The fight in the cañon

AN APACHE
PRINCESS

A Tale of the Indian Frontier

BY

GENERAL CHARLES KING

AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX," "THE COLONEL'S
DAUGHTER," "FORT FRAYNE," "AN ARMY WIFE,"
ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

FREDERIC REMINGTON

and

EDWIN WILLARD DEMING

NEW YORK

THE HOBART COMPANY

1903

Copyright, 1903, BY THE HOBART COMPANY.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

AN APACHE PRINCESS

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING BY THE WATERS

nder the willows at the edge of the pool a young girl sat daydreaming, though the day was nearly done. All in the valley was wrapped in shadow, though the cliffs and turrets across the stream were resplendent in a radiance of slanting sunshine. Not a cloud tempered the fierce glare of the arching heavens or softened the sharp outline of neighboring peak or distant mountain chain. Not a whisper of breeze stirred the drooping foliage along the sandy shores or ruffled the liquid mirror surface. Not a sound, save drowsy hum of beetle or soft murmur of rippling waters, among the pebbly shallows below, broke the vast silence of the scene. The snow cap, gleaming at the northern horizon, lay one hundred miles away and looked but an easy one-day march. The black upheavals of the Matitzal, barring the southward valley, stood sullen and frowning along the Verde, jealous of the westward range that threw their rugged gorges into early shade. Above and below the still and placid pool and but a few miles distant, the pine-fringed, rocky hillsides came shouldering close to the stream, but fell away, forming a deep, semicircular basin toward the west, at the hub of which stood bolt-upright a tall, snowy flagstaff, its shred of bunting hanging limp and lifeless from the peak, and in the dull, dirt-colored buildings of adobe, ranged in rigid lines about the dull brown, flat-topped mesa, a thousand yards up stream above the pool, drowsed a little band of martial exiles, stationed here to keep the peace 'twixt scattered settlers and swarthy, swarming Apaches. The fort was their soldier home; the solitary girl a soldier's daughter.

She could hardly have been eighteen. Her long, slim figure, in its clinging riding habit, betrayed, despite roundness and supple grace, a certain immaturity. Her hands and feet were long and slender. Her sun-tanned cheek and neck were soft and rounded. Her mouth was delicately chiseled and the lips were pink as the heart of a Bridesmaid rose, but, being firmly closed, told no tale of the teeth within, without a peep at which one knew not whether the beauty of the sweet young face was really made or marred. Eyes, eyebrows, lashes, and a wealth of tumbling tresses of rich golden brown were all superb, but who could tell what might be the picture when she opened those pretty, curving lips to speak or smile? Speak she did not, even to the greyhounds stretched sprawling in the warm sands at her feet. Smile she could not, for the young heart was sore troubled.

Back in the thick of the willows she had left her pony, blinking lazily and switching his long tail to rid his flanks of humming insects, but never mustering energy enough to stamp a hoof or strain a thread of his horsehair riata. Both the long, lean, sprawling hounds lolled their red, dripping tongues and panted in the sullen heat. Even the girl herself, nervous at first and switching with her dainty whip at the crumbling sands and pacing restlessly to and fro, had yielded gradually to the drooping influences of the hour and, seated on a rock, had buried her chin in the palm of her hand, and, with eyes no longer vagrant and searching, had drifted away into maiden dreamland. Full thirty minutes had she been there waiting for something, or somebody, and it, or he, had not appeared.

Yet somebody else was there and close at hand. The shadow of the westward heights had gradually risen to the crest of the rocky cliffs across the stream. A soft, prolonged call of distant trumpet summoned homeward, for the coming night, the scattered herds and herd guards of the post, and, rising with a sigh of disappointment, the girl turned toward her now impatient pony when her ear caught the sound of a smothered hand-clap, and, whirling about in swift hope and surprise, her face once more darkened at sight of an Indian girl, Apache unquestionably, crouching in the leafy covert of the opposite willows and pointing silently down stream. For a moment, without love or fear in the eyes of either, the white girl and the brown gazed at each other across the intervening water mirror and spoke no word. Then, slowly, the former approached the brink, looked in the direction indicated by the little dingy index and saw nothing to warrant the recall. Moreover, she was annoyed to think that all this time, perhaps, the Indian girl had been lurking in that sheltering grove and stealthily watching her. Once more she turned away, this time with a toss of her head that sent the russet-brown tresses tumbling about her slim back and shoulders, and at once the hand-clap was repeated, low, but imperative, and Tonto, the biggest of the two big hounds, uplifted one ear and growled a challenge.

"What do you want?" questioned the white girl, across the estranging waters.

For answer the brown girl placed her left forefinger on her lips, and again distinctly pointed to a little clump of willows a dozen rods below, but on the westward side.

"Do you mean—someone's coming?" queried the first.

"Sh-sh-sh!" answered the second softly, then pointed again, and pointed eagerly.

The soldier's daughter glanced about her, uncertainly, a moment, then slowly, cautiously made her way along the sandy brink in the direction indicated, gathering the folds of her long skirt in her gauntleted hand and stepping lightly in her slender moccasins. A moment or two, and she had reached the edge of a dense little copse and peered cautiously within. The Indian girl was right. Somebody lay there, apparently asleep, and the fair young intruder recoiled in obvious confusion, if not dismay. For a moment she stood with fluttering heart and parting lips that now permitted reassuring glimpse of pearly white teeth. For a moment she seemed on the verge of panicky retreat, but little by little regained courage and self-poise. What was there to fear in a sleeping soldier anyhow? She knew who it was at a glance. She could, if she would, whisper his name. Indeed, she had been whispering it many a time, day and night, these last two weeks until—until certain things about him had come to her ears that made her shrink in spite of herself from this handsome, petted young soldier, this Adonis of her father's troop, Neil Blakely, lieutenant of cavalry.

"The Bugologist," they called him in cardroom circles at the "store," where men were fiercely intolerant of other pursuits than poker, for which pastime Mr. Blakely had no use whatever—no more use than had its votaries for him. He was a dreamy sort of fellow, with big blue eyes and a fair skin that were in themselves sufficient to stir the rancor of born frontiersmen, and they of Arizona in the days of old were an exaggeration of the type in general circulation on the Plains. He was something of a dandy in dress, another thing they loathed; something of a purist in speech, which was affectation unpardonable; something of a dissenter as to drink, appreciative of "Cucumungo" and claret, but distrustful of whisky—another thing to call down scorn illimitable from the elect of the mining camps and packing "outfits." But all these disqualifications might have been overlooked had the lieutenant displayed even a faint preference for poker. "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver—or loser" was the creed of the cardroom circle at the store, but beyond a casual or smiling peep at the game from the safe distance of the doorway, Mr. Blakely had vouchsafed no interest in affairs of that character. To the profane disgust of Bill Hyde, chief packer, and the malevolent, if veiled, criticism of certain "sporty" fellow soldiers, Blakely preferred to spend his leisure hours riding up and down the valley, with a butterfly net over his shoulders and a japanned tin box slung at his back, searching for specimens that were scarce as the Scriptures among his commentators.

Even on this hot October afternoon he had started on his entomological work, but, finding little encouragement and resting a while in the shade, he had dozed away on a sandy couch, his head on his arms, his broad-brimmed hat over his face, his shapely legs outstretched in lazy, luxurious enjoyment, his tall and slender form, arrayed in cool white blouse and trousers, really a goodly thing to behold. This day, too, he must have come afoot, but his net and box lay there beside him, and his hunt had been without profit, for both were apparently empty. Possibly he had devoted but little time to netting insects. Possibly he had thought to encounter bigger game. If so his zest in the sport must have been but languid, since he had so soon yielded to the drowsy influences of the day. There was resentment in the heart of the girl as this occurred to her, even though it would have angered her the more had anyone suggested she had come in hope of seeing or speaking with him.

And yet, down in the bottom of her heart, she knew that just such a hope had held her there even to the hour of recall. She knew that, since opportunities for meeting him within the garrison were limited, she had deliberately chosen to ride alone, and farther than she had ever ridden alone before, in hope of meeting him without. She knew that in the pursuit of his winged prey he never sought the open mesa or the ravines and gorges of the foothills. Only along the stream were they—and he—to be found. Only along the stream, therefore, had she this day ridden and, failing to see aught of him, had dismounted to think in quiet by the pool, so she told herself, but incidentally to wait and watch for him; and now she had found him, neither watching nor waiting, but in placid unconcern and slumber.

One reason why they met so seldom in garrison was that her father did not like him in the least. The captain was a veteran soldier, self-taught and widely honored, risen from the ranks. The lieutenant was a man of gentle breeding and of college education, a soldier by choice, or caprice, yet quite able at any time to quit the service and live a life of ease, for he had, they said, abundant means of his own. He had been first lieutenant of that troop at least five years, not five months of which had he served on duty with it. First one general, then another, had needed him as aide-de-camp, and when, on his own application, he had been relieved from staff duty to enable him to accompany his regiment to this then distant and inhospitable land, he had little more than reached Camp Sandy when he was sent by the department commander to investigate some irregularity at the Apache reservation up the valley, and then, all unsoliciting, he had been placed in charge pending the coming of a new agent to replace the impeached one going home under guard, and the captain said things about his subaltern's always seeking "fancy duty" that were natural, yet unjust—things that reached Mr. Blakely in exaggerated form, and that angered him against his senior to the extent of open rupture. Then Blakely took the mountain fever at the agency, thereby still further delaying his return to troop duty, and then began another complication, for the contract doctor, though skillful in his treatment, was less assiduous in nursing than were the wife of the newly arrived agent and her young companion Lola, daughter of the agency interpreter and his Apache-Yuma wife.

When well enough to attempt light duty again, the lieutenant had rejoined at Sandy, and, almost the first face to greet him on his arrival was one he had never seen before and never forgot thereafter—the sweet, laughing, winsome face of Angela Wren, his captain's only child.

The regiment had marched into Arizona overland, few of the wives and daughters with it. Angela, motherless since her seventh year, was at school in the distant East, together with the daughters of the colonel then commanding the regiment. They were older; were "finishing" that summer, and had amazed that distinguished officer by demanding to be allowed to join him with their mother. When they left the school Angela could stand it no longer. She both telegraphed and wrote, begging piteously to be permitted to accompany them on the long journey by way of San Francisco, and so it had finally been settled. The colonel's household were now at regimental headquarters up at Prescott, and Angela was quite happy at Camp Sandy. She had been there barely four weeks when Neil Blakely, pale, fragile-looking, and still far from strong, went to report for duty at his captain's quarters and was met at the threshold by his captain's daughter.

Expecting a girl friend, Kate Sanders, from "down the row," she had rushed to welcome her, and well-nigh precipitated herself upon a stranger in the natty undress uniform of the cavalry. Her instant blush was something beautiful to see. Blakely said the proper things to restore tranquillity; smilingly asked for her father, his captain; and, while waiting for that warrior to finish shaving and come down to receive him, was entertained by Miss Wren in the little army parlor. Looking into her wondrous eyes and happy, blushing face, he forgot that there was rancor between his troop commander and himself, until the captain's stiff, unbending greeting reminded him. Thoughtless people at the post, however, were laughing over the situation a week thereafter. Neil Blakely, a squire of dames in San Francisco and other cities when serving on staff duty, a society "swell" and clubman, had obviously become deeply interested in this blithe young army girl, without a cent to her name—with nothing but her beauty, native grace, and sweet, sunshiny nature to commend her. And everyone hitherto had said Neil Blakely would never marry in the army.

And there was one woman at Sandy who saw the symptoms with jealous and jaundiced eyes—Clarice, wife of the major then commanding the little "four-company" garrison. Other women took much to heart the fact that Major Plume had cordially invited Blakely, on his return from the agency, to be their guest until he could get settled in his own quarters. The Plumes had rooms to spare—and no children. The major was twelve years older than his wife, but women said it often looked the other way. Mrs. Plume had aged very rapidly after his sojourn on recruiting duty in St. Louis. Frontier commissariat and cooking played hob with her digestion, said the major. Frontier winds and water dealt havoc to her complexion, said the women. But both complexion and digestion seemed to "take a brace," as irreverent youth expressed it, when Neil Blakely came to Sandy and the major's roof. True, he stayed but six and thirty hours and then moved into his own domicile—quarters No. 7—after moving out a most reluctant junior. Major Plume and Mrs. Plume had expected him, they were so kind as to say, to choose a vacant half set, excellent for bachelor purposes, under the roof that sheltered Captain Wren, Captain Wren's maiden sister and housekeeper, and Angela, the captain's daughter. This set adjoined the major's big central house, its south windows looking into the major's north gallery. "It would be so neighborly and nice," said Mrs. Plume. Instead, however, Mr. Blakely stood upon his prerogative as a senior subaltern and "ranked out" Mr. and Mrs. Bridger and baby, and these otherwise gentle folk, evicted and aggrieved, knowing naught of Blakely from previous association, and seeing no reason why he should wish to be at the far end of the row instead of the middle, with his captain, where he properly belonged, deemed themselves the objects of wanton and capricious treatment at his hands, and resented it according to their opportunities. Bridger, being a soldier and subordinate, had to take it out in soliloquy and swear-words, but his impetuous little helpmate—being a woman, a wife and mother, set both wits and tongue to work, and heaven help the man when woman has both to turn upon him! In refusing the room and windows that looked full-face into those of Mrs. Plume, Blakely had nettled her. In selecting the quarters occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Bridger he had slightly inconvenienced and sorely vexed the latter. With no incumbrances whatever, with fine professional record, with personal traits and reputation to make him enviable, with comparative wealth and, as a rule, superlative health, Blakely started on his career as a subaltern at Sandy with three serious handicaps,—the disfavor of his captain, who knew and loved him little,—the prejudice of Mrs. Bridger, who knew and loved him not at all,—and the jealous pique of Mrs. Plume, who had known and loved him, possibly, too well.

