The dawn was breaking in sickly pallor over the jagged scarp of the
Mesa, bounding the chaotic labyrinth of bowlders, crag and canon
beneath. Far up the rugged valley, jutting from the faded fringe of
pine, juniper and scrub oak that bearded the Mogollon, a solitary butte
stood like sentry against the cloudless sky, its lofty crown of rock
just faintly signalling the still distant coming of the heralds of the
god of day. Here in the gloomy depths of the basin, and at the banks of
the murmuring stream, all was still silence and despond. The
smouldering ruins of Bennett's cosey home lay a mass of dull red coal,
with smoke wreaths sailing idly aloft from charred beam or roof-tree.
The mangled body of the stout frontiersman had been gathered into a
trooper's blanket and lay there near the pathetic ruin of the house he
had so hopefully builded, so bravely defended, for the wife and little
ones. Half a dozen Indian scouts, silent and dejected, were squatting
inert about the little garden, irrigated from the main _acequia_,
where the heavy-headed poppies, many of them, were still nodding on
their stalks, while others lay crushed and trampled. A little distance
away down the stream a little troop of cavalry, in most business-like
uniform, had dismounted and was watering some fifty thirsty horses,
while its stocky commander, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his
riding breeches, his slouch hat pulled down to his brows, his booted
foot kicking viciously at a clump of cactus, was listening impatiently
to the words of the young aide-de-camp, who seemed far less at ease
than when he trod the boards of the general's quarters some six hours
earlier in the night.
"Do I understand you then," and Stannard spoke with a certain asperity,
"that Mr. Harris, with just two or three scouts, has gone out hunting
on his own hook?--that even 'Tonio isn't with him?"
"He claimed the right to go, and I told him to take half a dozen--half
a score of the scouts, if need be, and leave the other half with me,
only I drew the line at 'Tonio. I needed him here. He is the only
Indian in the lot who understands enough English to catch my meaning
and to translate. I could let Harris go, or 'Tonio, separately, but not
both together. That left me powerless. Oh, yes, he objected. He said
'Tonio had always been his right bower--always had worked with him and
for him. But 'Tonio, not Harris, is the chief of scouts, the man they
look to and obey. Now he and most of his followers are here to do your
bidding. If Harris had been allowed his way, I'd have been probably
alone."
Stannard sniffed. "Which way'd he go?" he bluntly asked.
"I'm not sure. We were going to trail the moment it was light enough to
see. One thing is certain, they did not start in the direction of the
signals, though they may have veered off that way. 'Tonio is the only
one who claims to know anything. 'Tonio says 'Apache Tonto' was the
murderer, not Apache-Mohave, and 'Tonio's in the sulks. Look at him!"
Stannard glanced an instant toward the gaunt figure of the Apache,
standing dejectedly apart from all others and gazing fixedly toward the
dawn. The light was stronger now. The red was in the orient sky. The
distant butte was all aglow with the radiance of the rising yet
invisible sun. Stannard seemed more concerned in the whereabouts of Mr.
Harris than in the worries of Mr. Willett. Again he returned to his
questions.
"Well, did Harris give any inkling of his purpose--whether he meant to
follow the trail till he found captives and captors, or only till he
found where it probably led to? I've got to act, and lose no time.
Sergeant, tell the men to hurry with their coffee," he called, to the
brown-eyed, dark-featured soldier who was coming forward at the moment.
A salute was the only answer, as the sergeant turned about in his
tracks and signalled to the boy trumpeter, holding his own and the
captain's horse. Another moment and Stannard was in saddle.
"Harris didn't say," was the guarded answer. "You know, I suppose, that
he left the post without consulting the general, and he took it much
amiss that, in compliance with the general's orders, I exercised
certain authority after reaching him. Now you are here to take entire
charge, I turn over the whole business to you. There's what's left of
the scouts; there's what's left of the ranch; and there," with a glance
at the blanket-shrouded form, "is what's left of the Bennetts. I'll jog
back to the post by and by."
"Oh, then you're not going on with us?" said Stannard, relieved in
mind, he hardly knew why.
"No, sir, I only rode out here to investigate and report. We, of
course, hoped to save _some_thing."
"Pity you hadn't spared yourself and not spoiled the pie," thought
Stannard as he looked about him over the scene of desolation. The men
were snapping their tin mugs and the refilled canteens to the saddle
rings. The captain rode over to 'Tonio, a kindly light in his blue-gray
eyes. He whipped off the right gauntlet and held forth his hand.
"No Apache-Mohave!" said he stoutly. "Apache Tonto. Si! Now catch 'em
Teniente Harris." Poor lingo that "pidgin" Indian of the desert and the
long ago, but it served its purpose. 'Tonio grasped the proffered hand,
a grateful gleam in his black eyes; warned with the other hand the
captain's charger from certain tracks he had been jealously guarding;
then pointed eagerly, here, there, in half a dozen places, where
footprints were still unmarred in the powdery dust. "Si--si--Apache
Tonto!" and the long, skinny finger darted, close to the ground, from
one print to the other. "No Apache-Mohave! No!"
