An Apache Princess, Charles King [ready player one ebook .txt] 📗

mind as Miss Wren finished her brief and significant story, and it dawned upon him that, whatever it might be to others, the death of Downs—to him, and to her whom he loved and whose honor he cherished—was anything but a calamity, a thing to mourn. Too generous to say the words, he yet turned with lightened heart and met Byrne's searching eyes, then those of Miss Wren now fixed upon him with austere challenge, as though she would say the flight and fate of this friendless soldier were crimes to be laid only at his door.

Byrne saw the instant distress in his comrade's face, and, glancing from him to her, almost in the same instant saw the inciting cause. Byrne had one article of faith if he lacked the needful thirty-nine. Women had no place in official affairs, no right to meddle in official matters, and what he said on the spur of his rising resentment was intended for her, though spoken to him. "So Downs skipped eastward, did he, and the Apaches got him! Well, Plume, that saves us a hanging." And Miss Wren turned away in wrath unspeakable.

That Downs had "skipped eastward" received further confirmation with the coming day, when Wales Arnold rode into the fort from a personally conducted scout up the Beaver. Riding out with Captain Stout's party, he had paid a brief visit to his, for the time, abandoned ranch, and was surprised to find there, unmolested, the two persons and all the property he had left the day he hurried wife and household to the shelter of the garrison. The two persons were half-breed José and his Hualpai squaw. They had been with the Arnolds five long years, were known to all the Apaches, and had ever been in highest favor with them because of the liberality with which they dispensed the largesse of their employer. Never went an Indian empty-stomached from their door. All the stock Wales had time to gather he had driven in to Sandy. All that was left José had found and corraled. Just one quadruped was missing—Arnold's old mustang saddler, Dobbin. José said he had been gone from the first and with him an old bridle and saddle. No Indian took him, said he. It was a soldier. He had found "government boot tracks" in the sand. Then Downs and Dobbin had gone together, but only Dobbin might they ever look to see again.

It had been arranged between Byrne and Captain Stout that the little relief column should rest in a deep cañon beyond the springs from which the Beaver took its source, and, later in the afternoon, push on again on the long, stony climb toward the plateau of the upper Mogollon. There stood, about twenty-five miles out from the post on a bee line to the northeast, a sharp, rocky peak just high enough above the fringing pines and cedars to be distinctly visible by day from the crest of the nearest foothills west of the flagstaff. Along the sunset face of this gleaming picacho there was a shelf or ledge that had often been used by the Apaches for signaling purposes; the renegades communicating with their kindred about the agency up the valley. Invisible from the level of Camp Sandy, these fires by night, or smoke and flashes by day, reached only those for whom they were intended—the Apaches at the reservation; but Stout, who had known the neighborhood since '65, had suggested that lookouts equipped with binoculars be placed on the high ground back of the post. Inferior to the savage in the craft, we had no code of smoke, fire, or, at that time, even sun-flash signal, but it was arranged that one blaze was to mean "Unmolested thus far." Two blazes, a few yards apart, would mean "Important news by runner." In the latter event Plume was to push out forty or fifty men in dispersed order to meet and protect the runner in case he should be followed, or possibly headed off, by hostile tribesmen. Only six Indian allies had gone with Stout and he had eyed them with marked suspicion and disfavor. They, too, were Apache Yumas. The day wore on slowly, somberly. All sound of life, melody, or merriment had died out at Camp Sandy. Even the hounds seemed to feel that a cloud of disaster hung over the garrison. Only at rare intervals some feminine shape flitted along the line of deserted verandas—some woman on a mission of mercy to some mourning, sore-troubled sister among the scattered households. For several hours before high noon the wires from Prescott had been hot with demand for news, and with messages from Byrne or Plume to department headquarters. At meridian, however, there came a lull, and at 2 p. m. a break. Somewhere to the west the line was snapped and down. At 2.15 two linesmen galloped forth to find and repair damages, half a dozen "doughboys" on a buckboard going as guard. Otherwise, all day long, no soldier left the post, and when darkness settled down, the anxious operator, seated at his keyboard, was still unable to wake the spirit of the gleaming copper thread that spanned the westward wilderness.

