An hour later the lights were out among the barracks, and the silence
of the summerlike winter's night had settled on the garrison. Over at
the Mess and office buildings all was darkness. Along the log and adobe
facade of the officers' quarters, from occasional open doorways the
gleam of lantern was thrown across the wooden verandas. The moonbeams
flooded the sandy parade and the rough-hewn roofs and walls with
tender, silvery radiance that put to shame the twinkling lights, down
at the store on the lower flats, and the bleary eye of the big,
triangular, glass-faced, iron-bound cresset at the log guard-house,
perched at the edge of the mesa. Afar off, through dim vistas of the
valley, the silver ribbon of the stream wound and twisted among the
willows, but the heights, as a rule, were wrapped in the shadows of
their own pines. A game of goodly proportion was going on down at the
card room, a brace of ranchmen and prospectors, a venturesome "sub" and
the "contract doctor" making up the party, but the general, his
household and near neighbors had retired or were retiring for the
night. Only the guard and the "owls" were "on deck." Army folk in those
days and regions had a way of turning out at dawn for the cool of the
morning, turning in at taps for the needed six hours' beauty sleep,
lunching lightly at noon, snoozing drowsily an hour or two, then after
tub and fresh linen, venturing forth, those who had to, for the
afternoon duties. All social enjoyment, as a rule, began when the sun
could not see, but had dropped back of the screen of the mountains.
But there was still faint stir at the camp of the scouts, out beyond
the corrals. Rations had been drawn at tattoo, and a limited portion
issued to the lithe, swarthy fellows, squatted in semicircle in front
of their chief, patiently awaiting their share, no man of their number
opening so much as the end of a package, either of cartridge or
cracker, until the last had his dole and all were served. It was known
that before dawn they were again to set forth, whither, not even 'Tonio
had been told, and 'Tonio had noted and felt it. Hitherto there had
been counsel between his young commander and himself. This night there
had been none. Instead, only half an hour after the exciting episode at
the commanding officer's and the despatching of the intruding rattler,
'Tonio had been summoned to the adjutant's office and then questioned
by Lieutenant Willett, with _cargador_ Munoz, not Lieutenant Harris,
serving as interpreter. Hitherto 'Tonio had conducted his conference
with the Great Father's captains with Lieutenant Harris translating. It
was significant both to that officer and to 'Tonio that this time a
pack train employe had been selected, his name having been suggested at
head-quarters at Prescott, and an orderly sent for him early by way of
caution, for Munoz loved monte and mescal. Another significant thing
was that Harris had declined an invitation to be present at 'Tonio's
examination. "If Mr. Willett has any question to ask me," he said,
"he'll find me at Dr. Bentley's," whither, indeed, he had repaired, as
it were, awaiting summons.
Moreover, it was patent to Stannard and Turner and Dr. Bentley, too,
that Harris took it much amiss that Willett should at last disclose the
fact that he was there to "investigate." He had said nothing of it the
night before. He had put up at the adjutant's, after quite a long
session at the Mess, an affair attended by Harris only an hour or so,
and even then only as an absorbed listener, with other fellow-soldiers,
to Willett's brilliant description of the recent campaign in the lava
beds, culminating as it had in the brutal massacre by the Modocs of
their would-be best friends, the peace commissioners, and General
Canby. After taps, however, despite his long and dusty buckboard ride,
Willett saw fit to "sit in" to the game almost always in progress down
at the trader's store. Whereupon Stannard, Turner and Harris,
non-participants ever, took themselves off to bed. It was not much of a
game, said Strong, who was there, only Willett, Craney, Watson, Briggs
and himself, and was remarkable for only one fact, that Case, the
bookkeeper, who never before had seemed to care to play, had happened
in late, looked curiously on a moment, and then, without having been
presented to Willett, seemed desirous of taking a hand. Craney wondered
if Case had been drinking again, but Willett took no notice. Willett
was feeling very jolly, said Strong, and it was quite late when they
finally quit.
Harris was up with the sun looking over his pack train and observing
'Tonio and his fellows. Willett did not turn out until office hours,
when he had a conference with General Archer, ending in his expressing
a wish to "look about" him for the day. He had asked no questions of
Harris; had met him heartily, as classmates should, but with just a
suspicion of superiority of manner that Harris could not like, and
without a word of appreciation of the capital soldier work Harris had
been doing.