"Then come! Mount!" called Stannard. "Leave a corporal and four men
here as guard until the ambulance gets out from the post," he added, to
the first sergeant. "Mount the troop, soon's you're ready. I'm going
ahead with 'Tonio and the scouts. _Ugashi_, 'Tonio! Good-by, Mr.
Willett. Take one of the men, if you need an orderly," he shouted back,
over a flannel-shirted shoulder, innocent of badge or strap of any
kind. In point of dress or equipment there was absolutely no difference
between the captain of cavalry and his fifty men.
A moment later, spreading out over the low ground like so many hounds
throwing off for a scent, 'Tonio and his scouts were trotting away
toward a dip in the rugged heights to the north-east, for thither, the
moment it was light enough even faintly to see, the keen eyes of the
Apaches had trailed the fugitives, and now with bounding feet they
followed the sign, Tonio foremost, his mount discarded. Afoot, like his
fellows, and bending low, pointing every now and then to half turned
pebble, to broken twig or bruised weed, he drove ever eagerly forward,
the stolid bearing of the Indian giving way with each successive minute
to unusual, though repressed excitement. Thrice he signalled to
Stannard and pointed to the crushed and beaten sand--to toe or heel or
sole marks to which the Caucasian would have attached but faint
importance had not the aborigine proclaimed rejoicefully
"Apache-Mohave!" whereat Stannard shook his head and set his teeth and
felt his choler rising.
"Thought you swore Apache _Tonto_ awhile ago," said Stannard wrathfully.
"Now you're saying Apache _Mohave_!"
"Si! Si! Apache Tonto--kill--shoot. Apache-Mohave good Indian. Look,
see, _carry_," and with hands and arms in eager gesture he strove to
illustrate.
Could he mean that they who killed Bennett were hostile Tontos, and
that these who bore the poor widowed creature were of the Mohave blood?
If so, why should 'Tonio seem really to rejoice? Had he not strenuously
denied that his people took any part in the outrage? Was he not now
insisting that they were active in bearing her away--probably to
captivity and a fate too horrible? Stannard, riding close at his heels,
his men still following in loose skirmish order until they should reach
the ravine, studied him with varying emotion. Harris had certainly
betrayed a fear that 'Tonio was but half-hearted in the matter of
scouting after Apache-Mohaves. Now the suspected scout was trailing for
all he was worth, with the pertinacity of the bloodhound.
Broad daylight again, and the sun peering down from the crest of the
great Mesa, and the morning growing hot, and some new hands already
pulling eagerly at the canteens, despite their older comrades' warning.
And still the advance went relentlessly on. They were climbing a
rugged, stony ravine now, with bare shoulders of bluff overhanging in
places, and presently, from a projecting ledge, Stannard was able to
look back over the rude landscape of the lowlands. There to the west,
stretching north and south, was the long, pine-crested bulwark of the
Mazatzal, the deep, ragged rift of Dead Man's Canon toward the upper
end. Winding away southward, in the midst of the broad valley, the
stream shone like burnished silver in the shallow reaches, or sparkled
over rocky beds. Far to the south-west, the dull, dun-colored roofs and
walls of the post could barely be discerned, even with the powerful
binocular, against the brown barren of the low "bench" whereon it lay.
Only the white lance of the flagstaff, and the glint of tin about the
chimneys, betrayed its position. From north to far south-east ran the
palisade-like crest of the Black Mesa, while the Sierra Ancha bound the
basin firmly at the southward side. Deep in the ravines of the
foothills, where little torrents frothed and tumbled in the spring
tide, scant, thread-like rivulets came trickling now to join the gentle
flood of the lower Tonto and the East Fork of the Verde, and, at one or
two points along the Mesa, signal smokes were still puffing into the
breathless air. Below them, possibly six miles away, yet looking almost
within long rifle-shot, the square outline of the abandoned corral, the
blackened ruin of the ranch, with the adjacent patches, irrigated,
tilled, carefully tended--all Bennett's hard and hopeful toil gone for
nothing--told their incontrovertible tale of savage hate and treachery.
It was a sorry ending this, a wretched reward for the years of saving,
self-denial and steadfast labor of him who had lived so long at amity
among these children of the mountain and desert, giving them often of
his food and raiment, asking only the right to build up a little lodge
in this waste land of the world, where he need owe no man anything, yet
have home and comfort and competence for those he loved, and a welcome
for the wayfarer who should seek shelter at his door. It was the old,
old story of many a pioneer and settler, worn so threadbare at the
campfires of the cavalry that rough troopers wondered why it was that
white men dared so much to win so little. Yet, through just such
hardships, loneliness and peril our West was won, and they who own it
now have little thought for those who gave it them.