There was little duty doing at Sandy at the time whereof we write. Men rose at dawn and sent the horses forth to graze all day in the foothills under heavy guard. It was too hot for drills, with the mercury sizzling at the hundred mark. Indian prisoners did the "police" work about the post; and men and women dozed and wilted in the shade until the late afternoon recall. Then Sandy woke up and energetically stabled, drilled, paraded under arms at sunset, mounted guard immediately thereafter, dined in spotless white; then rode, drove, flirted, danced, gossiped, made mirth, melody, or monotonous plaint till nearly midnight; then slept until the dawn of another day.

Indians there were in the wilds of the Mogollon to the southeast, and, sometimes at rare intervals straying from the big reservation up the valley, they scared the scattered settlers of the Agua Fria and the Hassayampa; but Sandy rarely knew of them except as prisoners. Not a hostile shot had been fired in the surrounding mountains for at least six months, so nobody felt the least alarm, and many only languid interest, when the white-coated officers reported the result of sunset roll-call and inspection, and, saluting Major Plume, the captain of "C" Troop announced in tones he meant should be heard along the row: "Mr. Blakely, sir, is absent!"

CHAPTER II

SCOT VERSUS SAXON

hree women were seated at the moment on the front veranda of the major's quarters—Mrs. Plume, Miss Janet Wren, the captain's sister, and little Mrs. Bridger. The first named had been intently watching the officers as, after the dismissal of their companies at the barracks, they severally joined the post commander, who had been standing on the barren level of the parade, well out toward the flagstaff, his adjutant beside him. To her the abrupt announcement caused no surprise. She had seen that Mr. Blakely was not with his troop. The jeweled hands slightly twitched, but her voice had the requisite and conventional drawl as she turned to Miss Wren: "Chasing some new butterfly, I suppose, and got lost. A—what time did—Angela return?"

"Hours ago, I fancy. She was dressed when I returned from hospital. Sergeant Leary seems worse to-day."

"That was nearly six," dreamily persisted Mrs. Plume. "I happened to be at the side window." In the pursuit of knowledge Mrs. Plume adhered to the main issue and ignored the invalid sergeant, whose slow convalescence had stirred the sympathies of the captain's sister.

"Yes, it was nearly that when Angela dismounted," softly said Mrs. Bridger. "I heard Punch galloping away to his stable."

"Why, Mrs. Bridger, are you sure?" And the spinster of forty-five turned sharply on the matron of less than half her years. "She had on her white muslin when she came to the head of the stairs to answer me."

Mrs. Bridger could not be mistaken. It was Angela's habit when she returned from her rides to dismount at the rear gateway; give Punch his congé with a pat or two of the hand; watch him a moment as he tore gleefully away, round to the stables to the westward of the big quadrangle; then to go to her room and dress for the evening, coming down an hour later, looking fresh and sweet and dainty as a dewy Mermet. As a rule she rode without other escort than the hounds, for her father would not go until the sun was very low and would not let her go with Blakely or Duane, the only bachelor troop officers then at Sandy. He had nothing against Duane, but, having set his seal against the other, felt it necessary to include them both. As a rule, therefore, she started about four, alone, and was home an hour later. Five young maidens dwelt that year in officers' row, daughters of the regiments,—for it was a mixed command and not a big one,—two companies each of infantry and cavalry, after the manner of the early 70's. Angela knew all four girls, of course, and had formed an intimacy with one—one who only cared to ride in the cool of the bright evenings when the officers took the hounds jack-rabbit hunting up the valley. Twice a week, when Luna served, they held these moonlit meets, and galloping at that hour, though more dangerous to necks, was less so to complexions. As a rule, too, Angela and Punch contented themselves with a swift scurry round the reservation, with frequent fordings of the stream for the joy it gave them both. They were rarely out of sight of the sentries and never in any appreciable danger. No Apache with hostile intent ventured near enough to Sandy to risk reprisals. Miners, prospectors, and ranchmen were few in numbers, but, far and wide they knew the captain's bonny daughter, and, like the men of her father's troop, would have risked their lives to do her a service. Their aversions as to Sandy were centered in the other sex.

Aunt Janet, therefore, had some reason for doubting the report of Mrs. Bridger. It was so unlike Angela to be so very late returning, although, now that Mrs. Bridger had mentioned it, she, too, remembered hearing the rapid thud of Punch's galloping hoofs homeward bound, as was she, at 5.45. Yet, barely five minutes thereafter, Angela, who usually spent half an hour splashing in her tub, appeared full panoplied, apparently, at the head of the stairs upon her aunt's arrival, and was even now somewhere down the row, hobnobbing with Kate Sanders. That Lieutenant Blakely should have missed retreat roll-call was in itself no very serious matter. "Slept through at his quarters, perhaps," said Plume. "He'll turn up in time for dinner." In fine the major's indifference struck the captain as an evidence of official weakness, reprehensible in a commander charged with the discipline of a force on hostile soil. What Wren intended was that Plume should be impressed by his formal word and manner, and direct the adjutant to look up the derelict instanter. As no such action was taken, however, he felt it due to himself to speak again. A just man was Wren, and faithful to the core in his own discharge of duty. What he could not abide was negligence on part of officer or man, on part of superior or inferior, and he sought to "stiffen" Plume forthwith.

"If he isn't in his quarters, shall I send a party out in search, sir?"

"Who? Blakely? Dear, no, Wren! What for?" returned the post commander, obviously nettled. "I fancy he'll not thank you for even searching his quarters. You may stumble over his big museum in the dark and smash things. No, let him alone. If he isn't here for dinner, I'll 'tend to it myself."

And so, rebuffed, as it happened, by an officer much his inferior in point of experience and somewhat in years, Wren silently and stiffly saluted and turned away. Virtually he had been given to understand that his suggestion was impertinent. He reached his quarters, therefore, in no pleasant mood, and found his sister waiting for him with Duty in her clear and shining eyes.

A woman of many a noble trait was Janet Wren,—a woman who had done a world of good to those in sickness, sorrow, or other adversity, a woman of boundless faith in herself and her opinions, but not too much hope or charity for others. The blood of the Scotch Covenanters was in her veins, for her mother had been born and bred in the shadow of the kirk and lived and died in the shadow of the cross. A woman with a mission was Janet, and one who went at it unflinchingly. She had loved her brother always, yet disapproved his marriage to so young and unformed a woman as was his wife. Later, she had deprecated from the start the soldier spirit, fierce in his Highland blood, that tore him from the teachings of their gentle mother and her beloved meenister, took him from his fair young wife when most she needed him and sent him straightway into the ranks of the one Highland regiment in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. His gallant colonel fell at First Bull Run, and Sergeant Wren fought over his body to the fervent admiration of the Southerners who captured both. The first War Secretary, mourning a beloved brother and grateful to his defender, commissioned the latter in the regulars at once and, on his return from Libby, Wren joined the army as a first lieutenant. With genuine Scottish thrift, his slender pay had been hoarded for him, and his now motherless little one, by that devoted sister, and when, a captain at the close of the war, he came to clasp his daughter to his heart, he found himself possessed of a few hundreds more than fell to the lot of most of his associates. It was then that Janet, motherless herself, had stepped into the management of her brother's army home, and sought to dominate in that as she had in everything else from early girlhood. Wren loved her fondly, but he, too, had a will. They had many a clash. It was this, indeed, that led to Angela's going so early to an Eastern school. We are all paragons of wisdom in the management of other people's children. It is in dealing with our own our limitations are so obvious. Fond as she had become of Angela's sweet young mother, it must be owned that whom Janet loved in this way she often chastened. Neighbors swore it was not grief, nor illness, half so much as sister-in-law, that wore the gentle spirit to the snapping-point. The great strong heart of the soldier was well-nigh broken at his loss, and Janet, who had never seen him shed a tear since early boyhood, stood for once, at least, in awe and trembling at sight of his awful grief. Time and nature played their part and brought him, gradually, resignation, but never genuine solace. He turned to little Angela with almost passionate love and tenderness. He would, mayhap, have spoiled her had not frontier service kept him so much afield that it was Janet who really reared her,—but not according to the strict letter of her law. Wren knew well what that was and forbade.

Misfortunes came to Janet Wren while yet a comely woman of thirty-five. She could have married, and married well, a comrade captain in her brother's regiment; but him, at least, she held to be her own, and, loving him with genuine fervor and devotion, she sought to turn him in all things to her serious views of life, its manifold duties and responsibilities. She had her ideal of what a man should be—a monarch among other men, but one knowing no God but her God, no creed but her creed, no master but Duty, no mistress but herself, and no weakness whatsoever. A braver, simpler, kinder soul than her captain there dwelt not in the service of his country, but he loved his pipe, his song, his dogs, his horses, his troop, and certain soldier ways that, during his convalescence from wounds, she had not had opportunity to observe. She had nursed him back to life and love and, unwittingly, to his former harmless habits. These all she would have had him forswear, not for her sake so much, she said, but because they were in themselves sinful and beneath him. She sought to train him down too fine for the rugged metal of the veteran soldier, and the fabric snapped in her hands. She had sent him forth sore-hearted over her ceaseless importunity. She had told him he must not only give up all his ways, but, if he would make her happy, he must put the words of Ruth into his mouth, and that ended it. He transferred into another corps when she broke with him; carried his sore heart to the Southern plains, and fell in savage battle within another month.

Not long thereafter her little fortune, invested according to the views of a spiritual rather than a temporal adviser,—and much against her brother's wishes,—went the way of riches that have wings, and now, dependent solely upon him, welcomed to his home and fireside, she nevertheless strove to dominate as of yore. He had had to tell her Angela could not and should not be subjected to such restraints as the sister would have prescribed, but so long as he was the sole victim he whimsically bore it without vehement protest. "Convert me all you can, Janet, dear," he said, "but don't try to reform the whole regiment. It's past praying for."

Now, when other women whispered to her that while Mrs. Plume had been a belle in St. Louis and Mr. Blakely a young society beau, the magnitude of their flirtation had well-nigh stopped her marriage, Miss Wren saw opportunity for her good offices and, so far from avoiding, she sought the society of the major's brooding wife. She even felt a twinge of disappointment when the young officer appeared, and after the initial thirty-six hours under the commander's roof, rarely went thither at all. She knew her brother disapproved of him, and thought it to be because of moral, not military, obliquity. She saw with instant apprehension his quick interest in Angela and the child's almost unconscious response. With the solemn conviction of the maiden who, until past the meridian, had never loved, she looked on Angela as far too young and immature to think of marrying, yet too shallow, vain and frivolous, too corrupted, in fact, by that pernicious society school—not to shrink from flirtations that might mean nothing to the man but would be damnation to the girl. Even the name of this big, blue-eyed, fair-skinned young votary of science had much about it that made her fairly bristle, for she had once been described as an "austere vestal" by Lieutenant Blake, of the regiment preceding them at Sandy, the ——th Cavalry—and a mutual friend had told her all about it—another handicap for Blakely. She had grown, it must be admitted, somewhat gaunt and forbidding in these later years, a thing that had stirred certain callow wits to differentiate between the Misses Wren as Angela and Angular, which, hearing, some few women reproved but all repeated. Miss Wren, the sister, was in fine a woman widely honored but little sought. It was Angela that all Camp Sandy would have met with open arms.

"R-r-robert," began Miss Wren, as the captain unclasped his saber belt and turned it over to Mickel, his German "striker." She would have proceeded further, but he held up a warning hand. He had come homeward angering and ill at ease. Disliking Blakely from the first, a "ballroom soldier," as he called him, and alienated from him later, he had heard still further whisperings of the devotions of a chieftain's daughter at the agency, above all, of the strange infatuation of the major's wife, and these had warranted, in his opinion, warning words to his senior subaltern in refusing that gentleman's request to ride with Angela. "I object to any such attentions—to any meetings whatsoever," said he, but sooner than give the real reason, added lamely, "My daughter is too young." Now he thought he saw impending duty in his sister's somber eyes and poise. He knew it when she began by rolling her r's—it was so like their childhood's spiritual guide and mentor, MacTaggart, erstwhile of the "Auld Licht" persuasion, and a power.

"Wait a bit, Janet," said he. "Mickel, get my horse and tell Sergeant Strang to send me a mounted orderly." Then, as Mickel dropped the saber in the open doorway and departed, he turned upon her.

"Where's Angela?" said he, "and what was she doing out after recall? The stable sergeant says 'twas six when Punch came home."

"R-r-robert, it is of that I wish to speak to you, and before she comes to dinner. Hush! She's coming now."

Down the row of shaded wooden porticos, at the major's next door, at Dr. Graham's, the Scotch surgeon and Wren's especial friend and crony, at the Lynns' and Sanders's beyond, little groups of women and children in cool evening garb, and officers in white, were gathered in merry, laughing chat. Nowhere, save in the eyes of one woman at the commanding officer's, and here at Wren's, seemed there anything ominous in the absence of this officer so lately come to join them. The voice of Angela, glad and ringing, fell upon the father's ears in sudden joy. Who could associate shame or subterfuge with tones so charged with merriment? The face of Angela, coming suddenly round the corner from the side veranda, beamed instantly upon him, sweet, trusting and welcoming, then slowly shadowed at sight of the set expression about his mouth, and the rigid, uncompromising, determined sorrow in the features of her aunt.

Before she could utter a word, the father questioned:

"Angela, my child, have you seen Mr. Blakely this afternoon?"

