And even Graham did not dream how sorely Blakely had been hit. Nor could he account for the access of nervous irritability that possessed his patient all the livelong day, while waiting, as they all were, for the coming of Colonel Byrne. Mrs. Sanders declared to Mrs. Graham her private impression that he was on the verge of prostration, although, making an effort, Blakely had appeared at breakfast after an early morning walk, had been most courteous, gentle, and attentive to her and to her wholesome, if not actually homely, Kate. How the mother's heart yearned over that sweet-natured, sallow-faced child! But after breakfast Blakely had wandered off again and was out on the mesa, peering through a pair of borrowed glasses over the dreary eastward landscape and up and down the deep valley. "How oddly are we constituted!" said Mrs. Sanders. "If I only had his money, I'd never be wearing my heart out in this desert land." She was not the only army wife and mother that should have married a stockbroker—anything rather than a soldier.
The whole post knew by noon that Byrne was coming, and waited with feverish impatience. Byrne was the power that would put an end to the doubts and distractions, decide who stabbed Pat Mullins, who set fire to the "beetle shop," where Epsom Downs had gone, and could even settle, possibly, the long-doubtful question, "Who struck Billy Patterson?" Sandy believed in Byrne as it did in no one since the days of General Crook. With two exceptions, all Sandy society was out on the parade, the porticoes, or the northward bluff, as the sun went down. These two were the Misses Wren. "Angela," said Miss Janet, "is keeping her room to-day, and pretending to keep her temper"—this to Kate Sanders, who had twice sought admission, despite a girlish awe of, if not aversion to, this same Aunt Janet.
"But don't you think she'd like to see me just a little while, Miss Wren?" the girl inquired, her hand caressing the sleek head of one of the big hounds as she spoke. Hounds were other objects of Miss Wren's disfavor. "Lazy, pilfering brutes," she called them, when after hours of almost incredible labor and ingenious effort they had managed to tear down, and to pieces, a haunch of venison she had slung to the rafters of the back porch. "You can come in, Kate, provided you keep out the dogs," was her ungracious answer, "and I'll go see. I think she's sleeping now, and ought not to be disturbed."
"Then I won't disturb her," was Miss Sanders's prompt reply, as she turned away and would have gone, but the elder restrained her. Janet did not wish the girl to go at all. She knew Angela had asked for her, and doubtless longed to see her; and now, having administered her feline scratch and made Kate feel the weight of her disapproval, she was quite ready to promote the very interview she had verbally condemned. Perhaps Miss Sanders saw and knew this and preferred to worry Miss Wren as much as possible. At all events, only with reluctance did she obey the summons to wait a minute, and stood with a pout on her lips as the spinster vanished in the gloom of the hallway. Angela could not have been asleep, for her voice was audible in an instant. "Come up, Kate," she feebly cried, just as Aunt Janet had begun her little sermon, and the sermon had to stop, for Kate Sanders came, and neither lass was in mood to listen to pious exhortation. Moreover, they made it manifest to Aunt Janet that there would be no interchange of confidences until she withdrew. "You are not to talk yourselves into a pitch of excitement," said she. "Angela must sleep to-night to make up for the hours she lost—thanks to the abominable remarks of that hardened young man." With that, after a pull at the curtain, a soothing thump or two at Angela's pillow, and the muttered wish that the coming colonel were empowered to arrest recalcitrant nieces as well as insubordinate subs, she left them to their own devices. They were still in eager, almost breathless chat when the crack of whip and sputter of hoofs and wheels through gravelly sands told that the inspector's ambulance had come. Was it likely that Angela could sleep until she heard the probable result of the inspector's coming?
He was closeted first with Cutler. Then Dr. Graham was sent for, and the three walked over to the hospital, just as the musicians were forming for tattoo. They were at Mullins's bedside, with the steward and attendants outside, when taps went wailing out upon the night. There were five minutes of talk with that still bewildered patient. Then Byrne desired to see Mr. Blakely at once and alone. Cutler surrendered his office to the department inspector, and thither the lieutenant was summoned. Mrs. Sanders, with Mrs. Truman, was keeping little Mrs. Bridger company at the moment, and Blakely bowed courteously to the three in passing by.
