ALARMING NEWS.
Dress parade at Fort Grant!
Five troops were engaged--all of the gallant Tenth--and the dying
rays of the Arizona sun fell upon waving plumes, flashing sabers,
the shimmering satin bodies of the horses, the fluttering guidons,
offering a sight that stirred the pulses in unison with the strains
of the regimental band.
At last the troops formed in a long line, and their officers rode
forward on prancing chargers and lifted their sword-points in salute
of the officer in command.
The sun went down, and the _boom_ of the sunset-gun rattled the
windows of barracks and officers’ row. The band struck up the Star
Spangled Banner. As the inspiring air echoed and reechoed across the
parade-ground, Old Glory came fluttering down from its tall staff,
was caught in the arms of a waiting “non-com,” and transferred to the
guard-house for the night.
The soldiers trotted away, the dust settled, and the shadows began to
lengthen. Dress parade was over for that day.
In front of the officers’ quarters children were playing. On the
veranda of Colonel Grayson’s house was a little group of ladies.
Grayson, the colonel in command of the post, was just climbing the
veranda steps to Mrs. Colonel, in command of the colonel.
The colonel was hot and dusty, but he slapped his clothes in a
good-natured way and plumped down in an easy chair.
“What do you think of it, Miss Dauntless?” he asked, his eyes
wandering to one of the group of young women who surrounded his wife.
“Fine!” cried the girl addressed. “Such a sight makes one proud to
think that he or she is an American. Oh, I wish I were a man! I’d be
a soldier, sure thing.”
“My dear Dell!” breathed Mrs. Colonel, horrified. “What are you
saying?”
“Tut, tut!” said the colonel. “Why shouldn’t she wish to be a
soldier? I’m a soldier, and I take it as an honor that such a pretty
American girl should envy me.”
“You know what I mean, colonel,” cried Mrs. Colonel. “Such a pretty
girl as Dell Dauntless ought to be content with her sex.”
“Gad, yes!” exclaimed the colonel. “Dell can do more havoc with those
blue eyes of hers than a whole squadron with sabers.”
“Now it’s my turn to say ‘tut, tut!’” flashed Dell Dauntless, with
a dazzling smile. “I’m the sort of girl that clamors for action,
colonel.”
She looked off through the clear evening to where some of the
officers and some of the post young ladies were thumping a ball over
a net with rackets.
“For instance”--and she waved her hand toward the tennis-court--“I
couldn’t be _hired_ to play that.”
“Don’t blame you,” chuckled the colonel; “I couldn’t be hired to play
it myself.”
“You’re too fat, dad,” laughed his daughter Mamie.
“Fat! And I only weigh two hundred. If you can catch a man of my
size, miss, you can be thankful.”
“There’s going to be a hop to-night,” went on Mrs. Colonel, “and
I’ve been trying to get Dell to say she’ll go.”
“Dancing is also off my sky-line,” explained Dell calmly. “I didn’t
bring any clothes for that sort of thing, anyhow. Look at me!” and
she stood out in front of the colonel. “I’d be a fright on a ballroom
floor, wouldn’t I?”
The colonel did look at her, and there was admiration in his eyes.
Tall, lithe, and fair-haired, the girl was clad in her fringed and
beaded buckskin shirt, knee-length buckskin skirt, tan shoes and
leggings, and a rakish little brown sombrero.
She wore about her waist the belt with the diminutive
revolver-holsters and a knife-sheath swinging from it. The pearl
handle of a knife showed over the top of the sheath, but the holsters
were empty, Dell having laid aside the six-shooters out of regard for
Mrs. Colonel’s feelings.
Trave Dauntless, Dell’s father, had been a hard and fast friend of
Colonel Grayson’s. When Trave Dauntless died, the colonel had felt
himself instinctively drawn toward Mrs. Dauntless and Dell. When the
colonel came to Grant, he had expressed a desire for Dell to come and
visit him; and, for that reason, the girl had been at the post for a
few days.
“’Pon my soul, Dell,” said the colonel, “that costume of yours is
mighty fetching!”
“Colonel!” rebuked Mrs. Colonel; “how can you talk so? You’re giving
Dell a lot of wrong ideas. Now, if she would only go to the hop
to-night, Mamie would let her take one of her dresses----”
“And I’d take Dell’s,” spoke up Mamie mischievously. “It’s perfectly
stunning.”