One moment her big eyes clouded, but unflinchingly they met his gaze. Then, something in the stern scrutiny of her aunt's regard stirred all that was mutinous within her; yet there was an irrepressible twitching about the corners of the rosy mouth, a twinkle about the big brown eyes that should have given them pause, even as she demurely answered:

"Yes."

"When?" demanded the soldier, his muscular hand clutching ominously at the wooden rail; his jaw setting squarely. "When—and where?"

But now the merriment with which she had begun changed slowly at sight of the repressed fury in his rugged Gaelic face. She, too, was trembling as she answered:

"Just after recall—down at the pool."

For an instant he stood glaring, incredulous. "At the pool! You! My bairnie!" Then, with sudden outburst of passionate wrath, "Go to your room!" said he.

"But listen—father, dear," she began, imploringly. For answer he seized her slender arm in almost brutal grasp and fairly hurled her within the doorway. "Not a word!" he ground between his clinched teeth. "Go instantly!" Then, slamming the door upon her, he whirled about as though to seek his sister's face, and saw beyond her, rounding the corner of the northwest set of quarters, coming in from the mesa roadway at the back, the tall, white figure of the missing man.

Another moment and Lieutenant Blakely, in the front room of his quarters, looking pale and strange, was being pounced upon with eager questioning by Duane, his junior, when the wooden steps and veranda creaked under a quick, heavy, ominous tread, and, with livid face and clinching hands, the troop commander came striding in.

"Mr. Blakely," said he, his voice deep with wrath and tremulous with passion, "I told you three days ago my daughter and you must not meet, and—you know why! To-day you lured her to a rendezvous outside the post—"

"Captain Wren!"

"Don't lie! I say you lured her, for my lass would never have met you—"

"You shall unsay it, sir," was Blakely's instant rejoinder. "Are you mad—or what? I never set eyes on your daughter to-day—until a moment ago."

And then the voice of young Duane was uplifted, shouting for help. With a crash, distinctly heard out on the parade, Wren had struck his junior down.

CHAPTER III

MOCCASIN TRACKS

hen Mr. Blakely left the post that afternoon he went afoot. When he returned, just after the sounding of retreat, he came in saddle. Purposely he avoided the road that led in front of the long line of officers' quarters and chose instead the water-wagon track along the rear. People among the laundresses' quarters, south of the mesa on which stood the quadrangular inclosure of Camp Sandy, eyed him curiously as he ambled through on his borrowed pony; but he looked neither to right nor left and hurried on in obvious discomposure. He was looking pale and very tired, said the saddler sergeant's wife, an hour later, when all the garrison was agog with the story of Wren's mad assault. He never seemed to see the two or three soldiers, men of family, who rose and saluted as he passed, and not an officer in the regiment was more exact or scrupulous in his recognition of such soldier courtesy as Blakely had ever been. They wondered, therefore, at his strange abstraction. They wondered more, looking after him, when, just as his stumbling pony reached the crest, the rider reined him in and halted short in evident embarrassment. They could not see what he saw—two young girls in gossamer gowns of white, with arms entwining each other's waists, their backs toward him, slowly pacing northward up the mesa and to the right of the road. Some old croquet arches, balls, and mallets lay scattered about, long since abandoned to dry rot and disuse, and, so absorbed were the damsels in their confidential chat,—bubbling over, too, with merry laughter,—they gave no heed to these until one, the taller of the pair, catching her slippered foot in the stiff, unyielding wire, plunged forward and fell, nearly dragging her companion with her. Blakely, who had hung back, drove his barbless heels into the pony's flanks, sent him lurching forward, and in less than no time was out of saddle and aiding her to rise, laughing so hard she, for a moment, could not speak or thank him. Save to flowing skirt, there was not the faintest damage, yet his eyes, his voice, his almost tremulous touch were all suggestive of deep concern, before, once more mounting, he raised his broad-brimmed hat and bade them reluctant good-night. Kate Sanders ran scurrying home an instant later, but Angela's big and shining eyes followed him every inch of the way until he once more dismounted at the upper end of the row and, looking back, saw her and waved his hat, whereat she ran, blushing, smiling, and not a little wondering, flustered and happy, into the gallery of their own quarters and the immediate presence of her father. Blakely, meanwhile, had summoned his servant:

"Take this pony at once to Mr. Hart," said he, "and say I'll be back again as soon as I've seen the commanding officer."

When Downs, the messenger, returned to the house about half an hour later, it was to find his master prostrate and bleeding on the bed in his room, Dr. Graham and the hospital attendant working over him, the major and certain of his officers, with gloomy faces and muttering tongues, conferring on the piazza in front, and one of the lieutenant's precious cases of bugs and butterflies a wreck of shattered glass. More than half the officers of the post were present. A bevy of women and girls had gathered in the dusk some distance down the row. The wondering Milesian whispered inquiry of silent soldiers lingering about the house, but the gruff voice of Sergeant Clancy bade them go about their business. Not until nearly an hour later was it generally known that Captain Wren had been escorted to his quarters by the post adjutant and ordered to remain therein in close arrest.

If some older and more experienced officer than Duane had been there perhaps the matter would not have proved so tragic, but the latter was utterly unstrung by Wren's furious attack and the unlooked-for result. Without warning of any kind, the burly Scot had launched his big fist straight at Blakely's jaw, and sent the slender, still fever-weakened form crashing through a case of specimens, reducing it to splinters that cruelly cut and tore the bruised and senseless face. A corporal of the guard, marching his relief in rear of the quarters at the moment, every door and window being open, heard the crash, the wild cry for help, rushed in, with his men at his heels, and found the captain standing stunned and ghastly, with the sweat starting from his brow, staring down at the result of his fearful work. From the front Captain Sanders and his amazed lieutenant came hurrying. Together they lifted the stricken and bleeding man to his bed in the back room and started a soldier for the doctor on the run. The sight of this man, speeding down the row, bombarded all the way with questions he could not stop to answer, startled every soul along that westward-facing front, and sent men and women streaming up the line toward Blakely's quarters at the north end. The doctor fairly brushed them from his path and Major Plume had no easy task persuading the tearful, pallid groups of army wives and daughters to retire to the neighboring quarters. Janet Wren alone refused point-blank. She would not go without first seeing her brother. It was she who took the arm of the awed, bewildered, shame-and conscience-stricken man and led him, with bowed and humbled head, the adjutant aiding on the other side, back to the door he had so sternly closed upon his only child, and that now as summarily shut on him. Dr. Graham had pronounced the young officer's injuries serious, and the post commander was angry to the very core.

One woman there was who, with others, had aimlessly hastened up the line, and who seemed now verging on hysterics—the major's wife. It was Mrs. Graham who rebukefully sent her own braw young brood scurrying homeward through the gathering dusk, and then possessed herself of Mrs. Plume. "The shock has unnerved you," she charitably, soothingly whispered: "Come away with me," but the major's wife refused to go. Hart, the big post trader, had just reached the spot, driving up in his light buckboard. His usually jovial face was full of sympathy and trouble. He could not believe the news, he said. Mr. Blakely had been with him so short a time beforehand and was coming down again at once, so Downs, the striker, told him, when some soldier ran in to say the lieutenant had been half killed by Captain Wren. Plume heard him talking and came down the low steps to meet and confer with him, while the others, men and women, listened eagerly, expectant of developments. Then Hart became visibly embarrassed. Yes, Mr. Blakely had come up from below and begged the loan of a pony, saying he must get to the post at once to see Major Plume. Hadn't he seen the major? No! Then Hart's embarrassment increased. Yes, something had happened. Blakely had told him, and in fact they—he—all of them had something very important on hand. He didn't know what to do now, with Mr. Blakely unable to speak, and, to the manifest disappointment of the swift-gathering group, Hart finally begged the major to step aside with him a moment and he would tell him what he knew. All eyes followed them, then followed the major as he came hurrying back with heightened color and went straight to Dr. Graham at the sufferer's side. "Can I speak with him? Is he well enough to answer a question or two?" he asked, and the doctor shook his head. "Then, by the Lord, I'll have to wire to Prescott!" said Plume, and left the room at once. "What is it?" feebly queried the patient, now half-conscious. But the doctor answered only "Hush! No talking now, Mr. Blakely," and bade the others leave the room and let him get to sleep.

But tattoo had not sounded that still and starlit evening when a strange story was in circulation about the post, brought up from the trader's store by pack-train hands who said they were there when Mr. Blakely came in and asked for Hart—"wanted him right away, bad," was the way they put it. Then it transpired that Mr. Blakely had found no sport at bug-hunting and had fallen into a doze while waiting for winged insects, and when he woke it was to make a startling discovery—his beautiful Geneva watch had disappeared from one pocket and a flat note case, carried in an inner breast pocket of his white duck blouse, and containing about one hundred dollars, was also gone. Some vagrant soldier, possibly, or some "hard-luck outfit" of prospectors, probably, had come upon him sleeping, and had made way with his few valuables. Two soldiers had been down stream, fishing for what they called Tonto trout, but they were looked up instantly and proved to be men above suspicion. Two prospectors had been at Hart's, nooning, and had ridden off down stream toward three o'clock. There was a clew worth following, and certain hangers-on about the trader's, "layin' fer a job," had casually hinted at the prospect of a game down at Snicker's—a ranch five miles below. Here, too, was something worth investigating. If Blakely had been robbed, as now seemed more than likely, Camp Sandy felt that the perpetrator must still be close at hand and of the packer or prospector class.

But before the ranks were broken, after the roll-call, then invariably held at half-past nine, Hart came driving back in a buckboard, with a lantern and a passenger, the latter one of the keenest trailers among the sergeants of Captain Sanders' troop, and Sanders was with the major as the man sprang from the wagon and stood at salute.

"Found anything, sergeant?" asked Plume.

"Not a boot track, sir, but the lieutenant's own."

"No tracks at all—in that soft sand!" exclaimed the major, disappointed and unbelieving. His wife had come slowly forward from within doors, and, bending slightly toward them, stood listening.

"No boot tracks, sir. There's others though—Tonto moccasins!"

Plume stood bewildered. "By Jove! I never thought of that!" said he, turning presently on his second troop commander. "But who ever heard of Apaches taking a man's watch and leaving—him?"

"If the major will look," said the sergeant, quietly producing a scouting notebook such as was then issued by the engineer department, "I measured 'em and made rough copies here. There was two, sir. Both came, both went, by the path through the willows up stream. We didn't have time to follow. One is longer and slimmer than the other. If I may make so bold, sir, I'd have a guard down there to-night to keep people away; otherwise the tracks may be spoiled before morning."

"Take three men and go yourself," said the major promptly. "See anything of any of the lieutenant's property? Mr. Hart told you, didn't he?" Plume was studying the sergeant's pencil sketches, by the light of the trader's lantern, as he spoke, a curious, puzzled look on his soldierly face.

"Saw where the box had lain in the sand, sir, but no trace of the net," and Sergeant Shannon was thinking less of these matters than of his sketches. There was something he thought the major ought to see, and presently he saw.

"Why, sergeant, these may be Tonto moccasin tracks, but not grown men's. They are mere boys, aren't they?"

"Mere girls, sir."

There was a sound of rustling skirts upon the bare piazza. Plume glanced impatiently over his shoulder. Mrs. Plume had vanished into the unlighted hallway.

"That would account for their taking the net," said he thoughtfully, "but what on earth would the guileless Tonto maiden do with a watch or with greenbacks? They wouldn't dare show with them at the agency! How far did you follow the tracks?"

"Only a rod or two. Once in the willows they can't well quit them till they reach the shallows above the pool, sir. We can guard there to-night and begin trailing at dawn."

"So be it then!" and presently the conference closed.

Seated on the adjoining gallery, alone and in darkness, stricken and sorrowing, a woman had been silently observant of the meeting, and had heard occasional snatches of the talk. Presently she rose; softly entered the house and listened at a closed door on the northward side—Captain Wren's own room. An hour previous, tortured between his own thoughts and her well-meant, but unwelcome efforts to cheer him, he had begged to be left alone, and had closed his door against all comers.

Now, she as softly ascended the narrow stairway and paused for a moment at another door, also closed. Listening a while, she knocked, timidly, hesitatingly, but no answer came. After a while, noiselessly, she turned the knob and entered.

A dim light was burning on a little table by the white bedside. A long, slim figure, white-robed and in all the abandon of girlish grief, was lying, face downward, on the bed. Tangled masses of hair concealed much of the neck and shoulders, but, bending over, Miss Wren could partially see the flushed and tear-wet cheek pillowed on one slender white arm. Exhausted by long weeping, Angela at last had dropped to sleep, but the little hand that peeped from under the thick, tumbling tresses still clung to an odd and unfamiliar object—something the older woman had seen only at a distance before—something she gazed at in startled fascination this strange and solemn night—a slender, long-handled butterfly net of filmy gauze.

CHAPTER IV

A STRICKEN SENTRY

entry duty at Camp Sandy along in '75 had not been allowed to bear too heavily on its little garrison. There was nothing worth stealing about the place, said Plume, and no pawn-shop handy. Of course there were government horses and mules, food and forage, arms and ammunition, but these were the days of soldier supremacy in that arid and distant land, and soldiers had a summary way of settling with marauders that was discouraging to enterprise. Larceny was therefore little known until the law, with its delays and circumventions, took root in the virgin soil, and people at such posts as Sandy seldom shut and rarely locked their doors, even by night. Windows were closed and blanketed by day against the blazing sun and torrid heat, but, soon after nightfall, every door and window was usually opened wide and often kept so all the night long, in order that the cooler air, settling down from mesa and mountain, might drift through every room and hallway, licking up the starting dew upon the smooth, rounded surface of the huge ollas, the porous water jars that hung suspended on every porch, and wafting comfort to the heated brows of the lightly covered sleepers within. Pyjamas were then unknown in army circles, else even the single sheet that covered the drowsing soldier might have been dispensed with.