"Even in that rough dress," said Mrs. Sanders reflectively, as her eyes followed the tall, straight figure over the moonlit parade, "he is a most distinguished looking man."
"Yes," said Mrs. Bridger, still unappeased. "If he were a Sioux, I suppose they'd call him 'Man-In-Love-With-His-Legs.'" Blakely heard the bubble of laughter that followed him on his way, and wished that he, too, felt in mood as merry. The acting sergeant major, a clerk, and young Cassidy, the soldier telegraph operator, seated at the westward end of the rough board porch of the adjutant's office, arose and saluted as he entered. Byrne had sent every possible hearer out of the building.
Five minutes the conference lasted, no sound coming from within. Cutler and Graham, with Captain Westervelt, sat waiting on the porch of the doctor's quarters, Mrs. Graham being busy with her progeny aloft. Others of the officers and families were also on the piazzas, or strolling slowly up and down the pathway, but all eyes wandered from time to time toward the dim light at the office. All was dark at the barracks. All was hushed and still about the post. The sentry call for half-past ten was still some minutes' distant, when one of the three seated figures at the end of the office porch was seen to rise. Then the other two started to their feet. The first hastened to the door and began to knock. So breathless was the night that over on the verandas the imperative thumping could be distinctly heard, and everyone ceased talk and listened. Then, in answer to some query from within, the voice of young Cassidy was uplifted.
"I beg pardon, sir, but that's the agency calling me, and it's hurry."
They saw the door open from within; saw the soldier admitted and the door closed after him; saw the two men waiting standing and expectant, no longer content to resume their chat. For three minutes of suspense there came no further sound. Then the door was again thrown open, and both Byrne and Blakely came hurrying out. In the memory of the earliest inhabitant never had Sandy seen the colonel walk so fast. Together they came striding straight toward Cutler's, and the captain arose and went to meet them, foreboding in his soul. Graham and Westervelt, restrained by discipline, held back. The women and younger officers, hushed by anxiety, gazed at the swift-coming pair in dread and fascination. There was a moment of muttered conference with the commanding officer, some hurried words, then Blakely was seen to spring away, to be recalled by Cutler, to start a second time, only to be again recalled. Then Cutler, shouting, "Mr. Doty, I need you!" hurried away toward the office, and Blakely, fairly running, sped straight for the barracks of Wren's troop. Only Byrne was left to answer the storm of question that burst upon him all at once, women thronging about him from all along the line.
"We have news from the agency," said he. "It is from Indian runners, and may not be reliable—some rumor of a sharp fight near Sunset Pass."
"Are there particulars, colonel—anybody killed or wounded?" It was Mrs. Sanders who spoke, her face very pale.
"We cannot know—as yet. It is all an Indian story. Mr. Blakely is going at once to investigate," was the guarded answer. But Mrs. Sanders knew, as well as a dozen others, that there were particulars—that somebody had been killed or wounded, for Indian stories to that effect had been found singularly reliable. It was Wren's troop that had gone to Sunset Pass, and here was Wren's sister with question in her eye, and at sight of her the colonel turned and hurried back to headquarters, following the post commander.
Another moment and Blakely, in the broad light streaming suddenly from the office room of Wren's troop, came speeding straight across the parade again in the direction of Sanders's quarters, next to the last at the southward
end of the row. They sought, of course, to intercept him, and saw that his face was pale, though his manner was as composed as ever. To every question he had but one thing to say: "Colonel Byrne and the captain know all that I do—and more. Ask them." But this he said with obvious wish to be questioned no further,—said it gently, but most firmly,—and then, with scant apology, passed on. Five minutes more and Nixon was lugging out the lieutenant's field kit on the Sanders's porch, and Blakely, reappearing, went straight up the row to Wren's. It was now after 10.30, but he never hesitated. Miss Janet, watching him from the midst of her friends, saw him stride, unhesitatingly, straight to the door and knock. She followed instantly, but, before she could reach the steps, Kate Sanders, with wonder in her eyes, stood faltering before him.