Stannard sighed as he closed his signal glass and turned again to the
duty in hand. "What's the trouble?" he bluntly asked his faithful
sergeant; lieutenants at the moment he had none.
"Check, sir. All rock and half a dozen gullies. Scouts are trying three
of them. Don't seem to know which way they went from here. Even a mule
shoe makes no print."
The troop, following its leader's example, without sound or signal had
dismounted, and stood in long column of files adown the ravine. 'Tonio
and his fellow-scouts had disappeared somewhere in the stony labyrinth
ahead. Up this way, before the dawn, the dusky band must have led or
driven their captives, two of Bennett's mules having been pressed into
service. Up this way, not an hour behind them, must have followed
Harris and his handful of allies, four Indians in all. Up this way,
swift and unerring thus far, 'Tonio, backed by half a dozen half-naked
young braves, had guided the cavalry, and never before, so said old
Farrier Haney, who had 'listed in the troop at Prescott, and had served
here with the previous regiment in '69--never before had he known
'Tonio so excited, so vehement. Beyond all question, 'Tonio's heart was
in the chase to-day.
[Illustration: Scrambling down the adjacent slope every man for
himself. Page 81]
But this delay was most vexatious. Every moment lost to the pursuit was
more than a minute gained by the pursued. Lighter by far and trained to
mountain climbing, the Apache covers ground with agility almost
goatlike. It was long after seven, said Stannard's watch, and not a
glimpse had they caught of Indian other than their own. It was just
half past the hour, and Stannard with an impatient snap of the
watch-case was about thrusting it back in his pocket, when, far to the
front, reechoing, resounding among the rocks, two shots sounded in
quick succession, followed in sudden sputter by half a dozen more.
"Turn your horses over to Number Four, men!" shouted Stannard.
"Sergeant Schreiber, remain in charge. The rest of you come on."
Scrambling up a rocky hillside, he led on to the divide before him--the
crest between two steep ravines--his men coming pell-mell and panting
after, every now and then dislodging a stone and sending it clattering
to the depths below. Two hundred yards ahead, at a sharp, angular
point, one of the Yuma scouts stood frantically waving his hand, and
thither Stannard turned his ponderous way. No lightweight he, and the
pace and climb began to tell. Eager young soldiers were at his heels,
but grim old Stauffer, the first sergeant, growled his orders not to
crowd; hearing which their captain half turned with something like a
grin: "Tumble ahead if you want to," was all he said, and tumble they
did, for the firing was sharp and fierce and close at hand, augmented
on a sudden as 'Tonio's little party reached the scene and swelled the
clamor with their Springfields. Another moment and, springing from rock
to rock, spreading out to the right and left as they came in view of a
little fastness along the face of a cliff, the troopers went scrambling
down the adjacent slope and, every man for himself, opened on what
could be seen of the foe. Some men, possibly, never knew what they were
firing at, but the big-barrelled Sharp's carbine made a glorious chorus
to the sputtering fire of the scouts. Five hundred yards away, bending
double, dodging from bowlder to bowlder, several swarthy Indians could
be seen in full flight, apparently. Then old 'Tonio threw up a hand
from across the stony chasm, signalled to his friends to cease, sprang
over a low barrier of rock, disappeared one moment from view, then a
few yards farther signalled "Come on." And on they went and came
presently upon an excited, jabbering group at a little cleft in the
hillside. A mule lay kicking in death agony down the slope. Another lay
dead among the bowlders. An Apache warrior, face downward in a pool of
blood, was sprawled in front of the cleft, and presently, from the
cavelike entrance, came Lieutenant Harris and 'Tonio, bearing between
them the form of an unconscious woman, and Stannard, as he came panting
to the spot, ordering everybody to fall back and give her air, and
somebody to bring a canteen, slapped Harris a hearty whack on the
shoulder, whereat that silent young officer suddenly wilted and dropped
like a log, and not until then was it seen he was shot--that his sleeve
and shirt were dripping with blood.
And just about that hour, less than thirty miles away, based on
Lieutenant Willett's verbal report, the commanding officer of Camp Almy
was writing a despatch to go by swift courier to department
head-quarters--a report which closed with these words:
"The presence at this juncture of Lieutenant Willett, aide-de-camp
to the department commander, was of great value and importance, and
I trust that his decision to remain may meet approval. On the other
hand, it is with regret that I am constrained to express my
disapproval of the action of Lieutenant Harris, commanding scouts,
who left the post with his men immediately after the alarm and
without conference with me; was only overtaken by Lieutenant
Willett after going several miles, and, when informed of my
instructions, practically refused to be guided by them. Persuading
a few of the scouts to follow him, he left the detachment, in spite
of Lieutenant Willett's remonstrance, and started in pursuit of the
marauders. As these must largely outnumber him, it is not only
impossible that he should rescue the captives, but more than
probable he has paid for his rashness with his life."