All Sandy was wakeful, out on the broad parade, or the officers' verandas, and gazing as one man or woman at the bold, black upheaval a mile behind the post, at whose summit twinkled a tiny star, a single lantern, telling of the vigil of Plume's watchers. If Stout made even fair time he should have reached the picacho at dusk, and now it was nearly nine and not a glimmer of fire had been seen at the appointed rendezvous. Nine passed and 9.15, and at 9.30 the fifes and drums of the Eighth turned out and began the long, weird complaint of the tattoo. Nobody wished to go to bed. Why not sound reveille and let them sit up all night, if they chose? It was far better than tossing sleepless through the long hours to the dawn. It was nearly time for "taps"—lights out—when a yell went up from the parade and all Sandy started to its feet. All on a sudden the spark at the lookout bluff began violently to dance, and a dozen men tore out of garrison, eager to hear the news. They were met halfway by a sprinting corporal, whom they halted with eager demand for his news. "Two blazes!" he panted, "two! I must get in to the major at once!" Five minutes more the Assembly, not Taps, was sounding. Plume was sending forth his fifty rescuers, and with them, impatient for tidings from the far front, went Byrne, the major himself following as soon as he could change to riding dress. The last seen of the little command was the glinting of the starlight on the gun barrels as they forded the rippling stream and took the trail up the narrow, winding valley of the Beaver.

It was then a little after ten o'clock. The wire to Prescott was still unresponsive. Nothing had been heard from the linesmen and their escort, indicating that the break was probably far over as the Agua Fria. Not a sign, except Stout's signal blazes at the picacho, had been gathered from the front. Camp Sandy was cut off from the world, and the actual garrison left to guard the post and protect the women, children and the sick as eleven o'clock drew nigh, was exactly forty men of the fighting force. It was believed that Stout's couriers would make the homeward run, very nearly, by the route the pack-train took throughout the day, and if they succeeded in evading hostile scouts or parties, would soon appear about some of the breaks of the upper Beaver. Thither, therefore, with all possible speed Plume had directed his men, promising Mrs. Sanders, as he rode away, that the moment a runner was encountered he would send a light rider at the gallop, on his own good horse—that not a moment should be lost in bearing them the news.

But midnight came without a sign. Long before that hour, as though by common impulse, almost all the women of the garrison had gathered about Truman's quarters, now the northernmost of the row and in plain view of the confluence of the Sandy and the Beaver. Dr. Graham, who had been swinging to and fro between the limits of the Shaughnessys' and the hospital, stopped to speak with them a moment and gently drew Angela to one side. His grave and rugged face was sweet in its tenderness as he looked down into her brimming eyes. "Can you not be content at home, my child?" he murmured. "You seem like one of my own bairns, Angela, now that your brave father is afield, and I want to have his bonnie daughter looking her best against the home-coming. Surely Aunt Janet will bring you the news the moment any comes, and I'll bid Kate Sanders bide with you!"

No, she would not—she could not go home. Like every other soul in all Camp Sandy she seemed to long to be just there. Some few had even gone out further, beyond the sentries, to the point of the low bluff, and there, chatting only in whispers, huddled together, listening in anxiety inexpressible for the muffled sound of galloping hoofs on soft and sandy shore. No, she dare not, for within the four walls of that little white room what dreams and visions had the girl not seen? and, wakening shuddering, had clung to faithful Kate and sobbed her heart out in those clasping, tender, loyal arms. No beauty, indeed, was Kate, as even her fond mother ruefully admitted, but there was that in her great, gentle, unselfish heart that made her beloved by one and all. Yet Kate had pleaded with Angela in vain. Some strange, forceful mood had seized the girl and steeled and strengthened her against even Janet Wren's authority. She would not leave the little band of watchers. She was there when, toward half-past twelve, at last the message came. Plume's own horse came tearing through the flood, and panting, reeking, trembling into their midst, and his rider, little Fifer Lanigan, of Company "C," sprang from saddle and thrust his dispatch into Truman's outstretched hand.

With women and children crowding about him, and men running to the scene from every side, by the light of a lantern held in a soldier's shaking hand, he read aloud the contents: