but no harm
to him as yet had come from them. There had even been a girl whom he
had never seen before nor since that visit, nor wanted to see again,
nor hear from, yet from her he _had_ heard, and more than once--piteous,
imploring little letters they were. But, heavens! he was busy hunting
Indians when they began to come, and then they had ceased to find him,
rather to his relief, but none of these episodes or epistles in any way
included Case, yet somewhere he had seen him, somewhere he had heard
his voice, and somewhere Case had marked his method of play. Case said
Vancouver, but though two or three steep games had there or thereabouts
occurred--games in which his soldier comrades had withdrawn as too big
for them--he, with his luck and brilliancy, had dared to pursue to the
end and came out envied as a winner. And still this did not seem to
point to Case.

Not two hours' sleep did Willett get that Sunday morning. He was awake,
hot, feverish, and athirst at noon, craving ice, which could be seen in
the mountains only a day's march away, but had never yet been made to
last through the homeward journey. Craney brought him a cool and
dripping canteen and some acetic acid, the best he could do, and had
proffered bottled beer, cooled in the big olla and retailed at fifty
cents, but Willett sought information rather than sleep, and indirectly
inquired as to Case's antecedents. Inferentially, he wished Craney to
understand that he believed Case to be a professional, and Craney
blamable for permitting him to play. Craney saw the move and checkmated
at once. "Case has had dozens of chances to play--dozens of 'em--since
I brought him here from Prescott, and never before has he sat into
anything bigger'n a dollar limit. He never _would_ play in the other
room. He came out as quartermaster's clerk, nearly two years ago. With
whom? Why, Major Ballard brought him out and had to turn him loose for
drinking. No, Ballard was never at Vancouver. Then my bookkeeper got
shot in a pay-day row and left the books in a muddle. I _had_ to
hire Case to come and balance them--best accountant and bookkeeper I
ever had--square to the marrow, though he wants one week off a month,
and is absolutely stalwart t'other three, but he will not talk of his
past. Ballard told me he came with tiptop letters from officers of rank
in San Francisco, who said he was incorruptible, even when he drank,
whereas my clerk, who had been a model of sobriety, robbed right and
left. Case has gone off now, somewhere down among the willows, I
reckon. He'll be drunk for three days, sobering three days, and
straight the seventh. If you hadn't started him last night he'd be
sober now. And if you hadn't come into it that family game would have
stopped at one, with nobody the worse nor wiser. You said you had no
use for a dollar limit game."

There was no comfort, therefore, in Craney's visit. Willett took
another cool bath, dressed about two, and being shown the path Case
generally followed, sauntered away, quite as though he had nothing on
his mind, and was presently lost beyond that same willowy screen. He at
that time, at least, was not thinking of 'Tonio and the lost trail.

At five the general, with Strong and Bonner, could be made out four
miles away, riding back from the peak. "I'll go a moment and inquire
for Mr. Harris," said Mrs. Archer, "and ask the doctor when _we_ may
visit him." So, leaving Lilian with Mrs. Stannard, and intending to be
gone but a few minutes, the gentle, anxious-hearted woman, sunshade in
hand, went forth from the shelter of the low veranda into the slanting,
unclouded rays, and presently tapped lightly at the doctor's open door.
There was no answer, yet from somewhere within came sound of masculine
voices. Entering the dark hall, she tapped again at the entrance to the
doctor's sitting-room, or den. A Navajo blanket hung like a _portiere_
across the open space, for door there was none, and, as no one came in
answer to her modest signal, she ventured to push the curtain a bit to
one side and peer within. The room was but dimly lighted, all windows
but one on the north side being heavily draped. The doctor's reclining
chair and reading table, the latter littered with books, pamphlets and
pipes, were visible through a reminiscent haze of not too fragrant
tobacco smoke, for the old predominated over the new. A rude sideboard
stood over against her, between the northward windows, and thereon was
stationed a demi-john of goodly proportions, with outlying pickets in
the way of glasses. Bentley himself, though one of the old school, was
an abstemious man, and therefore enabled to have at all times a supply
of reliable stimulant for such of his callers as were of opposite
faith. That some of that ilk had recently favored him was presumptively
evident, no more by the sideboard display than by the sound of voices
from an inner room, where two or three were uplifted in discussion, and
neither was the doctor's.

Now, Mrs. Archer much wished to see young Harris, to assure him of
their deep interest in his welfare, of their desire to be of service to
him, and their reason for not earlier intruding. Gentle and unselfish
though she was, there was distinct sense of chagrin that Mrs. Stannard,
or any woman, should have anticipated her coming. The doctor had
promised to say just how soon he could approve her seeing his patient,
and it was the doctor's fault she had come no sooner. Not until days
thereafter did she know that Harris had asked for Mrs. Stannard. Not
for even a Christmas home-going would Mrs. Stannard have let her know
it--but Mrs. Stannard was a rare, rare woman.

But if the doctor thought it unwise that his patient should receive the
visits of ministering angels such as she and they, what, said Mrs.
Archer to her stupefied self, could Dr. Bentley mean by permitting the
visits of such disturbers as these whose angering words came distinctly
to her ears? She stood, half-dazed, unable for a moment to determine
what to do--whether to enter at once--enter, and in the name of her
husband, the commanding officer, enter emphatic protest against such
exciting language at such a time, in such a presence--or whether to
retire at once and hear no more of it. One voice, at the moment low and
guarded, was that of a stranger--she had never heard it before. The
other, however, she knew instantly as that of Harold Willett. No wonder
she stood amazed, never doubting they were addressed to Harris, at the
first words--Willett's words--to reach her ears!

"You are in no condition now to talk to a gentleman, and I refuse to
listen. You came here to lie about me--to undermine me, and I know it,
and the quicker you go----"

"I came here to speak God's truth and _you_ know it!" came the instant
answer, and in instant relief she knew it was not the voice of Harris.
"As to undermining--by God, it's to block _your_ undermining another
and a better man I've come! If that isn't enough for you--to block your
doing here--what you did to that poor girl at Portland----"

But a rush and a scuffle, the sound of a blow, broke in upon the words,
just as the attendant, affrighted, came running out, just as Dr.
Bentley, astounded and indignant, came hurrying in. Mrs. Archer, in
bewilderment, fell back into the sunshine, only presently to see
Willett, flushed and furious, hasten forth from the rear door and turn
straightway to the adjutant's quarters adjoining--only to be overtaken
in a moment by the attendant, panting: "The doctor said would Mrs.
Archer please come back one minute, he'd like to speak with her." And
Mrs. Archer turned again and went.




CHAPTER XII.


Ten minutes later, when the general and his little escort came dustily
into the garrison, his first question on dismounting was for Willett,
and it was Lilian who had to answer that she believed he was at Mr.
Strong's. So thither, with but brief, though kindly, word with Mrs.
Stannard, and as brief an expression of his satisfaction that Mrs.
Archer had gone to see Harris, the veteran took his way. The horses
were led to stables. The other officers, hastening homeward, bowing in
hurried, perfunctory fashion to the ladies, turned again at sound of
his voice, and all three together entered the adjutant's house, an
orderly remaining at the door. Lilian looked anxiously after them and
Mrs. Stannard inquiringly. "They have seen something, I know," said the
girl, "and something father is puzzled about. He would not have come
and gone without a kiss." Already Mrs. Stannard had noted his fond
custom, had marked its omission now when, ever since luncheon, he had
been away, and she, too, divined that he was preoccupied, even
perplexed. But once already she had too quickly spoken her thoughts,
and there must be no more of that. In three minutes the little party
came forth again, Willett with them now, and, field-glasses in hand,
away they strode to the northward edge of the plateau and went speedily
along toward a point at the back of the hospital where there stood a
little platform, railed about with untrimmed pine, a rustic lookout
much affected by the men in the long evenings, but seldom visited when
the sun was up. It took no time at all for half the remaining garrison
to turn out and, at respectful distance, stand curiously watching them,
and little more for the other half to come flocking out of doors. "Seen
somethin' from way up on the Picacho," explained the orderly, as he
jogged by with the heated horses, "an' came back akiting!"

Two minutes more and the adjutant, Strong, came running from the
platform. "Don't unsaddle," he shouted. "Bring those horses back and
get some more! Send the escort up here at once!"

The officers at the lookout had not even unslung their pistol belts,
and Willett now was seen to set down his binocular and start away. The
general called to him and he half turned and hurriedly answered: "Back
just as quick as I can get my Colt, sir." He was unfastening his blouse
at the throat as he went, and even at the distance men could see how
hot and flushed he looked, while the others seemed so hard, "tried out"
and fit for anything. Presently the half dozen horsemen, who had been
with their chief to the Picacho, came trotting forth from the corral,
followed by two or three led horses. Strong mounted the first to reach
him and sent another to his quarters for Lieutenant Willett. Then
Captain Bonner came strolling back as though quite unconcerned. "May as
well get the men under arms," said he to his alert first sergeant, and
away went every man of Company "C" on a run for the barracks.

"Needn't wait for Willett," the general was heard calling to Strong,
who, with a little party, sat in saddle eagerly awaiting orders. So
down the slope they went, just as the doctor and Mrs. Archer, apprised
in some way of the excitement, came forth and saw the dust cloud in
their wake, and the snorting troop horse pawing the sand in front of
Strong's. Old Bucketts, the quartermaster, came limping up the line,
his florid features a deeper red, and all he could tell in answer to
question was, "They see something beyond the Point. Who's that horse
for, orderly?"

"Loot'nt Willett, sir--said he'd be out in a minute."

But the minutes proved long, and Bucketts went in to help, if need be,
and to get information, if possible. Willett had kicked off his fine
uniform trousers and ununiform Oxfords, and was cursing the striker who
had hidden his scouting rig. "Why the devil didn't you go as you were?"
asked Bucketts unsympathetically. "They're raising the dust far as the
ford already. What's up, anyhow?"

"Can't tell! Don't know! Nobody knows! They send scouts out--couriers
out--messengers out, and spend hours wishing somebody'd come with news,
and then when somebody's seen coming get rattled and send half the
garrison out to meet----"

But suddenly catching sight of the disapprobation on his caller's face,
Willett broke off short. No wonder Buckett's looked astonished at such
language from a staff officer. Nor was that veteran questioner long in
sizing up the cause. It added nothing to his respect for Willett, and
not a little to his concern. He knew by this time, as did almost every
man except the post commander, how and where Willett spent the night
and morning--knew that he had left the store only an hour or so
previous, as though to follow and find the bookkeeper--knew that Case
had been drinking, and saw now that Willett had been following suit.
Without a word on that head, or another question as to the causes of
the excitement, he stumped about the premises, busying himself in
hunting for the missing items, and presently found them hanging under a
calico curtain that Willett had already nearly torn down in
unsuccessful, unseeing search. "Here you are," he said, tossing the
garments on the bed. "Here's your pistol, Colt's 44; every chamber
loaded and ready for business. You'll use a different belt when you've
been a month in Arizona--and you'll shed top boots for 'Patchie
moccasins. Let me help you, Willett. You're a bit blown. Here, douse
your head in that----" and as he spoke Bucketts half filled a bowl and
went limping out to the olla for more and cooler water, leaving Willett
fussing at his riding breeches and damning Strong's striker for being
away among the gaping, staring, empty-headed gang at the bluff at the
moment he was most needed.

As Bucketts was lifting the vessel from the cool depths of the hanging
reservoir, he heard his name faintly called, and there, at the side
door of the doctor's quarters, pale and suffering, barefooted and
mantled with a sheet, his arm and shoulder bandaged, stood Harris.

"Tell Willett to come out," he said. "I must see him before he goes."

"You go back to bed. I'll tell him," but Harris stood his ground
despite the fact that the attendant had laid a hand upon his unbound
shoulder, and was begging him to return. Bucketts set the pitcher
inside the door. "Here's cooler water, Willett," he said, "and here's
Harris at the door--says he must see you before you start."

Then, without waiting for answer, the quartermaster hurried along the
path to the front in search of the doctor; saw him far over back of the
hospital, heading for the platform; saw Mrs. Archer, on her own veranda
by this time, in eager talk with Mrs. Stannard, and Lilian drooping at
the corner pillar; hurried back to get his stick and to further rebuke
Harris, when, afar down to the south-east came the sound of a shot,
half-muffled by distance, and, gazing from the rear end of the little
gallery, he saw, a mile or more away across the stream and skirting the
willows, two horsemen coming at top speed; saw, emerging from the
willows at the near side of the ford, a man who walked heavily through
the yielding sand, holding his hand to his face. He, too, had heard the
shot and was making, 'cross lots, for home. It was Case, the
bookkeeper, disturbed, perhaps, said Bucketts, in his siesta among the
willows and doing his best to gain shelter. Before Case could get a
fourth of the way across the barren flat, tacking perceptibly among the
cactus and grease wood, the riders burst in sight again and went
lashing away to the store--two ranchmen or prospectors, said Bucketts,
and they've been having the time of their life getting in. 'Tonio said
the Tontos were all about them, and here was additional proof. The last
Bucketts saw of Case he was lurching on toward the store, but, just
then, buttoning his riding jacket and girding on his revolver belt, out
came Willett.

"Well, what is it?" was his brief, almost sullen question. And then
came his classmate's answer--one that Bucketts long remembered.

"You are going up the valley, I take it, and there is an alarm of some
kind. Now, Willett, remember this: no matter what you have seen or
suspect, the Apache-Mohaves had no part in the devil's work at
Bennett's. I have 'Tonio's word for it, and will bring proofs."

"Damn 'Tonio's word! He's a renegade and a deserter himself! He's
playing a deep, double game, and you yourself suspected it three days
ago. Now he's proved it. I've no time to talk." And impatiently he
turned away and sprang for his horse. A moment more and he was in
saddle, had set spurs to his excited mount, and then, full gallop, went
tearing to the edge of the mesa, lifted his hat in salutation to the
general, and dove down the slope, across the lower bench, away through
an upper ford of the sluggish winter stream, and out upon the sandy
flats beyond.

"Rides well," said the general, looking after him.

"_Rides_ very well," said the surgeon, looking after Strong. "Can you
see anything yet, sir?"

"Could see two horses ten minutes ago, with some running figures far up
the valley. Can't make 'em out at all. Strong'll fetch 'em--Strong and
Willett. Good stock there, doctor!"

"Tiptop, where Strong is concerned," said the doctor grimly. The events
of the earlier afternoon had tended to add to his disapprobation of the
other. "There's something up at the store, sir, I think," he added,
with a swift change of subject. "I saw men running that way just now.
Here comes Bucketts!"

And Bucketts came, hobbling sturdily. "It's two ranchmen, I think, and
there was a shot down toward the south-east ten minutes ago."

The general looked back. Down in front of the log barracks Bonner's
company, in fatigue dress, had formed ranks, and the sergeants were
distributing ammunition. Across the parade, the verandas of the Mess
and office buildings were deserted, but one or two men stood staring
toward the invisible plant of the trader. Close at hand, near the
hospital and again lining the edge of the mesa, a score of yards
farther to the left, a number of soldiers of the other company were
eagerly watching developments. Even with the naked eye, two miles or
more up the valley, Strong's little detachment, black dots of
skirmishers, could occasionally be sighted pushing on northward, while,
at heavy gallop, heading for the front, Willett was still in plain
view; but, at the moment, nothing could be seen of the objects that
were the original cause of the excitement.

From the Picacho, it seems, both Strong and Bonner had made out through
their glasses two tiny black dots in the direction of Bennett's ruined
ranch, coming slowly toward the post, but still five or six miles away.
From the platform, forty minutes later, two horsemen had distinctly
been seen moving swiftly about, close to the willows that lined, in
places, the rocky stream bed. More than this, the general was sure he
had caught sight of three or four figures afoot, skipping actively
about when moving at all. What he and his advisers believed was that
Sergeant Woodrow and his comrades were, for some reason, trying to make
their way back to Almy and had found Apaches barring the way. Therefore
had Strong and his little party been sent forth to meet, to aid, to
bring them in. Therefore had Willett, of his own motion this time, and
without the delegated authority he bore when following Harris, set
forth at speed to overtake them, forgetful, in the eagerness of the
moment and the possible over-excitement of his faculties, that he had
promised Archer to be back just as soon as he'd got his Colt--that
calibre 44 Colt now belted at his hip, with every chamber loaded.

And now as the eager watchers at the platform trained their glasses on
the distant field, Bucketts, taking up the handsome binocular left by
the aide-de-camp, had time to notice its fine silver mounting and the
engraved "H. Willett, U.S.A.," in exactly the same script as that
which adorned the revolver. Then, as he adjusted it to his eyes, it
occurred to him to tell the doctor of Harris's coming to the side door,
and of his most earnest language and manner, whereat the general turned
sharply:

"What's that? Harris said no Apache-Mohaves?"

"No Apache-Mohaves in the affair at Bennett's Ranch, sir, on 'Tonio's
authority, and Willett scoffed at both statement and 'Tonio."

"By heaven," said Archer, "'Tonio was right in saying we were cut off,
isolated here, and if he hadn't slipped away in that mysterious fashion
I'd rather take his word than--than Willett's impressions. Where has
Willett been--all morning--anyhow? He never came near me!"

Everybody within earshot knew, and nobody answered. Archer looked
queerly about him. Bonner and Briggs gazed fixedly through their
glasses. Bucketts was absorbed in the adjustment of his. The doctor
said he must go over and give Harris a rebuke for getting up, and

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