“These are my working clothes, Mame,” said Dell demurely. “I wear
them all the time at the ranch. When I ride, you see, I ride like a
man, and the short skirt----”
“Horrors!” gulped Mrs. Colonel. “My dear child, I wish you and your
mother would sell that ranch and come to live with the colonel and
me.”
“I’d smother,” averred Dell. “I’m so full of action, you see, that
I’ve got to have room--and plenty of it.”
The colonel laughed delightedly.
“She’s Trave Dauntless, over and over again,” said he. “It makes my
old heart pound just to hear her talk. By the way,” he added, “I
found out something about you to-day, Dell. One of our ’Pache scouts
was telling me.”
“What’s that?” queried the girl.
“Why, you’re a friend of my old comrade, Cody--as gallant and true a
man as ever followed a trail.”
“I’m more than that, colonel,” returned Dell, with a touch of quiet
pride, “for I’m Buffalo Bill’s girl pard.”
“Better and better!” cried the colonel, and Mrs. Colonel shook her
shoulders despairingly and retreated into the house. “I understand
that you helped the scout in his fight with renegade Apaches in the
vicinity of the Three-ply Mine, and that you were of considerable
assistance in capturing Slocum, otherwise Bascomb, the murderous
deserter from Fort Apache.”
“I was with Buffalo Bill and his pards, old Nomad and Little Cayuse,
colonel, but I wasn’t of much real service.”
“That’s your word for it. I’d like to hear what Cody has to say.
Bascomb, I’m told, was captured on an island in Quicksand Lake,
and a girl, the daughter of the owner of the Three-ply Mine, was
rescued----”
“By the king of scouts, single-handed!” said Dell, her admiration
fiery and vehement.
“I’m willing to believe that,” went on the colonel. “A braver man
than Cody never stepped; and his bravery is of the best and most
telling kind, for he always couples head-work with it. I reckon
that’s what makes him so successful. The last I heard of Bascomb he
had been landed in the Phœnix jail, and a guard of troopers from Fort
Apache was going after him. That was several days ago, and I presume
the villainous deserter is safely lodged in the strong room at Apache
by now. Sit down here, Dell, and tell me about it.”
Dell Dauntless took her place obediently in the chair by the
colonel’s side, and launched into the story. The king of scouts, as
Dell recited the thrilling incidents connected with the deserter’s
capture, received ample eulogy and credit.
Just as the recital was finished, an orderly hurried up the veranda
steps, drew himself up in front of the colonel and saluted. The hand
that went to his cap held a folded paper.
“An important message, sir,” announced the orderly, “just wired from
Bowie.”
“Very well, Bryce,” said the colonel, taking the message; “just wait
a minute.”
Excusing himself to Dell, Mamie, and the others, the colonel retired
into the house to read his message by the lamplight.
While the young women were talking and laughing on the veranda, the
colonel’s voice was heard from within:
“Dell! See here a moment.”
The girl hastened to answer the call.
She found Colonel Grayson standing beside a swinging lamp, the
message in his hand and an exceedingly grave look on his face.
“What--what is wrong?” whispered Dell, her thoughts leaping to her
mother and the Double D Ranch.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the colonel. “This news by military
telegraph is to the effect that Geronimo, with a hundred and fifty
bucks, has jumped the reservation at Fort Apache----”
“I felt sure it would be only a matter of time until Geronimo broke
out again,” said Dell.
“But that isn’t all,” pursued the colonel, in a low voice. “The
renegades attacked the guard escorting that deserter from Phœnix to
Fort Apache, killed them all, and rescued the deserter!”
Dell gasped, and fell back, her blue eyes wide and staring in the
lamplight. For an instant she stood thus, speechless and without
movement.
“Do you understand, Dell?” went on the colonel. “Geronimo and his
renegades have----”
“I understand,” said the girl, drawing a quick breath and groping her
way to a chair, “but there must be some mistake, there _must_ be.”
“It is here, plain enough,” and the colonel shook the message.
“Why,” murmured Dell, “Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Little Cayuse were
traveling with Bascomb’s escort--and that message says that _all were
killed_.”
The colonel started forward, and every muscle grew rigid.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, passing one hand dazedly across his
forehead, “can it be that Cody and his pards have reached the end of
their trails? Is it possible that----”
He did not finish. Without pausing to get his hat he rushed
out of the room, clattered across the veranda and toward the
telegraph-office.
Dell, in the sitting-room, was gazing listlessly into space, thinking
of the brave and chivalrous scout, the redoubtable old trapper, and
the loyal little Piute, Cayuse.