Among the quarters occupied by married men, both in officers' row and Sudsville under the plateau, doors were of little account in a community where the only intruder to be feared was heat, and so it had resulted that while the corrals, stables, and storehouses had their guards, only a single sentry paced the long length of the eastward side of the post, a single pair of eyes and a single rifle barrel being deemed amply sufficient to protect against possible prowlers the rear yards and entrances of the row. The westward front of the officers' homes stood in plain view, on bright nights at least, of the sentry at the guard-house, and needed no other protector. On dark nights it was supposed to look out for itself.

A lonely time of it, as a rule, had No. 5, the "backyard sentry," but this October night he lacked not for sensation. Lights burned until very late in many of the quarters, while at Captain Wren's and Lieutenant Blakely's people were up and moving about until long after midnight. Of course No. 5 had heard all about the dreadful affair of the early evening. What he and his fellows puzzled over was the probable cause of Captain Wren's furious assault upon his subaltern. Many a theory was afloat, Duane, with unlooked-for discretion, having held his tongue as to the brief conversation that preceded the blow. It was after eleven when the doctor paid his last visit for the night, and the attendant came out on the rear porch for a pitcher of cool water from the olla. It was long after twelve when the light in the upstairs room at Captain Wren's was turned low, and for two hours thereafter, with bowed head, the captain himself paced nervously up and down, wearing in the soft and sandy soil a mournful pathway parallel with his back porch. It was after three, noted Private Mullins, of that first relief, when from the rear door of the major's quarters there emerged two forms in feminine garb, and, there being no hindering fences, away they hastened in the dim starlight, past Wren's, Cutler's, Westervelt's, and Truman's quarters until they were swallowed up in the general gloom about Lieutenant Blakely's. Private Mullins could not say for certain whether they had entered the rear door or gone around under the deep shadows of the veranda. When next he saw them, fifteen minutes later, coming as swiftly and silently back, Mullins was wondering whether he ought not to challenge and have them account for themselves. His orders were to allow inmates of the officers' quarters to pass in or out at night without challenge, provided he "recognized them to be such." Now, Mullins felt morally certain that these two were Mrs. Plume and Mrs. Plume's vivacious maid, a French-Canadian damsel, much admired and sought in soldier circles at the post, but Mullins had not seen their faces and could rightfully insist it was his duty and prerogative to do so. The question was, how would the "commanding officer's lady" like and take it? Mullins therefore shook his head. "I hadn't the nerve," as he expressed it, long afterwards. But no such frailty oppressed the occupant of the adjoining house. Just as the two had reached the rear of Wren's quarters, and were barely fifty steps from safety, the captain himself, issuing again from the doorway, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and in low, but imperative tone accosted them. "Who are you?" said he, bending eagerly, sternly over them. One quick look he gave, and, almost instantly recoiling, exclaimed "Mrs. Plume! I beg—" Then, as though with sudden recollection, "No, madam, I do not beg your pardon," and, turning on his heel, abruptly left them. Without a word, but with the arm of the maid supporting, the taller woman sped swiftly across the narrow intervening space and was lost again within the shadows of her husband's home.

Private Mullins, silent and probably unseen witness of this episode, slowly tossed his rifle from the port to the shoulder; shook his puzzled head; stared a moment at the dim figure of Captain Wren again in the starlit morning, nervously tramping up and down his narrow limit; then mechanically sauntered down the roadway, pondering much over what he had seen and heard during the brief period of his early morning watch. Reaching the south, the lower, end of his post, he turned again. He had but ten minutes left of his two-hour tramp. The second relief was due to start at 3.30, and should reach him at 3.35. He was wondering would the officer of the day "come nosin' round" within that time, asking him his orders, and was everything all right on his post? And had he observed anything unusual? There was Captain Wren, like a caged tiger, tramping up and down behind his quarters. At least he had been, for now he had disappeared. There were, or rather had been, the two ladies in long cloaks flitting in the shadows from the major's quarters to those of the invalid lieutenant. Mullins certainly did not wish to speak about them to any official visitor, whatever he might whisper later to Norah Shaughnessy, the saddler sergeant's daughter—Norah, who was nurse girl at the Trumans', and knew all the ins and outs of social life at Sandy—Norah, at whose window, under the north gable, he gazed with love in his eyes as he made his every round. He was a good soldier, was Mullins, but glad this night to get off post. Through the gap between the second and third quarters he saw the lights at the guard-house and could faintly see the black silhouette of armed men in front of them. The relief was forming sharp on time, and presently Corporal Donovan would be bringing Trooper Schultz, of "C" Troop, straight across the parade in search of him. The major so allowed his sentry on No. 5 to be relieved at night. Mullins thanked the saints with pious fervor that no more ladies would be like to flit across his vision, that night at least, when, dimly through the dusk, against the spangled northern sky, he sighted another figure crouching across the upper end of his post and making straight for the lighted entrance at the rear of the lieutenant's quarters. Someone else, then, had interest at Blakely's—someone coming stealthily from without. A minute later certain wakeful ears were startled by a moaning cry for aid.

Just what happened, and how it happened, within the minute, led to conflicting stories on the morrow. First man examined by Major Plume was Lieutenant Truman of the Infantry, who happened to be officer of the day. He had been over at Blakely's about midnight, he said; had found the patient sleeping under the influence of soothing medicine, and, after a whispered word with Todd, the hospital attendant, had tiptoed out again, encountering Downs, the lieutenant's striker, in the darkness on the rear porch. Downs said he was that excited he couldn't sleep at all, and Mr. Truman had come to the conclusion that Downs's excitement was due, in large part, to local influences totally disconnected with the affairs of the early evening. Downs was an Irishman who loved the "craytur," and had been known to resort to unconventional methods of getting it. At twelve o'clock, said Mr. Truman, the striker had obviously been priming. Now Plume's standing orders were that no liquor should be sold to Downs at the store and none to other soldiers except in "pony" glasses and for use on the spot. None could be carried away unconsumed. The only legitimate spirits, therefore, to which Downs could have access were those in Blakely's locked closet—spirits hitherto used only in the preservation of specimens, and though probably not much worse than the whisky sold at the store, disdainfully referred to by votaries as "Blakely's bug juice." Mr. Truman, therefore, demanded of Downs the possession of the lieutenant's keys, and, with aggrieved dignity of mien, Downs had referred him to the doctor, whose suspicions had been earlier aroused. Intending to visit his sentries after the change of guard at 1.30, Truman had thrown himself into a reclining chair in his little parlor, while Mrs. Truman and the little Trumans slumbered peacefully aloft. After reading an hour or so the lieutenant fell into a doze from which he awoke with a start. Mrs. Truman was bending over him. Mrs. Truman had been aroused by hearing voices in cautious, yet excited, colloquy in the shadows of Blakely's back porch. She felt sure that Downs was one and thought from the sound that he must be intoxicated, so Truman shuffled out to see, and somebody, bending double in the dusk, scurried away at his approach. He heard rather than saw. But there was Downs, at least, slinking back into the house, and him Truman halted and accosted. "Who was that with you?" he asked, and Downs thickly swore he hadn't seen a soul. But all the while Downs was clumsily stuffing something into a side pocket, and Truman, seizing his hand, dragged it forth into the light. It was one of the hospital six-ounce bottles, bearing a label indicative of glycerine lotion, but the color of the contained fluid belied the label. A sniff was sufficient. "Who gave you this whisky?" was the next demand, and Downs declared 'twas a hospital "messager" that brought it over, thinking the lieutenant might need it. Truman, filled with wrath, had dragged Downs into the dimly lighted room to the rear of that in which lay Lieutenant Blakely, and was there upbraiding and investigating when startled by the stifled cry that, rising suddenly on the night from the open mesa just without, had so alarmed so many in the garrison. Of what had led to it he had then no more idea than the dead.

Corporal Donovan, next examined, said he was marching Schultz over to relieve Mullins on No. 5, just after half-past three, and heading for the short cut between the quarters of Captains Wren and Cutler, which was about where No. 5 generally met the relief, when, just as they were halfway between the flagstaff and the row, Schultz began to limp and said there must be a pebble in his boot. So they halted. Schultz kicked off his boot and shook it upside down, and, while he was tugging at it again, they both heard a sort of gurgling, gasping cry out on the mesa. Of course Donovan started and ran that way, leaving Schultz to follow, and, just back of Captain Westervelt's, the third house from the northward end, he almost collided with Lieutenant Truman, officer of the day, who ordered him to run for Dr. Graham and fetch him up to Lieutenant Blakely's quick. So of what had taken place he, too, was ignorant until later.

It was the hospital attendant, Todd, whose story came next and brought Plume to his feet with consternation in his eyes. Todd said he had been sitting at the lieutenant's bedside when, somewhere about three o'clock, he had to go out and tell Downs to make less noise. Downs was completely upset by the catastrophe to his officer and, somehow, had got a few comforting drinks stowed away, and these had started him to singing some confounded Irish keen that grated on Todd's nerves. He was afraid it would disturb the patient and he was about to go out and remonstrate when the singing stopped and presently he heard Downs's voice in excited conversation. Then a woman's voice in low, urgent, persuasive whisper became faintly audible, and this surprised Todd beyond expression. He had thought to go and take a look and see who it could be, when there was a sudden swish of skirts and scurry of feet, and then Mr. Truman's voice was heard. Then there was some kind of sharp talk from the lieutenant to Downs, and then, in a sort of a lull, there came that uncanny cry out on the mesa, and, stopping only long enough to see that the lieutenant was not roused or disturbed, Todd hastened forth. One or two dim figures, dark and shadowy, were just visible on the eastward mesa, barely ten paces away, and thither the attendant ran. Downs, lurching heavily, was just ahead of him. Together they came upon a little group. Somebody went running southward—Lieutenant Truman, as Todd learned later—hurrying for the doctor. A soldier equipped as a sentry lay moaning on the sand, clasping a bloody hand to his side, and over him, stern, silent, but agitated, bent Captain Wren.

CHAPTER V

THE CAPTAIN'S DEFIANCE

ithin ten minutes of Todd's arrival at the spot the soft sands of the mesa were tramped into bewildering confusion by dozens of trooper boots. The muffled sound of excited voices, so soon after the startling affair of the earlier evening, and hurrying footfalls following, had roused almost every household along the row and brought to the spot half the officers on duty at the post. A patrol of the guard had come in double time, and soldiers had been sent at speed to the hospital for a stretcher. Dr. Graham had lost no moment of time in reaching the stricken sentry. Todd had been sent back to Blakely's bedside and Downs to fetch a lantern. They found the latter, five minutes later, stumbling about the Trumans' kitchen, weeping for that which was lost, and the sergeant of the guard collared and cuffed him over to the guard-house—one witness, at least, out of the way. At four o'clock the doctor was working over his exhausted and unconscious patient at the hospital. Mullins had been stabbed twice, and dangerously, and half a dozen men with lanterns were hunting about the bloody sands where the faithful fellow had dropped, looking for a weapon or a clew, and probably trampling out all possibility of finding either. Major Plume, through Mr. Doty, his adjutant, had felt it necessary to remind Captain Wren that an officer in close arrest had no right to be away from his quarters. Late in the evening, it seems, Dr. Graham had represented to the post commander that the captain was in so nervous and overwrought a condition, and so distressed, that as a physician he recommended his patient be allowed the limits of the space adjoining his quarters in which to walk off his superabundant excitement. Graham had long been the friend of Captain Wren and was his friend as well as physician now, even though deploring his astounding outbreak, but Graham had other things to demand his attention as night wore on, and there was no one to speak for Wren when the young adjutant, a subaltern of infantry, with unnecessary significance of tone and manner, suggested the captain's immediate return to his proper quarters. Wren bowed his head and went in stunned and stubborn silence. It had never occurred to him for a moment, when he heard that half-stifled, agonized cry for help, that there could be the faintest criticism of his rushing to the sentry's aid. Still less had it occurred to him that other significance, and damning significance, might attach to his presence on the spot, but, being first to reach the fallen man, he was found kneeling over him within thirty seconds of the alarm. Not another living creature was in sight when the first witnesses came running to the spot. Both Truman and Todd could swear to that.

In the morning, therefore, the orderly came with the customary compliments to say to Captain Wren that the post commander desired to see him at the office.

It was then nearly nine o'clock. Wren had had a sleepless night and was in consultation with Dr. Graham when the summons came. "Ask that Captain Sanders be sent for at once," said the surgeon, as he pressed his comrade patient's hand. "The major has his adjutant and clerk and possibly some other officers. You should have at least one friend."

"I understand," briefly answered Wren, as he stepped to the hallway to get his sun hat. "I wish it might be you." The orderly was already speeding back to the office at the south end of the brown rectangle of adobe and painted pine, but Janet Wren, ministering, according to her lights, to Angela in the little room aloft, had heard the message and was coming down. Taller and more angular than ever she looked as, with flowing gown, she slowly descended the narrow stairway.

"I have just succeeded in getting her to sleep," she murmured. "She has been dreadfully agitated ever since awakened by the voices and the running this morning, and she must have cried herself to sleep last night. R-r-r-obert, would it not be well for you to see her when she wakes? She does not know—I could not tell her—that you are under arrest."