"Will you say to Miss Angela that I have come as I promised? I am going at once to—join the troop. Can I see her?" he asked.
"She isn't well, Mr. Blakely. She hasn't left her room to-day." And Miss Sanders began herself to tremble, for up the steps came the resolute lady of the house, whom seeing, Mr. Blakely honored with a civil bow, but with not a word.
"I will hear your message, Mr. Blakely," said Miss Wren, pallid, too, and filled with wordless anxiety, but determined none the less.
"Miss Sanders has heard it, madam," was the uncompromising answer. "Will you see Miss Angela, please?" This again to Kate—and, without another word, she went.
"Mr. Blakely," began the lady impressively, "almost the last thing my brother said to me before leaving the post was that he wished no meetings between you and Angela. Why do you pursue her? Do you wish to compel me to take her away?"
For a moment he was silent. Then, "It is I who must go, Miss Wren," was the answer, and she, who expected resentment, looked at him in surprise, so gentle, so sorrowing was his tone. "I had hoped to bear her message, but shall intrude no more. If the news that came to-night should be confirmed—and only in that event—say to her, if you please, that I shall do my best to find her father."
Chapter XVI - A Return to Command
*
With but a single orderly at his back, Mr. Blakely had left Camp Sandy late at night; had reached the agency, twenty miles up stream, two hours before the dawn and found young Bridger waiting for him. They had not even a reliable interpreter now. Arahawa, "Washington Charley," had been sent to the general at Camp McDowell. Lola's father, with others of her kin, had taken Apache leave and gone in search of the missing girl. But between the sign language and the patois of the mountains, a strange mixture of Spanish, English, and Tonto Apache, the officers had managed, with the aid of their men, to gather explanation of the fierce excitement prevailing all that previous day among the Indians at the agency. There had been another fight, a chase, a scattering of both pursuers and pursued. Most of the troops were at last accounts camping in the rocks near Sunset Pass. Two had been killed, several were wounded, three were missing, lost to everybody. Even the Apaches swore they knew not where they were—a sergeant, a trumpeter, and "Gran Capitan" himself—Captain Wren.
In the paling starlight of the coming day Blakely and Bridger plied the reluctant Indians with questions in every form possible with their limited knowledge of the sign language. Blakely, having spent so many years on staff duty, had too little knowledge of practical service in the field. Bridger was but a beginner at best. Together they had decided on their course. A wire was sent to Sandy saying that from all they could gather the rumors were probably true, but urging that couriers be sent for Dick, the Cherry Creek settler, and Wales Arnold, another pioneer who had lived long in Apache land and owned a ranch on the little Beaver. They could get more out of the Indians than could these soldiers. It would be hours after dawn before either Dick or his fellow frontiersman could arrive. Meanwhile Sandy must bear the suspense as well as it might. The next wire came from Bridger at nine o'clock:
Arnold arrived hour ago. Examined six. Says stories probably true. Confident Wren not killed.
For answer Byrne wired that a detachment of a dozen men with three packers had marched at five o'clock to report to Blakely for such duty as he might require, and the answer came within the minute:
Blakely gone. Started for Snow Lake 4.30. Left orders detachment follow. Took orderly and two Apache Yuma scouts.
Byrne, Cutler, and Graham read with grave and anxious faces, but said very little. It was Blakely's way.
And that was the last heard of the Bugologist for as much as a week.
Meantime there was a painful situation at Fort Whipple, away up in "the hills." Major Plume, eager on his wife's account to get her to the seashore—"Monterey or Santa Barbara," said the sapient medical director—and ceaselessly importuned by her and viciously nagged by Elise, found himself bound to the spot. So long as Mullins stuck to his story Plume knew it would never do for him to leave. "A day or two more and he may abate or amend his statement," wrote Graham. Indeed, if Norah Shaughnessy were not there to prompt—to prop—his memory, Graham thought it like enough that even now the soldier would have wavered. But never a jot or tittle had Mullins been shaken from the original statement.