There was another reason why Harris resented Willett's investigating
his scout that second evening. A total abstainer himself from boyhood,
reared by a careful mother and aware for many a year that his father's
occasional lapses were her perennial dread, Harris had set his canon
against the practice from the day he doffed the gray at West Point, and
never swerved from his creed after donning the blue. Not so with
Willett. Not so with nine-tenths of his associates. Harris had seen,
without remark, that Willett enjoyed the occasional beverages mixed for
him at the Mess in the late afternoon, and again had noted that his
comrade did quite his share this second evening toward finishing the
doctor's sherry, though it was the "Old Man," after all, who "got away
with" most of the Bordeaux. Twice after dinner Archer had ushered his
guests within doors, once to try what was left of the claret, and
later, after the snake episode, when some nerves might be in need of
bracing, to sample some phenomenal Monongahela. Then when Harris was
through, after saying good-night, he was presently followed by Willett,
flushed in face and abrupt in manner. Miss Archer had been spirited off
by her mother, and presumably gone to bed. She'd get used to snakes if
she stayed long in Arizona, said Willett. What was the sense in scaring
her, anyway? Why hadn't Harris quietly given him the tip? _He_ could
have snapped Mr. Rattler's head off without anybody being the wiser,
and Harris saw that the night-caps, taken on top of all that preceded,
had tangled Willett's ideas, despite which fact Willett now announced
that he had summoned the interpreter and desired Harris to send 'Tonio
to the office for investigation at once.
And Willett represented the commanding general, who knew nothing of
what was going on, and Harris could only obey.
It was a dramatic scene as it opened. Willett had not failed to hand a
copy of his instructions to the post commander and had left entirely to
his judgment the question as to whether the officers should be present.
Archer had decided against it. 'Tonio might be alarmed. It were better,
he said, that no one except the post adjutant, the interpreter, and
Lieutenants Willett and Harris appear, and then Harris, whose letter
from the field announcing the ill success of the scout was the original
cause of the investigation, said he preferred to be excused. Harris did
not wish to appear to 'Tonio in the light of an accuser, and Willett
was secretly better content that his classmate should stay away.
Down in the bottom of his heart Willett felt that four years of such
experiences as Harris had encountered made him a far better judge of
Apache methods and motives than he, Willett, could expect to be.
Moreover, he knew well that, were he in Harris's place, he should
resent it that an officer no higher in grade, and inferior in Arizona
craft, should be sent to inquire into the conduct of his scout. It was
just one of those things a tactless chief of staff would sometimes do;
but, even though Willett appreciated, none the less did he welcome the
order. It put him at once in position of ascendency over a classmate of
whose record and success he was both jealous and afraid. If he had felt
this earlier in the day the feeling was intensified now, for though he
had seemed to some of the officers, to Archer and his family, especially
to Lilian, far the more accomplished and attractive of the two, the
entrance of that disturbing rattler on the scene had destroyed the
equilibrium of affairs. Willett had had no experience with the venomous
little reptile, Harris had had much, and Harris's utter _sang froid_,
and cool, commanding words had averted what might have been a tragedy.
One start, one sudden move of the girl at that critical moment might
well have been fatal. The snake, alarmed and angered by previous stir
and by Willett's approaches, was actually coiled for the spring. The
tiny fangs would have fastened in a flash on that slender, unprotected
ankle, and the rest could only be conjectured.
And so, it was in no judicial mood that Willett began his questioning.
Accustomed as he was to the hang-dog, dissolute specimens of degenerate
red men he had seen in the Columbia country and the lava beds, he
hardly knew what to make of 'Tonio, this ascetic of the mountains,
clear eyed, trained to a fineness almost unhuman, all wire and sinew,
an Indian withal who looked him straight and fearless in the eye, and
held himself as proudly as ever did chieftain of the Aztecs or the
Sioux. Summoned from the camp fire to this unsought council, finding
himself confronted by strangers, missing his own friend and commander,
and instinctively scenting accusation, 'Tonio stood and faced his
judges without so much as a tremor.