Graham looked more "dour" than did his friend of the line. Privately he was wondering how poor Angela could get to sleep at all with Aunt Janet there to soothe her. The worst time to teach a moral lesson, with any hope of good effect, is when the recipient is suffering from sense of utter injustice and wrong, yet must perforce listen. But it is a favorite occasion with the "ower guid." Janet thought it would be a long step in the right direction to bring her headstrong niece to the belief that all the trouble was the direct result of her having sought, against her father's wishes, a meeting with Mr. Blakely. True, Janet had now some doubt that such had been the case, but, in what she felt was only stubborn pride, her niece refused all explanation. "Father would not hear me at the time," she sobbed. "I am condemned without a chance to defend myself or—him." Yet Janet loved the bonny child devotedly and would go through fire and water to serve her best interests, only those best interests must be as Janet saw them. That anything very serious might result as a consequence of her brother's violent assault on Blakely, she had never yet imagined. That further complications had arisen which might blacken his record she never could credit for a moment. Mullins lay still unconscious, and not until he recovered strength was he to talk with or see anyone. Graham had given faint hope of recovery, and declared that everything depended on his patient's having no serious fever or setback. In a few days he might be able to tell his story. Then the mystery as to his assailant would be cleared in a breath. Janet had taken deep offense that the commanding officer should have sent her brother into close arrest without first hearing of the extreme provocation. "It is an utterly unheard-of proceeding," said she, "this confining of an officer and gentleman without investigation of the affair," and she glared at Graham, uncomprehending, when, with impatient shrug of his big shoulders, he asked her what had they done, between them, to Angela. It was his wife put him up to saying that, she reasoned, for Janet's Calvinistic dogmas as to daughters in their teens were ever at variance with the views of her gentle neighbor. If Angela had been harshly dealt with, undeserving, it was Angela's duty to say so and to say why, said Janet. Meantime, her first care was her wronged and misjudged brother. Gladly would she have gone to the office with him and stood proudly by his side in presence of his oppressor, could such a thing be permitted. She marveled that Robert should now show so little of tenderness for her who had served him loyally, if masterfully, so very long. He merely laid his hand on hers and said he had been summoned to the commanding officer's, then went forth into the light and left her.

Major Plume was seated at his desk, thoughtful and perplexed. Up at regimental headquarters at Prescott Wren was held in high esteem, and the major's brief telegraphic message had called forth anxious inquiry and something akin to veiled disapprobation. Headquarters could not see how it was possible for Wren to assault Lieutenant Blakely without some grave reason. Had Plume investigated? No, but that was coming now, he said to himself, as Wren entered and stood in silence before him.

The little office had barely room for the desks of the commander and his adjutant and the table on which were spread the files of general orders from various superior headquarters—regimental, department, division, the army, and the War Secretary. No curtains adorned the little windows, front and rear. No rug or carpet vexed the warping floor. Three chairs, kitchen pattern, stood against the pine partition that shut off the sight, but by no means the hearing, of the three clerks scratching at their flat-topped desks in the adjoining den. Maps of the United States, of the Military Division of the Pacific, and of the Territory, as far as known and surveyed, hung about the wooden walls. Blue-prints and photographs of scout maps, made by their predecessors of the ——th Cavalry in the days of the Crook campaigns, were scattered with the order files about the table. But of pictures, ornamentation, or relief of any kind the gloomy box was destitute as the dun-colored flat of the parade. Official severity spoke in every feature of the forbidding office as well as in those of the major commanding.

There was striking contrast, too, between the man at the desk and the man on the rack before him. Plume had led a life devoid of anxiety or care. Soldiering he took serenely. He liked it, so long as no grave hardship threatened. He had done reasonably good service at corps headquarters during the Civil War; had been commissioned captain in the regulars in '61, and held no vexatious command at any time perhaps, until this that took him to far-away Arizona. Plume was a gentlemanly fellow and no bad garrison soldier. He really shone on parade and review at such fine stations as Leavenworth and Riley, but had never had to bother with mountain scouting or long-distance Indian chasing on the plains. He had a comfortable income outside his pay, and when he was wedded, at the end of her fourth season in society, to a prominent, if just a trifle passée belle, people thought him a more than lucky man, until the regiment was sent to Arizona and he to Sandy. Gossip said he went to General Sherman with appeal for some detaining duty, whereupon that bluff and most outspoken warrior exclaimed: "What, what, what! Not want to go with the regiment? Why, here's Blakely begging to be relieved from Terry's staff because he's mad to go." And this, said certain St. Louis commentators, settled it, for Mrs. Plume declared for Arizona.

Well garbed, groomed, and fed was Plume, a handsome, soldierly figure. Very cool and placid was his look in the spotless white that even then by local custom had become official dress for Sandy; but beneath the snowy surface his heart beat with grave disquiet as he studied the strong, rugged, somber face of the soldier on the floor.

Wren was tall and gaunt and growing gray. His face was deeply lined; his close-cropped beard was silver-stranded; his arms and legs were long and sinewy and powerful; his chest and shoulders burly; his regimental dress had not the cut and finish of the commander's. Too much of bony wrist and hand was in evidence, too little of grace and curve. But, though he stood rigidly at attention, with all semblance of respect and subordination, the gleam in his deep-set eyes, the twitch of the long fingers, told of keen and pent-up feeling, and he looked the senior soldier squarely in the face. A sergeant, standing by the adjutant's desk, tiptoed out into the clerk's room and closed the door behind him, then set himself to listen. Young Doty, the adjutant, fiddled nervously with his pen and tried to go on signing papers, but failed. It was for Plume to break the awkward silence, and he did not quite know how. Captain Westervelt, quietly entering at the moment, bowed to the major and took a chair. He had evidently been sent for.

"Captain Wren," presently said Plume, his fingers trembling a bit as they played with the paper folder, "I have felt constrained to send for you to inquire still further into last night's affair—or affairs. I need not tell you that you may decline to answer if you consider your interests are—involved. I had hoped this painful matter might be so explained as to—as to obviate the necessity of extreme measures, but your second appearance close to Mr. Blakely's quarters, under all the circumstances, was so—so extraordinary that I am compelled to call for explanation, if you have one you care to offer."

For a moment Wren stood staring at his commander in amaze. He had expected to be offered opportunity to state the circumstances leading to his now deeply deplored attack on Mr. Blakely, and to decline the offer on the ground that he should have been given that opportunity before being submitted to the humiliation of arrest. He had intended to refuse all overtures, to invite trial by court-martial or investigation by the inspector general, but by no manner of means to plead for reconsideration now; and here was the post commander, with whom he had never served until they came to Sandy, a man who hadn't begun to see the service, the battles, and campaigns that had fallen to his lot, virtually accusing him of further misdemeanor, when he had only rushed to save or succor. He forgot all about Sanders or other witnesses. He burst forth impetuously:

"Extraordinary, sir! It would have been most extraordinary if I hadn't gone with all speed when I heard that cry for help."

Plume looked up in sudden joy. "You mean to tell me you didn't—you weren't there till after—the cry?"

Wren's stern Scottish face was a sight to see. "Of what can you possibly be thinking, Major Plume?" he demanded, slowly now, for wrath was burning within him, and yet he strove for self-control. He had had a lesson and a sore one.

"I will answer that—a little later, Captain Wren," said Plume, rising from his seat, rejoicing in the new light now breaking upon him. Westervelt, too, had gasped a sigh of relief. No man had ever known Wren to swerve a hair's breadth from the truth. "At this moment time is precious if the real criminal is to be caught at all. You were first to reach the sentry. Had you seen no one else?"

In the dead silence that ensued within the room the sputter of hoofs without broke harshly on the ear. Then came spurred boot heels on the hollow, heat-dried boarding, but not a sound from the lips of Captain Wren. The rugged face, twitching with pent-up indignation the moment before, was now slowly turning gray. Plume stood facing him in growing wonder and new suspicion.

"You heard me, did you not? I asked you did you see anyone else during—along the sentry post when you went out?"

A fringed gauntlet reached in at the doorway and tapped. Sergeant Shannon, straight as a pine, stood expectant of summons to enter and his face spoke eloquently of important tidings, but the major waved him away, and, marveling, he slowly backed to the edge of the porch.

"Surely you can answer that, Captain Wren," said Plume, his clear-cut, handsome face filled with mingled anxiety and annoy. "Surely you should answer, or—"

The ellipsis was suggestive, but impotent. After a painful moment came the response:

"Or—take the consequences, major?" Then slowly—"Very well, sir—I must take them."

CHAPTER VI

A FIND IN THE SANDS

he late afternoon of an eventful day had come to camp Sandy—just such another day, from a meteorological viewpoint, as that on which this story opened nearly twenty-four hours earlier by the shadows on the eastward cliffs. At Tuesday's sunset the garrison was yawning with the ennui born of monotonous and uneventful existence. As Wednesday's sunset drew nigh and the mountain shadows overspread the valley, even to the opposite crests of the distant Mogollon, the garrison was athrill with suppressed excitement, for half a dozen things had happened since the flag went up at reveille.

In the first place Captain Wren's arrest had been confirmed and Plume had wired department headquarters, in reply to somewhat urgent query, that there were several counts in his indictment of the captain, any one of which was sufficient to demand a trial by court-martial, but he wished, did Plume, for personal and official reasons that the general commanding should send his own inspector down to judge for himself.

The post sergeant major and the three clerks had heard with sufficient distinctness every word that passed between the major and the accused captain, and, there being at Sandy some three hundred inquisitive souls, thirsting for truth and light, it could hardly be expected of this quartette that it should preserve utter silence even though silence had been enjoined by the adjutant. It was told all over the post long before noon that Wren had been virtually accused of being the sentry's assailant as well as Lieutenant Blakely's. It was whispered that, in some insane fury against the junior officer, Wren had again, toward 3.30, breaking his arrest, gone up the row with the idea of once more entering Blakely's house and possibly again attacking him. It was believed that the sentry had seen and interposed, and that, enraged at being balked by an enlisted man, Wren had drawn a knife and stabbed him. True, no knife had been found anywhere about the spot, and Wren had never been known to carry one. But now a dozen men, armed with rakes, were systematically going over the ground under the vigilant eye of Sergeant Shannon—Shannon, who had heard the brief, emphatic interview between the major and the troop commander and who had been almost immediately sent forth to supervise this search, despite the fact that he had but just returned from the conduct of another, the result of which he imparted to the ears of only two men, Plume, the post commander, and Doty, his amazed and bewildered adjutant. But Shannon had with him a trio of troopers, one of whom, at least, had not been proof against inquisitive probing, for the second sensation of the day was the story that one of the two pairs of moccasin tracks, among the yielding sands of the willow copse, led from where Mr. Blakely had been dozing to where the pony Punch had been drowsing in the shade, for there they were lost, as the maker had evidently mounted and ridden away. All Sandy knew that Punch had no other rider than pretty Angela Wren.

A third story, too, was whispered in half a dozen homes, and was going wild about the garrison, to the effect that Captain Wren, when accused of being Mullins's assailant, had virtually declared that he had seen other persons prowling on the sentry's post and that they, not he, were the guilty ones; but when bidden to name or describe them, Wren had either failed or refused; some said one, some said the other, and the prevalent belief in Sudsville circles, as well as in the barracks, was that Captain Wren was going crazy over his troubles. And now there were women, ay, and men, too, though they spake with bated breath, who had uncanny things to say of Angela—the captain's only child.

And this it was that led to sensation No. 4—a wordy battle of the first magnitude between the next-door neighbor of the saddler sergeant and no less a champion of maiden probity than Norah Shaughnessy—the saddler sergeant's buxom daughter. All the hours since early morning Norah had been in a state of nerves so uncontrollable that Mrs. Truman—who knew of Norah's fondness for Mullins and marveled not that Mullins always preferred the loneliness and isolation of the post on No. 5—decided toward noon to send the girl home to her mother for a day or so, and Norah thankfully went, and threw herself upon her mother's ample breast and sobbed aloud. It was an hour before she could control herself, and her agitation was such that others came to minister to her. Of course there was just one explanation—Norah was in love with Mullins and well-nigh crazed with grief over his untimely taking off, for later reports from the hospital were most depressing. This, at least, was sufficient explanation until late in the afternoon. Then, restored to partial composure, the girl was sitting up and being fanned in the shade of her father's roof-tree, when roused by the voice of the next-door neighbor before mentioned—Mrs. Quinn, long time laundress of Captain Sanders's troop and jealous as to Wren's, was telling what she had heard of Shannon's discoveries, opining that both Captain Wren and the captain's daughter deserved investigation. "No wan need tell me there was others prowling about Mullins's post at three in the marnin.' As for Angela—" But here Miss Shaughnessy bounded from the wooden settee, and, with amazing vim and vigor, sailed spontaneously into Mrs. Quinn.

"No wan need tell you—ye say! No wan need tell you, ye black-tongued scandlum! Well, then, I tell ye Captain Wren did see others prowlin' on poor Pat Mullins's post an' others than him saw them too. Go you to the meejer, soon as ye like and say I saw them, and if Captain Wren won't tell their names there's them that will."

The shrill tones of the infuriated girl were plainly audible all over the flats whereon were huddled the little cabins of log and adobe assigned as quarters to the few married men among the soldiery. These were the halcyon days of the old army when each battery, troop, or company was entitled to four laundresses and each laundress to one ration. Old and young, there were at least fifty pairs of ears within easy range of the battle that raged forthwith, the noise of which reached even to the shaded precincts of the trader's store three hundred yards away. It was impossible that such a flat-footed statement as Norah's should not be borne to the back doors of "The Row" and, repeated then from lip to lip, should soon be told to certain of the officers. Sanders heard it as he came in from stable duty, and Dr. Graham felt confident that it had been repeated under the major's roof when at 6 p. m. the post commander desired his professional services in behalf of Mrs. Plume, who had become unaccountably, if not seriously, ill.