"There was two women," he said, "wid their shawls over their heads," and those two, refusing to halt at his demand, had been overtaken and one of them seized, to his bitter cost, for the other had driven a keen-bladed knife through his ribs, even as he sought to examine his captive. "They wouldn't spake," said he, "so what could I do but pull the shawl from the face of her to see could she be recognized?" Then came the fierce, cat-like spring of the taller of the two. Then the well-nigh fatal thrust. What afterwards became of the women he could say no more than the dead. Norah might rave about its being the Frenchwoman that did it to protect the major's lady—this he spoke in whispered confidence and only in reply to direct question—but it wouldn't be for the likes of him to preshume. Mullins, it seems, was a soldier of the old school.
Then came fresh and dire anxiety at Sandy. Four days after Blakely's start there appeared two swarthy runners from the way of Beaver Creek. They bore a missive scrawled on the paper lining of a cracker box, and it read about as follows:
CAMP IN SUNSET PASS, November 3d.
COMMANDING OFFICER, CAMP SANDY:
Scouting parties returning find no trace of Captain Wren and Sergeant Carmody, but we shall persevere. Indians lurking all about us make it difficult. Shall be needing rations in four days. All wounded except Flynn doing fairly well. Hope couriers sent you on 30th and 31st reached you safely.
The dispatch was in the handwriting of Benson, a trooper of good education, often detailed for clerical work. It was signed "Brewster, Sergeant."
Who then were the couriers, and what had become of them? What fate had attended Blakely in his lonely and perilous ride? What man or pair of men could pierce that cordon of Indians lurking all around them and reach the beleaguered command? What need to speculate on the fate of the earlier couriers anyway? Only Indians could hope to outwit Indians in such a case. It was madness to expect white men to get through. It was madness for Blakely to attempt it. Yet Blakely was gone beyond recall, perhaps beyond redemption. From him, and from the detachment that was sent by Bridger to follow his trail, not a word had come of any kind. Asked if they had seen or heard anything of such parties, the Indian couriers stolidly shook their heads. They had followed the old Wingate road all the way until in sight of the valley. Then, scrambling through a rocky labyrinth, impossible for hoof or wheel, had made a short cut to the head waters of the Beaver. Now Blakely, riding from the agency eastward slowly, should have found that Wingate trail before the setting of the first day's sun, and his followers could not have been far behind. It began to look as though the Bugologist had never reached the road. It began to be whispered about the post that Wren and his luckless companions might never be found at all. Kate Sanders had ceased her song. She was now with Angela day and night.
One hope, a vague one, remained beside that of hearing from the baker's dozen that rode on Blakely's trail. Just as soon as B
yrne received the Indian story concerning Wren's disappearance, he sent runners eastward on the track of Sanders's troop, with written advice to that officer to drop anything he might be doing along the Black Mesa and, turning northward, to make his way through a country hitherto untrod by white man, between Baker's Butte at the south and the Sunset Mountains at the north. He was ordered to scout the cañon of Chevlon's Fork, and to look for sign on every side until, somewhere among the "tanks" in the solid rock about the mountain gateway known as Sunset Pass, he should join hands with the survivors of Webb's troop, nursing their wounded and guarding the new-made graves of their dead. Under such energetic supervision as that of Captain Sanders it was believed that even Apache Yuma scouts could be made to accomplish something, and that new heart would be given Wren's dispirited men. By this time, too, if Blakely had not fallen into the hands of the Apaches, he should have been joined by the intended escort, and, thus strengthened, could either push on to the pass, or, if surrounded, take up some strong position among the rocks and stand off his assailants until found by his fellow-soldiers under Sanders. Moreover, Byrne had caused report of the situation to be sent to the general via Camp McDowell, and felt sure he would lose no time in directing the scouting columns to head for the Sunset country. Scattered as were the hostile Apaches, it was apparent that they were in greater force northward, opposite the old reservation, than along the Mogollon Range southeast of it. There was hope, activity, animation, among the little camps and garrisons toward the broad valley of the Gila as the early days of November wore away. Only here at Sandy was there suspense as well as deep despond.
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