For a moment Willett sat and studied him. "Siwashes" of Puget's Sound,
Klickatats of the Columbia, and scowling, beetle-browed Modocs of upper
Nevada he had often met, and their shifting eyes dropped before the
keen gaze of the dominant soldier, but this son of the Sierras never so
much as suffered the twitch of a muscle, the droop of an eyelash. In
the language of the "greaser" cargador, whose border vernacular had
suffered through long contact with that of the gringo, "'Tonio didn't
scare worth a damn, even when the lieutenant tried bulldozing," but
that may merely have been the expression of civilian jealousy of
military methods. Being in the pay and under the protection of the
United States, 'Tonio could be called on for explanation at any time,
only--there were two ways of calling.
"Tell him," said Willett, "the chief-of-chiefs believes the Apache
Mohaves are hiding in the Mogollon,--many of them--bucks, squaws and
children, and he was sent to find them and to bring them to the
reservation. Why did he fail?"
Munoz, as nearly as he could, put the question, but none too
confidently.
"Because my people were driven beyond sound of 'Tonio's voice," was the
calm reply, the eyes for the officer, the words for the man, and Munoz
again translated.
"How so? Was not word sent them by Arahawa?"
"Arahawa said the white brother would come with food and presents to
lead them home. What they saw was guns and scouts and soldiers.
Therefore, they were afraid and fled. Soldiers with guns catch no
Mohaves who fear. Therefore was it useless, and I tired."
"Could _you_ have caught them and persuaded them had you gone alone?"
And Willett asked as he had been instructed at headquarters.
"Caught? Yes! Persuaded? No! They say white soldiers killed Comes
Flying, brother to Chief Lone Pine."
"How does he know Comes Flying was killed? We heard it only the night I
reached Prescott. No one has told it--here." And now the officer's eyes
were glittering. The adjutant shifted uneasily in his chair. This was
news to him. Comes Flying stood second only to Lone Pine in the tribe,
yet Camp Almy had not heard it. 'Tonio had told it not even to Harris.
"The mountain eagle is 'Tonio's friend; the bear, the lynx, the birds
are his brothers."
"Then you _knew_ the Apache Mohaves were in the Verde Valley--and in
Dead Man's Canon as late as last week--that they had raided Stoner's
Ranch?"
"They were not there, nor did they raid Stoner's Ranch! My people
stayed not even on the East Fork. They fled deep in the Mogollon."
Willett gave vent to impatient "Pish!" The Indians he had known all
lied, of course, but looked it. This man looked him full in the face,
even as he lied, and looked the truth.
"I'll show you why we know you lie," said he impulsively, but the
adjutant held up a warning hand, saying, "Listen!"
Through the open doorway, barred against unauthorized intruder by the
single soldier, standing beyond earshot upon the level of the parade,
there came the prolonged cry of a sentry at the upper end of the
garrison. Number Three had repeated, but Number Four was impatient,
imperative, and the yell came again: "Corporal of the Guard, Number
Four!"
"That _means_ something," said the adjutant, springing to his feet.
"I'll be back in a minute if it doesn't," and away he went,
swift-speeding under the flagstaff, and Munoz followed straight to the
base of the staff, where the trumpeter of the guard and three or four
men from the barracks were already gathered, their own surreptitious,
blanket-shrouded game for the moment forgotten. They were staring
through the moonlight straight away to the northeastward chain of
heights, rocky and precipitous, that spanned the valley in that
direction, and suddenly two of them gave tongue:
"There it is again! Didn't I tell you?"
Far away among the pines at the crest a tiny blaze shot into the skies,
brilliant even in the moonshine. "Signal fire, sure!" said three voices
at once. "Signal fire, sure!" echoed other voices, as more men came
running forth from the barracks to join the watchers on the parade.
"Signal fire, sure, and right up over the Bennett Ranch--where the
general was to-day!"
"My God, I wonder have they jumped it! Yonder comes the
corporal--back--running!"
Back, indeed, and running and straight for the doctor's, where he could
be heard banging at the open door. So away went the trumpeter, full
tilt for tidings, and others, impatient, followed. Instead of coming
back the trumpeter kept on, running still harder toward the brow of the
hill and the post of Number Four. It was the corporal who called to his
halting and anxious fellows:
"It's Bennett's Ranch! His dago's in with the news--mos' dead down
there on Number Four; says they've killed the whole family--'Patchie
Mohaves!"
There was awed silence one moment. Then a deep voice broke it, and all
eyes turned on the speaker. 'Tonio.
"Apache Mohave? No! _No!!_"