Graham had but just returned from a grave conference with Wren, and his face had little look of the family physician as he reluctantly obeyed the summons. As another of the auld licht school of Scotch Presbyterians, he also had conceived deep-rooted prejudice to that frivolous French aide-de-camp of the major's wife. The girl did dance and flirt and ogle to perfection, and half a dozen strapping sergeants were now at sword's points all on account of this objectionable Eliza. Graham, of course, had heard with his ears and fathomed with his understanding the first reports of Wren's now famous reply to his commanding officer; and though Wren would admit no more to him than he had to the major, Graham felt confident that the major's wife was one of the mysterious persons seen by Wren, and declared by Norah, in the dim starlight of the early morning, lurking along the post of No. 5. Graham had no doubt that Elise was the other. The man most concerned in the case, the major himself, was perhaps the only one at sunset who never seemed to suspect that Mrs. Plume could have been in any way connected with the affair. He met the doctor with a world of genuine anxiety in his eyes.

"My wife," said he, "is of a highly sensitive organization, and she has been completely upset by this succession of scandalous affairs. She and Blakely were great friends at St. Louis three years ago; indeed, many people were kind enough to couple their names before our marriage. I wish you could—quiet her," and the sounds from aloft, where madame was nervously pacing her room, gave point to the suggestion. Graham climbed the narrow stairs and tapped at the north door on the landing. It was opened by Elise, whose big, black eyes were dilated with excitement, while Mrs. Plume, her blonde hair tumbling down her back, her peignoir decidedly rumpled and her general appearance disheveled, was standing in mid-floor, wringing her jeweled hands. "She looks like sixty," was the doctor's inward remark, "and is probably not twenty-six."

Her first question jarred upon his rugged senses.

"Dr. Graham, when will Mr. Blakely be able to see—or read?"

"Not for a day or two. The stitches must heal before the bandages can come off his eyes. Even then, Mrs. Plume, he should not be disturbed," was the uncompromising answer.

"Is that wretch, Downs, sober yet?" she demanded, standing and confronting him, her whole form quivering with strong, half-suppressed emotion.

"The wretch is sobering," answered Graham gravely. "And now, madame, I'll trouble you to take a chair. Do you," with a glance of grim disfavor, "need this girl for the moment? If not, she might as well retire."

"I need my maid, Dr. Graham, and I told Major Plume distinctly I did not need you," was the impulsive reply, as the lady strove against the calm, masterful grasp he laid on her wrist.

"That's as may be, Mrs. Plume. We're often blind to our best interests. Be seated a moment, then I'll let you tramp the soles of your feet off, if you so desire." And so he practically pulled her into a chair; Elise, glaring the while, stood spitefully looking on. The antipathy was mutual.

"You've slept too little of late, Mrs. Plume," continued the doctor, lucklessly hitting the mark with a home shot instantly resented, for the lady was on her feet again.

"Sleep! People do nothing but sleep in this woebegone hole!" she cried. "I've had sleep enough to last a lifetime. What I want is to wake—wake out of this horrible nightmare! Dr. Graham, you are a friend of Captain Wren's. What under heaven possessed him, with his brutal strength, to assault so sick a man as Mr. Blakely? What possible pretext could he assert?" And again she was straining at her imprisoned hand and seeking to free herself, Graham calmly studying her the while, as he noted the feverish pulse. Not half an hour earlier he had been standing beside the sick bed of a fair young girl, one sorely weighted now with grave anxieties, yet who lay patient and uncomplaining, rarely speaking a word. They had not told the half of the web of accusation that now enmeshed her father's feet, but what had been revealed to her was more than enough to banish every thought of self or suffering and to fill her fond heart with instant and loving care for him. No one, not even Janet, was present during the interview between father and child that followed. Graham found him later locked in his own room, reluctant to admit even him, and lingering long before he opened the door; but even then the tear-stains stood on his furrowed face, and the doctor knew he had been sobbing his great heart out over the picture of his child—the child he had so harshly judged and sentenced, all unheard. Graham had gone to him, after seeing Angela, with censure on his tongue, but he never spoke the words. He saw there was no longer need.

"Let the lassie lie still the day," said he, "with Kate, perhaps, to read to her. Your sister might not choose a cheering book. Then perhaps we'll have her riding Punch again to-morrow." But Graham did not smile when meeting Janet by the parlor door.

He was thinking of the contrast in these two, his patients, as with professional calm he studied the troubled features of the major's wife when the voice of Sergeant Shannon was heard in the lower hall, inquiring for the major, and in an instant Plume had joined him. In that instant, too, Elise had sped, cat-like, to the door, and Mrs. Plume had followed. Possibly for this reason the major led the sergeant forth upon the piazza and the conversation took place in tones inaudible to those within the house; but, in less than a minute, the doctor's name was called and Graham went down.

"Look at this," said Plume. "They raked it out of the sand close to where Mullins was lying." And the major held forth an object that gleamed in the last rays of the slanting sunshine. It was Blakely's beautiful watch.

CHAPTER VII

"WOMAN-WALK-IN-THE-NIGHT"

he dawn of another cloudless day was breaking and the dim lights at the guard-house and the hospital burned red and bleary across the sandy level of the parade. The company cooks were already at their ranges, and a musician of the guard had been sent to rouse his fellows in the barracks, for the old-style reveille still held good at many a post in Arizona, before the drum and fife were almost entirely abandoned in favor of the harsher bugle, by the infantry of our scattered little army. Plume loved tradition. At West Point, where he had often visited in younger days, and at all the "old-time" garrisons, the bang of the morning gun and the simultaneous crash of the drums were the military means devised to stir the soldier from his sleep. Then, his brief ablutions were conducted to the accompaniment of the martial strains of the field musicians, alternating the sweet airs of Moore and Burns, the lyrics of Ireland and Auld Reekie, with quicksteps from popular Yankee melodies of the day, winding up with a grand flourish at the foot of the flagstaff, to whose summit the flag had started at the first alarum; then a rush into rattling "double quick" that summoned the laggards to scurry into the silently forming ranks, and finally, with one emphatic rataplan, the morning concert abruptly closed and the gruff voices of the first sergeants, in swift-running monotone, were heard calling the roll of their shadowy companies, and, thoroughly roused, the garrison "broke ranks" for the long routine of the day.

We have changed all that, and not for the better. A solitary trumpeter steps forth from the guard-house or adjutant's office and, at the appointed time, drones a long, dispiriting strain known to the drill books as "Assembly of the Trumpeters," and to the army at large as "First Call." Unassisted by other effort, it would rouse nobody, but from far and near the myriad dogs of the post—"mongrel, hound, and cur of low degree"—lift up their canine voices in some indefinable sympathy and stir the winds of the morning with their mournful yowls. Then, when all the garrison gets up cursing and all necessity for rousing is ended, the official reveille begins, sounded by the combined trumpeters, and so, uncheered by concord of sweet sounds, the soldier begins his day.

The two infantry companies at Sandy, at the time whereof we tell, were of an honored old regiment that had fought with Worth at Monterey—one whose scamps of drum boys and fifers had got their teachings from predecessors whose nimble fingers had trilled the tunes of old under the walls of the Bishop's Palace and in the resounding Halls of the Montezumas. Plume and Cutler loved their joyous, rhythmical strains, and would gladly have kept the cavalry clarions for purely cavalry calls; but reveille and guard-mounting were the only ones where this was practicable, and an odd thing had become noticeable. Apache Indians sometimes stopped their ears, and always looked impolite, when the brazen trumpets sounded close at hand; whereas they would squat on the sun-kissed sands and listen in stolid, unmurmuring bliss to every note of the fife and drum. Members of the guard were always sure of sympathetic spectators during the one regular ceremony—guard-mounting—held just after sunset, for the Apache prisoners at the guard-house begged to be allowed to remain without the prison room until a little after the "retreat" visit of the officer of the day, and, roosting along the guard-house porch, to gaze silently forth at the little band of soldiery in the center of the parade, and there to listen as silently to the music of the fife and drum. The moment it was all over they would rise without waiting for directions, and shuffle stolidly back to their hot wooden walls. They had had the one intellectual treat of the day. The savage breast was soothed for the time being, and Plume had come to the conclusion that, aside from the fact that his Indian prisoners were better fed than when on their native heath, the Indian prison pen at Sandy was not the place of penance the department commander had intended. Accessions became so frequent; discharges so very few.

Then there was another symptom: Sentries on the north and east front, Nos. 4 and 5, had been a bit startled at first at seeing, soon after dawn, shadowy forms rising slowly from the black depths of the valley, hovering uncertainly along the edge of the mesa until they could make out the lone figure of the morning watcher, then slowly, cautiously, and with gestures of amity and suppliance, drawing gradually nearer. Sturdy Germans and mercurial Celts were, at the start, disposed to "shoo" away these specters as being hostile, or at least incongruous. But officers and men were soon made to see it was to hear the morning music these children of the desert flocked so early. The agency lay but twenty miles distant. The reservation lines came no nearer; but the fame of the invader's big maple tom-tom (we wore still the deep, resonant drum of Bunker Hill and Waterloo, of Jemappes, Saratoga, and Chapultepec, not the modern rattle pan borrowed from Prussia), and the trill of his magical pipe had spread abroad throughout Apache land to the end that no higher reward for good behavior could be given by the agent to his swarthy charges than the begged-for papel permitting them, in lumps of twenty, to trudge through the evening shades to the outskirts of the soldier castle on the mesa, there to wait the long night through until the soft tinting of the eastward heavens and the twitter of the birdlings in the willows along the stream, gave them courage to begin their timid approach.

And this breathless October morning was no exception. The sentry on the northward line, No. 4, had recognized and passed the post surgeon soon after four o'clock, hastening to hospital in response to a summons from an anxious nurse. Mullins seemed far too feverish. No. 4 as well as No. 5 had noted how long the previous evening Shannon and his men kept raking and searching about the mesa where Mullins was stabbed in the early morning, and they were in no mood to allow strangers to near them unchallenged. The first shadowy forms to show at the edge had dropped back abashed at the harsh reception accorded them. Four's infantry rifle and Five's cavalry carbine had been leveled at the very first to appear, and stern voices had said things the Apache could neither translate nor misunderstand. The would-be audience of the morning concert ducked and waited. With more light the sentry might be more kind. The evening previous six new prisoners had been sent down under strong guard by the agent, swelling the list at Sandy to thirty-seven and causing Plume to set his teeth—and an extra sentry. Now, as the dawn grew broader and the light clear and strong, Four and Five were surprised, if not startled, to see that not twenty, but probably forty Apaches, with a sprinkling of squaws, were hovering all along the mesa, mutely watching for the signaled permission to come in. Five, at least, considered the symptom one of sufficient gravity to warrant report to higher authority, and full ten minutes before the time for reveille to begin, his voice went echoing over the arid parade in a long-draw, yet imperative "Corporal of the Gua-a-rd, No. 5!"

Whereat there were symptoms of panic among the dingy white-shirted, dingy white-turbaned watchers along the edge, and a man in snowy white fatigue coat, pacing restlessly up and down in rear, this time, of the major's quarters, whirled suddenly about and strode out on the mesa, gazing northward in the direction of the sound. It was Plume himself, and Plume had had a sleepless night.

At tattoo, by his own act and direction, the major had still further strained the situation. The discovery of Blakely's watch, buried loosely in the sands barely ten feet from where the sentry fell, had seemed to him a matter of such significance that, as Graham maintained an expression of professional gravity and hazarded no explanation, the major sent for the three captains still on duty, Cutler, Sanders, and Westervelt, and sought their views. One after another each picked up and closely examined the watch, within and without, as though expectant of finding somewhere concealed about its mechanism full explanation of its mysterious goings and comings. Then in turn, with like gravity, each declared he had no theory to offer, unless, said Sanders, Mr. Blakely was utterly mistaken in supposing he had been robbed at the pool. Mr. Blakely had the watch somewhere about him when he dismounted, and then joggled it into the sands, where it soon was trampled under foot. Sanders admitted that Blakely was a man not often mistaken, and that the loss reported to the post trader of the flat notebook was probably correct. But no one could be got to see, much less to say, that Wren was in the slightest degree connected with the temporary disappearance of the watch. Yet by this time Plume had some such theory of his own.

Sometime during the previous night, along toward morning, he had sleepily asked his wife, who was softly moving about the room, to give him a little water. The "monkey" stood usually on the window sill, its cool and dewy surface close to his hand; but he remembered later that she did not then approach the window—did not immediately bring him the glass. He had retired very late, yet was hardly surprised to find her wide awake and more than usually nervous. She explained by saying Elise had been quite ill, was still suffering, and might need her services again. She could not think, she said, of sending for Dr. Graham after all he had had to vex him. It must have been quite a long while after, so soundly had Plume slept, when she bent over him and said something was amiss and Mr. Doty was at the front door waiting for him to come down. He felt oddly numb and heavy and stupid as he hastily dressed, but Doty's tidings, that Mullins had been stabbed on post, pulled him together, as it were, and, merely running back to his room for his canvas shoes, he was speedily at the scene. Mrs. Plume, when briefly told what had happened, had covered her face with her hands and buried face and all in the pillow, shuddering. At breakfast-time Plume himself had taken her tea and toast, both mistress and maid being still on the invalid list, and, bending affectionately over her, he had suggested her taking this very light refreshment and then a nap. Graham, he said, should come and prescribe for Elise. But madame was feverishly anxious. "What will be the outcome? What will happen to—Captain Wren?" she asked.

Plume would not say just what, but he would certainly have to stand court-martial, said he. Mrs. Plume shuddered more. What good would that do? How much better it would be to suppress everything than set such awful scandal afloat. The matter was now in the hands of the department commander, said Plume, and would have to take its course. Then, in some way, from her saying how ill the captain was looking, Plume gathered the impression that she had seen him since his arrest, and asked the question point-blank. Yes, she admitted,—from the window,—while she was helping Elise. Where was he? What was he doing? Plume had asked, all interest now, for that must have been very late, in fact, well toward morning. "Oh, nothing especial, just looking at his watch," she thought, "he probably couldn't sleep." Yes, she was sure he was looking at his watch.

