It was a merciful Providence, as many of the exiles later said, that
brought the commanding general himself late that starlit evening back
to Prescott. His stout mountain wagon, and special six-mule team had
whirled him up from the Verde after the briefest of conferences with
the cavalry colonel there in command. An Indian runner from Almy had
reached them early that Thursday morning, announcing the return of
Stannard and his troop, accompanied by Lieutenant Harris, 'Tonio and
certain of the Apache-Mohaves, the arrest by civil authorities and
attempted suicide of Case, and the further gathering under the wing of
the law of Jose Sanchez, of Munoz, and even of Dago, all of whom, it
was said, were wanted at Prescott. Stannard found the Archers gone,
found himself, as senior captain, temporarily in command of the post,
and called upon to furnish military escort for the civil _posse
comitatus_. Stannard was a soldier pure and simple. He would have shown
as a mammoth bull in a china shop had he and his troop been at the
moment in the Southern states, instead of the south-western territory.
He stood ready to do any amount of arresting the government might
order. He was entirely willing to send a subaltern and a score of
troopers to convoy the entire party--sheriff and deputies, posse and
prisoners--to the territorial capital, but, like the old war-horse he
was, he balked, stiff-necked and stiff-legged, at the sheriff's demand
that the escort should report to _him_--should be, in point of fact,
under his orders.
Not to put too fine a point upon it, Stannard had said he'd see him
damned first, whereupon the sheriff refused to make the trip, and
appealed to the territorial authorities, while Stannard sent a runner
up to district head-quarters for instructions. Each messenger had
nearly ninety miles to go, so the race was about even, despite the fact
that the sheriff's couriers were mounted and Stannard's runner went
afoot. The uninitiated would have backed the riders to win, but
Stannard backed the runner. The former were deputies and white; the
latter was Apache-Mohave and brown. The former had a road and a
roadside ranch or two, whereat they might and did obtain rest and
refreshment. The redskin had only a trail, and no temptations. The
Apache won out in a walk, literally a jog-trot. Luck as well as pluck
favored the latter, for he found the department, as well as the
district, commander at Sandy, and Stannard's instructions were started
back that very morning. "Come up yourself to Prescott," they said.
"Bring Harris and 'Tonio and such of 'Tonio's people as are necessary.
Come prepared to stay a week at least, and be sure that Mrs. Stannard
comes with you. Use your own judgment as to route and escort. Offer the
sheriff the protection, but by no manner of means the command, of your
party."
Having thus settled that question, the Gray Fox bethought him that it
might be just as well to scoot for home, lest other councils should
prevail about the capital. Such councils had prevailed, and in the
recent past. He had still in mind the embarrassing episode of Willett's
"instructed" descent upon Almy. In view of all the resultant
complications he could not well forget it, and so, having finished his
chat with Pelham, the tireless brigadier went bowling away by mountain
road, the faithful Bright beside him, and was landed at his own door
soon after eleven P.M. in abundant time to meet the situation on the
morrow. Even in those days, when the stars went to the fighting force
instead of the staff corps, it sometimes happened that a bureau officer
had political wires to work.
And there were other reasons why he had come not a moment too soon.
People had so little to talk about in those far Western wilds that they
who had, as related, unexpectedly met our hostess and her guest in the
darkness, and learned from them that they and Archer and Lilian had
been "looking on for ever so long," must needs hurry back to the
ballroom and tell it over and again. "Why didn't you bring them in?"
"Why didn't you make them come in?" were the questions impulsively
asked and not easily answered. They couldn't make them come in! Mrs.
Crook said they were far too tired! They had only just come down to see
how gay and pretty it all looked, and hear the music a minute, before
going to bed! Now they were going to bed!
Then the people began looking for Willett and Evelyn Darrah. There were
not a few who would have been glad to be able to tell _them_ this piece
of news, but the bliss was denied. There was nothing unusual in dancers
going out in the starlight, as had Willett and Evelyn. There was
something odd about their not returning, however, and Mrs. Darrah
presently whisked the colonel home to see about it. Then they did not
return. They found the two on the dark piazza, just home, as said the
daughter. She had a headache and could dance no more, and now would say
good-night, which she said, and that left the colonel alone with
Willett. The mother followed the daughter in-doors to see _if_ she knew
of the arrival, and then to see _that_ she did. The father felt his way
for a moment for some means of getting rid, without rudeness, of this
disturbing young man, and found that he could not. Willett had
something on his mind and, as soon as he saw it, Darrah was scared. In
evident mental excitement Willett had followed, closed the door after
her, then, pulling nervously at his mustache, had turned on the
putative head of the house. "Colonel Darrah," he began in a moment, "I
have something I feel I must say to you----"
"Then _don'-t_, my boy, for God's sake!" said Darrah. "Say it to Mrs.