Then, as luck would have it, late in the day, when the mail came down from Prescott, there was a little package for Captain Wren, expressed, and Doty signed the receipt and sent it by the orderly. "What was it?" asked Plume. "His watch, sir," was the brief answer. "He sent it up last month for repairs." And Mrs. Plume at nine that night, knowing nothing of this, yet surprised at her husband's pertinacity, stuck to her story. She was sure Wren was consulting or winding or doing something with a watch, and, sorely perplexed and marveling much at the reticence of his company commanders, who seemed to know something they would not speak of, Wren sent for Doty. He had decided on another interview with Wren.

Meanwhile "the Bugologist" had been lying patiently in his cot, saying little or nothing, in obedience to the doctor's orders, but thinking who knows what. Duane and Doty occasionally tiptoed in to glance inquiry at the fanning attendant, and then tiptoed out. Mullins had been growing worse and was a very sick man. Downs, the wretch, was painfully, ruefully, remorsefully sobered over at the post of the guard, and of Graham's feminine patients the one most in need, perhaps, of his ministration was giving the least trouble. While Aunt Janet paced restlessly about the lower floor, stopping occasionally to listen at the portal of her brother, Angela Wren lay silent and only sometimes sighing, with faithful Kate Sanders reading in low tone by the bedside.

The captains had gone back to their quarters, conferring in subdued voices. Plume, with his unhappy young adjutant, was seated on the veranda, striving to frame his message to Wren, when the crack of a whip, the crunching of hoofs and wheels, sounded at the north end of the row, and down at swift trot came a spanking, four-mule team and Concord wagon. It meant but one thing, the arrival of the general's staff inspector straight from Prescott.

It was the very thing Plume had urged by telegraph, yet the very fact that Colonel Byrne was here went to prove that the chief was far from satisfied that the major's diagnosis was the right one. With soldierly alacrity, however, Plume sprang forward to welcome the coming dignitary, giving his hand to assist him from the dark interior into the light. Then he drew back in some chagrin. The voice of Colonel Byrne was heard, jovial and reassuring, but the face and form first to appear were those of Mr. Wayne Daly, the new Indian agent at the Apache reservation. Coming by the winding way of Cherry Creek, the colonel must have found means to wire ahead, then to pick up this civil functionary some distance up the valley, and to have some conference with him before ever reaching the major's bailiwick. This was not good, said Plume. All the same, he led them into his cozy army parlor, bade his Chinese servant get abundant supper forthwith, and, while the two were shown to the spare room to remove the dust of miles of travel, once more returned to the front piazza and his adjutant.

"Captain Wren, sir," said the young officer at once, "begs to be allowed to see Colonel Byrne this evening. He states that his reasons are urgent."

"Captain Wren shall have every opportunity to see Colonel Byrne in due season," was the answer. "It is not to be expected that Colonel Byrne will see him until after he has seen the post commander. Then it will probably be too late," and that austere reply, intended to reach the ears of the applicant, steeled the Scotchman's heart against his commander and made him merciless.

The "conference of the powers" was indeed protracted until long after 10.30, yet, to Plume's surprise, the colonel at its close said he believed he would go, if Plume had no objection, and see Wren in person and at once. "You see, Plume, the general thinks highly of the old Scot. He has known him ever since First Bull Run and, in fact, I am instructed to hear what Wren may have to say. I hope you will not misinterpret the motive."

"Oh, not at all—not at all!" answered the major, obviously ill pleased, however, and already nettled that, against all precedent, certain of the Apache prisoners had been ordered turned out as late as 10 p. m. for interview with the agent. It would leave him alone, too, for as much as half an hour, and the very air seemed surcharged with intrigue against the might, majesty, power, and dominion of the post commander. Byrne, a soldier of the old school, might do his best to convince the major that in no wise was the confidence of the general commanding abated, but every symptom spoke of something to the contrary. "I should like, too, to see Dr. Graham to-night," said the official inquisitor ere he quitted the piazza to go to Wren's next door. "He will be here to meet you on your return," said Plume, with just a bit of stateliness, of ruffled dignity in manner, and turned once more within the hallway to summon his smiling Chinaman.

Something rustling at the head of the stairs caused him to look up quickly. Something dim and white was hovering, drooping, over the balustrade, and, springing aloft, he found his wife in a half-fainting condition, Elise, the invalid, sputtering vehemently in French and making vigorous effort to pull her away. Plume had left her at 8.30, apparently sleeping at last under the influence of Graham's medicine. Yet here she was again. He lifted her in his arms and laid her upon the broad, white bed. "Clarice, my child," he said, "you must be quiet. You must not leave your bed. I am sending for Graham and he will come to us at once."

"I will not see him! He shall not see me!" she burst in wildly. "The man maddens me with his—his insolence."

"Clarice!"

"Oh, I mean it! He and his brother Scot, between them—they would infuriate a—saint," and she was writhing in nervous contortions.

"But, Clarice, how?"

"But, monsieur, no!" interposed Elise, bending over, glass in hand. "Madame will but sip of this—Madame will be tranquil." And the major felt himself thrust aside. "Madame must not talk to-night. It is too much."

But madame would talk. Madame would know where Colonel Byrne was gone, whether he was to be permitted to see Captain Wren and Dr. Graham, and that wretch Downs. Surely the commanding officer must have some rights. Surely it was no time for investigation—this hour of the night. Five minutes earlier Plume was of the same way of thinking. Now he believed his wife delirious.

"See to her a moment, Elise," said he, breaking loose from the clasp of the long, bejeweled fingers, and, scurrying down the stairs, he came face to face with Dr. Graham.

"I was coming for you," said he, at sight of the rugged, somber face. "Mrs. Plume—"

"I heard—at least I comprehend," answered Graham, with uplifted hand. "The lady is in a highly nervous state, and my presence does not tend to soothe her. The remedies I left will take effect in time. Leave her to that waiting woman; she best understands her."

"But she's almost raving, man. I never knew a woman to behave like that."

"Ye're not long married, major," answered Graham. "Come into the air a bit," and, taking his commander's arm, the surgeon swept him up the starlit row, then over toward the guard-house, and kept him half an hour watching the strange interview between Mr. Daly, the agent, and half a dozen gaunt, glittering-eyed Apaches, from whom he was striving to get some admission or information, with Arahawa, "Washington Charley," as interpreter. One after another the six had shaken their frowsy heads. They admitted nothing—knew nothing.

"What do you make of it all?" queried Plume.

"Something's wrang at the reservation," answered Graham. "There mostly is. Daly thinks there's running to and fro between the Tontos in the Sierra Ancha country and his wards above here. He thinks there's more out than there should be—and more a-going. What'd you find, Daly?" he added, as the agent joined them, mechanically wiping his brow. Moisture there was none. It evaporated fast as the pores exuded.

"They know well enough, damn them!" said the new official. "But they think I can be stood off. I'll nail 'em yet—to-morrow," he added. "But could you send a scout at once to the Tonto basin?" and Daly turned eagerly to the post commander.

Plume reflected. Whom could he send? Men there were in plenty, dry-rotting at the post for lack of something to limber their joints; but officers to lead? There was the rub! Thirty troopers, twenty Apache Mohave guides, a pack train and one or, at most, two officers made up the usual complement of such expeditions. Men, mounts, scouts, mules and packers, all, were there at his behest; but, with Wren in arrest, Sanders and Lynn back but a week from a long prod through the Black Mesa country far as Fort Apache, Blakely invalided and Duane a boy second lieutenant, his choice of cavalry officers was limited. It never occurred to him to look beyond.

"What's the immediate need of a scout?" said he.

"To break up the traffic that's going on—and the rancherias they must have somewhere down there. If we don't, I'll not answer for another month." Daly might be new to the neighborhood, but not to the business.

"I'll confer with Colonel Byrne," answered Plume guardedly. And Byrne was waiting for them, a tall, dark shadow in the black depths of the piazza. Graham would have edged away and gone to his own den, but Plume held to him. There was something he needed to say, yet could not until the agent had retired. Daly saw,—perhaps he had already imbibed something of the situation,—and was not slow to seek his room. Plume took the little kerosene lamp; hospitably led the way; made the customary tender of a "night-cap," and polite regrets he had no ice to offer therewith; left his unwonted guest with courteous good-night and cast an eye aloft as he came through the hall. All there was dark and still, though he doubted much that Graham's sedatives had yet prevailed. He had left the two men opposite the doorway. He found them at the south end of the piazza, their heads together. They straightened up to perfunctory talk about the Medical Director, his drastic methods and inflammable ways; but the mirth was forced, the humor far too dry. Then silence fell. Then Plume invaded it:

"How'd you find Wren—mentally?" he presently asked. He felt that an opening of some kind was necessary.

"Sound," was the colonel's answer, slow and sententious. "Of course he is much—concerned."

"About—his case? Ah, will you smoke, colonel?"

"About Blakely. I believe not, Plume; it's late."

Plume struck a light on the sole of his natty boot. "One would suppose he would feel very natural anxiety as to the predicament in which he has placed himself," he ventured.

"Wren worries much over Blakely's injuries, which accident made far more serious than he would have inflicted, major, even had he had the grounds for violence that he thought he had. Blakely was not the only sufferer, and is not the only cause, of his deep contrition. Wren tells me that he was even harsher to Angela. But that is all a family matter." The colonel was speaking slowly, thoughtfully.

"But—these later affairs—that Wren couldn't explain—or wouldn't." Plume's voice and color both were rising.

"Couldn't is the just word, major, and couldn't especially—to you," was the significant reply.

Plume rose from his chair and stood a moment, trembling not a little and his fingers twitching. "You mean—" he huskily began.

"I mean this, my friend," said Byrne gently, as he, too, arose, "and I have asked Graham, another friend, to be here—that Wren would not defend himself to you by even mentioning—others, and might not have revealed the truth even to me had he been the only one cognizant of it. But, Plume, others saw what he saw, and what is now known to many people on the post. Others than Wren were abroad that night. One other was being carefully, tenderly brought home—led home—to your roof. You did not know—Mrs. Plume was a somnambulist?"

In the dead silence that ensued the colonel put forth a pitying hand as though to stay and support the younger soldier, the post commander. Plume stood, swaying a bit, and staring. Presently he strove to speak, but choked in the effort.

"It's the only proper explanation," said Graham, and between them they led the major within doors.

And this is how it happened that he, instead of Wren, was pacing miserably up and down in the gathering dawn, when the sentry startled all waking Sandy with his cry for the corporal. This is how, far ahead of the corporal, the post commander reached the alarmed soldier, with demand to know the cause; and, even by the time he came, the cause had vanished from sight.

"Apaches, sir, by the dozen,—all along the edge of the mesa," stammered No. 5. He could have convinced the corporal without fear or thought of ridicule, but his voice lacked confidence when he stood challenged by his commanding officer. Plume heard with instant suspicion. He was in no shape for judicial action.

"Apaches!" This in high disdain. "Trash, man! Because one sentry has a scuffle with some night prowler is the next to lose his nerve? You're scared by shadows, Hunt. That's what's the matter with you!"

It "brought to" a veteran trooper with a round turn. Hunt had served his fourth enlistment, had "worn out four blankets" in the regiment, and was not to be accused of scare.

"Let the major see for himself, then," he answered sturdily. "Come in here, you!" he called aloud. "Come, the whole gang of ye. The concert's beginning!" Then, slowly along the eastward edge there began to creep into view black polls bound with dirty white, black crops untrammeled by any binding. Then, swift from the west, came running footfalls, the corporal with a willing comrade or two, wondering was Five in further danger. There, silent and regretful, stood the post commander, counting in surprise the score of scarecrow forms now plainly visible, sitting, standing, or squatting along the mesa edge. Northernmost in view, nearly opposite Blakely's quarters, were two, detached from the general assembly, yet clinging close together—two slender figures, gowned, and it was at these the agent Daly was staring, as he, too, came running to the spot.

"Major Plume," cried he, panting, "I want those girls arrested, at once!"

CHAPTER VIII

"APACHE KNIVES DIG DEEP!"

t five o'clock of this cloudless October morning Colonel Montgomery Byrne, "of the old Army, sir," was reviling the fates that had set him the task of unraveling such a skein as he found at Sandy. At six he was blessing the stars that sent him. Awakened, much before his usual hour, by half-heard murmur of scurry and excitement, so quickly suppressed he believed it all a dream, he was thinking, half drowsily, all painfully, of the duty devolving on him for the day, and wishing himself well out of it, when the dream became real, the impression vivid. His watch told him reveille should now be sounding. His ears told him the sounds he heard were not those of reveille, yet something had roused the occupants of Officers' Row, and then, all on a sudden, instead of the sweet strains of "The Dawn of the Day" or "Bonnie Lass o' Gawrie" there burst upon the morning air, harsh and blustering, the alarum of the Civil War days, the hoarse uproar of the drum thundering the long roll, while above all rang the loud clamor of the cavalry trumpet sounding "To Horse."

"Fitz James was brave, but to his heart
The life blood leaped with sudden start."

Byrne sprang from his bed. He was a soldier, battle-tried, but this meant something utterly new to him in war, for, mingling with the gathering din, he heard the shriek of terror-stricken women. Daly's bed was empty. The agent was gone. Elise aloft was jabbering patois at her dazed and startled mistress. Suey, the Chinaman, came clattering in, all flapping legs and arms and pigtail, his face livid, his eyes staring. "Patcheese! Patcheese!" he squealed, and dove under the nearest bed. Then Byrne, shinning into boots and breeches and shunning his coat, grabbed his revolver and rushed for the door.

Across the parade, out of their barracks the "doughboys" came streaming, no man of them dressed for inspection, but rather, like sailors, stripped for a fight; and, never waiting to form ranks, but following the lead of veteran sergeants and the signals or orders of officers somewhere along the line, went sprinting straight for the eastward mesa. From the cavalry barracks, the northward sets, the troopers, too, were flowing, but these were turned stableward, back of the post, and Byrne, with his nightshirt flying wide open, wider than his eyes, bolted round through the space between the quarters of Plume and Wren, catching sight of the arrested captain standing grim and gaunt on his back piazza, and ran with the foremost sergeants to the edge of the plateau, where, in his cool white garb, stood Plume, shouting orders to those beneath.

There, down in the Sandy bottom, was explanation of it all. Two soldiers were bending over a prostrate form in civilian dress. Two swarthy Apaches, one on his face, the other, ten rods away, writhing on his side, lay weltering in blood. Out along the sandy barren and among the clumps of mezquite and greasewood, perhaps as many as ten soldiers, members of the guard, were scattering in rude skirmish order; now halting and dropping on one knee to fire, now rushing forward; while into the willows, that swept in wide concave around the flat, a number of forms in dirty white, or nothing at all but streaming breechclout, were just disappearing.

"Now halting, dropping on one knee to fire"

Northward, too, beyond the post of No. 4, other little squads and parties could be faintly seen scurrying away for the shelter of the willows, and as Byrne reached the major's side, with the to-be-expected query "Whatinhell'sthematter?" the last of the fleeing Apaches popped out of sight, and Plume turned toward him in mingled wrath and disgust:

"That—ass of an agent!" was all he could say, as he pointed to the prostrate figure in pepper and salt.

Byrne half slid, half stumbled down the bank and bent over the wounded man. Dead he was not, for, with both hands clasped to his breast, Daly was cradling from side to side and saying things of Apaches totally unbecoming an Indian agent and a man of God. "But who did it? and how?—and why?" demanded Byrne of the ministering soldiers.

"Tried to 'rest two Patchie girls, sir," answered the first, straightening up and saluting, "and her feller wouldn't stand it, I reckon. Knifed the agent and Craney, too. Yonder's the feller."

Yonder lay, face downward, as described, a sinewy young brave of the Apache Mohave band, his newer, cleaner shirt and his gayly ornamented sash and headgear telling of superior rank and station among his kind. With barely a glance at Craney, squatted beside a bush, and with teeth and hands knotting a kerchief about a bleeding arm, Byrne bent over the Apache and turned the face to the light.

"Good God!" he cried, at the instant, "it's Quonathay—Raven Shield! Why, you know him, corporal!"—this to Casey, of Wren's troop, running to his side. "Son of old Chief Quonahelka! I wouldn't have had this happen for all the girls on the reservation. Who were they? Why did he try to arrest them? Here! I'll have to ask him—stabbed or not!" And, anxious and angering, the colonel hastened over toward the agent, now being slowly aided to his feet. Plume, too, had come sidelong down the sandy bank with Cutler, of the infantry, asking where he should put in his men. "Oh, just deploy across the flats to stand off any possible attack," said Plume. "Don't cross the Sandy, and, damn it all! get a bugler out and sound recall!" For now the sound of distant shots came echoing back from the eastward cliffs. The pursuit had spread beyond the stream. "I don't want any more of those poor devils hurt. There's mischief enough already," he concluded.

"I should say so," echoed the colonel. "What was the matter, Mr. Daly? Whom did you seek to arrest?—and why?"

"Almost any of 'em," groaned Daly. "There were a dozen there I'd refused passes to come again this week. They were here in defiance of my orders, and I thought to take that girl Natzie,—she that led Lola off,—back to her father at the agency. It would have been a good lesson. Of course she fought and scratched. Next thing I knew a dozen of 'em were atop of us—some water, for God's sake!—and lift me out of this!"

Then with grave and watch-worn face, Graham came hurrying to the spot, all the way over from Mullins's bedside at the hospital and breathing hard. Dour indeed was the look he gave the groaning agent, now gulping at a gourd held to his pale lips by one of the men. The policy of Daly's predecessor had been to feather his own nest and let the Indian shift for himself, and this had led to his final overthrow. Daly, however, had come direct from the care of a tribe of the Pueblo persuasion, peace-loving and tillers of the soil, meek as the Pimas and Maricopas, natives who fawned when he frowned and cringed at the crack of his whip. These he had successfully, and not dishonestly, ruled, but that very experience had unfitted him for duty over the mountain Apache, who cringed no more than did the lordly Sioux or Cheyenne, and truckled to no man less than a tribal chief. Blakely, the soldier, cool, fearless, and resolute, but scrupulously just, they believed in and feared; but this new blusterer only made them laugh, until he scandalized them by wholesale arrest and punishment. Then their childlike merriment changed swiftly to furious and scowling hate,—to open defiance, and finally, when he dared lay hands on a chosen daughter of the race, to mutiny and the knife. Graham, serving his third year in the valley, had seen the crisis coming and sought to warn the man. But what should an army doctor know of an Apache Indian? said Daly, and, fatuous in his own conceit, the crisis found him unprepared.

"Go you for a stretcher," said the surgeon, after a quick look into the livid face. "Lay him down gently there," and kneeling, busied himself with opening a way to the wound. Out over the flats swung the long skirmish line, picturesque in the variety of its undress, Cutler striding vociferous in its wake, while a bugler ran himself out of breath, far to the eastward front, to puff feeble and abortive breath into unresponsive copper. And still the same flutter of distant, scattering shots came drifting back from the brakes and cañons in the rocky wilds beyond the stream. The guard still pursued and the Indians still led, but they who knew anything well knew it could not be long before the latter turned on the scattering chase, and Byrne strode about, fuming with anxiety. "Thank God!" he cried, as a prodigious clatter of hoofs, on hollow and resounding wood, told of cavalry coming across the acequia, and Sanders galloped round the sandy point in search of the foe—or orders. "Thank God! Here, Sanders—pardon me, major, there isn't an instant to lose—Rush your men right on to the front there! Spread well out, but don't fire a shot unless attacked in force! Get those—chasing idiots and bring them in! By God, sir, we'll have an Indian war on our hands as it is!" And Sanders nodded and dug spurs to his troop horse, and sang out: "Left front into line—gallop!" and the rest was lost in a cloud of dust and the blare of cavalry trumpet.

Then the colonel turned to Plume, standing now silent and sore troubled. "It was the quickest way," he said apologetically. "Ordinarily I should have given the order through you, of course. But those beggars are armed to a man. They left their guns in the crevices of yonder rocks, probably, when they came for the morning music. We must have no fight over this unless they force it. I wish to heaven we hadn't killed—these two," and ruefully he looked at the stark forms—the dead lover of Natzie, the gasping tribesman just beyond, dying, knife in hand. "The general has been trying to curb Daly for the last ten days," continued he, "and warned him he'd bring on trouble. The interpreter split with him on Monday last, and there's been mischief brewing ever since. If only we could have kept Blakely there—all this row would have been averted!"

If only, indeed! was Plume thinking, as eagerly, anxiously he scanned the eastward shore, rising jagged, rocky, and forbidding from the willows of the stream bed. If only, indeed! Not only all this row of which Byrne had seen so much, but all this other row, this row within a row, this intricacy of mishaps and misery that involved the social universe of Camp Sandy, of which as yet the colonel, presumably, knew so very little; of which, as post commander, Plume had yet to tell him! An orderly came running with a field glass and a scrap of paper. Plume glanced at the latter, a pencil scrawl of his wife's inseparable companion, and, for aught he knew, confidante. "Madame," he could make out, and "affreusement" something, but it was enough. The orderly supplemented: "Leece, sir, says the lady is very bad—"

"Go to her, Plume," with startling promptitude cried the colonel. "I'll look to everything here. It's all coming out right," for with a tantara—tantara-ra-ra Sanders's troop, spreading far and wide, were scrambling up the shaly slopes a thousand yards away. "Go to your wife and tell her the danger's over," and, with hardly another glance at the moaning agent, now being limply hoisted on a hospital stretcher, thankfully the major went. "The lady's very bad, is she?" growled Byrne, in fierce aside to Graham. "That French hag sometimes speaks truth, in spite of herself. How d'you find him?" This with a toss of the head toward the vanishing stretcher.

"Bad likewise. These Apache knives dig deep. There's Mullins now—"

"Think that was Apache?" glared Byrne, with sudden light in his eyes, for Wren had told his troubles—all.

"Apache knife—yes."

"What the devil do you mean, Graham?" and the veteran soldier, who knew and liked the surgeon, whirled again on him with eyes that looked not like at all.

The doctor turned, his somber gaze following the now distant figure of the post commander, struggling painfully up the yielding sand of the steep slope to the plateau. The stretcher bearers and attendants were striding away to hospital with the now unconscious burden. The few men, lingering close at hand, were grouped about the dead Apaches. The gathering watchers along the bank were beyond earshot. Staff officer and surgeon were practically alone and the latter answered:

"I mean, sir, that if that Apache knife had been driven in by an Apache warrior, Mullins would have been dead long hours ago—which he isn't."

Byrne turned a shade grayer.

"Could she have done that?" he asked, with one sideward jerk of his head toward the major's quarters.

"I'm not saying," quoth the Scot. "I'm asking was there anyone else?"

CHAPTER IX

A CARPET KNIGHT, INDEED

he flag at Camp Sandy drooped from the peak. Except by order it never hung halfway. The flag at the agency fluttered no higher than the cross-trees, telling that Death had loved some shining mark and had not sued in vain. Under this symbol of mourning, far up the valley, the interpreter was telling to a circle of dark, sullen, and unresponsive faces a fact that every Apache knew before. Under the full-masted flag at the post, a civilian servant of the nation lay garbed for burial. Poor Daly had passed away with hardly a chance to tell his tale, with only a loving, weeping woman or two to mourn him. Over the camp the shadow of death tempered the dazzling sunshine, for all Sandy felt the strain and spoke only with sorrow. He meant well, did Daly, that was accorded him now. He only lacked "savvy" said they who had dwelt long in the land of Apache.

Over at the hospital two poor women wept, and twice their number strove to soothe. Janet Wren and Mrs. Graham were there, as ever, when sorrow and trouble came. Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Cutler, too, were hovering about the mourners, doing what they could, and the hospital matron, busy day and night of late, had never left her patient until he needed her no more, and then had turned to minister to those he left behind—the widow and the fatherless. Over on the shaded verandas other women met and murmured in the soft, sympathetic drawl appropriate to funereal occasion, and men nodded silently to each other. Death was something these latter saw so frequently it brought but little of terror. Other things were happening of far greater moment that they could not fathom at all.

Captain Wren, after four days of close arrest, had been released by the order of Major Plume himself, who, pending action on his application for leave of absence, had gone on sick report and secluded himself within his quarters. It was rumored that Mrs. Plume was seriously ill, so ill, indeed, she had to be denied to every one of the sympathizing women who called, even to Janet, sister of their soldier next-door neighbor, but recently a military prisoner, yet now, by law and custom, commander of the post.

Several things had conspired to bring about this condition of affairs. Byrne, to begin with, had been closely questioning Shannon, and had reached certain conclusions with regard to the stabbing of Mullins that were laid before Plume, already stunned by the knowledge that, sleeping as his friendly advisers declared, or waking, as his inner consciousness would have it, Clarice, his young and still beautiful wife, had left her pillow and gone by night toward the northern limit of the line of quarters. If Wren were tried, or even accused, that fact would be the first urged in his defense. Plume's stern accusation of Elise had evoked from her nothing but a voluble storm of protest. Madame was ill, sleepless, nervous—had gone forth to walk away her nervousness. She, Elise, had gone in search and brought her home. Downs, the wretch, when as stoutly questioned, declared he had been blind drunk; saw nobody, knew nothing, and must have taken the lieutenant's whisky. Plume shrank from asking Norah questions. He could not bring himself to talking of his wife to the girl of the laundresses' quarters, but he knew now that he must drop that much of the case against Wren.

Then came the final blow. Byrne had gone to the agency, making every effort through runners, with promises of immunity, to coax back the renegades to the reservation, and so avert another Apache war. Plume, in sore perplexity, was praying for the complete restoration of Mullins—the only thing that could avert investigation—when, as he entered his office the morning of this eventful day, Doty's young face was eloquent with news.

One of the first things done by Lieutenant Blakely when permitted by Dr. Graham to sit and speak, was to dictate a letter to the post adjutant, the original of which, together with the archives of Camp Sandy, was long since buried among the hidden treasures of the War Department. The following is a copy of the paper placed by Mr. Doty in the major's hands even before he could reach his desk:

Camp Sandy, A. T.,

October —, 187—

Lieutenant J. J. Doty,

8th U. S. Infantry,

Post Adjutant.

Sir: I have the honor to submit for the consideration of the post commander, the following:

Shortly after retreat on the —th inst. I was suddenly accosted in my quarters by Captain Robert Wren, ——th Cavalry, and accused of an act of treachery to him;—an accusation which called forth instant and indignant denial. He had, as I now have cause to know, most excellent reason for believing his charge to be true, and the single blow he dealt me was the result of intense and natural wrath. That the consequences were so serious he could not have foreseen.

As the man most injured in the affair, I earnestly ask that no charges be preferred. Were we in civil life I should refuse to prosecute, and, if the case be brought before a court-martial it will probably fail—for lack of evidence.

Very Respectfully,

Your Obedient Servant,

Neil D. Blakely,

1st Lieut., ——th Cavalry.