Darrah, will you? She--er--settles all--this sort of thing for me. She
understands--er--Evvy--if anybody does--I'm blessed if I can,
and--er--if you don't mind, I--I--I think I'll say good-night. Have a
smoke or a drink before you go?" he asked, in enforced and miserable
recognition of the demands of hospitality. "No? Well, of course, you'd
rather be back, I suppose," and so saying, he hoped to get Willett to
go without being the one to either hear what Willett had to say or even
to tell Willett what he knew--that at this very moment Lilian Archer,
the girl to whom this young gallant's love and loyalty were
pledged--was harbored there beneath their general's roof, where the
lights were burning on the brow of the hill.
So not for half an hour did Willett get the news. He would not return
to the hop room. He did not go directly home. He dimly saw the mule
team, at spanking trot, go rattling up the road; saw and heard it draw
up at the general's, and then whisking back to the valley to deposit
Bright. He divined at once that the chief must have returned and
congratulated himself that he would not be expected to pay his duty
until the morning, especially if he at once saw Bright. So upon his
fellow staff officer he projected himself with proper welcome, and the
first question Bright asked was: "How are the Archers?" It had not
occurred to him that no mail had come up for nearly a week--that
Willett did not know that they had started from Almy three days before.
Then Wickham came in and briefly said: "Certainly. They're up at the
general's. They were down at the dance awhile, looking on through the
windows," whereat Harold Willett's handsome face went white.
Late as it was he knew he should go over at once, and he did, and it
was God's mercy, as Wickham said afterwards, that sent the bearded
general, not the gray-haired, raging father to meet him at the door.
There had been a minute of tearful, almost breathless, conference
between the devoted couple before Archer released his wife from his
arms, sent her in to Lilian, and then came down as calmly as he could
to face his host and hostess. There had been a moment or two, in the
sanctity of their chamber, in which this other devoted but childless
couple--the Darby and Joan of the old army--conferred swiftly over the
situation, the wife briefly telling the soldier spouse of what she had
seen, heard and believed, and a glance at Archer had done the rest.
Crook saw the anguish in the face of his old friend, and had only
measurably succeeded in calming him when Willett's step was heard upon
the veranda. The chief sprang to his feet. Archer would have followed,
but with a silent, most significant gesture, the commander warned his
comrade back. Then, closing the parlor door behind him, confronted the
young officer in the silence and darkness of the veranda.
What transpired in that brief interview was never told. Two or three
couples, wearying of the dance, and wending their homeward way, saw the
two tall, shadowy forms in the dim light, saw that one of them was
standing strictly at attention, and knew thereby that the other must be
the general, saw that the interview was very brief, for in a moment the
caller raised a hand in salute, faced about, and went somewhat heavily
down the steps and, avoiding both the main road and the pathway,
disappeared in the direction of the bachelors' quarters under the hill.
At ten the following morning a buckboard called at Willett's door, and
that young officer drove away in travelling rig, with a valise by way
of luggage, and when people inquired, as many did, and many more would
have done had they followed their inclination, what took Willett away
in such a hurry and--er--at such a time, all that black-bearded Wickham
would say was, he heard it was a wagon. As for Bright, one might as
well seek information of the Sphinx. There never was a man who, knowing
all about a matter, could look, as more than one fair critic had been
heard to say, so exasperatingly, idiotically ignorant. At noon,
however, it was known that Willett's wagon stopped but a few moments on
the plaza in the little mining town and capital, then shot away
southward on the Hassayampa road.
Three days later the array of "Casually at Post" on the morning report
of Fort Whipple showed an increase of something like a score.
Lieutenant Briggs with a sergeant and a dozen troopers rode in the
previous evening, after turning over a quartette of dusky civilians at
the calaboose, and leaving a guard at the hospital in charge of a
pallid, nervous, suffering man, whom a big-hearted post surgeon
received with compassionate care. The doctor had known him in better
days. It was what was left of the recent lion of Camp Almy--Case the
bookkeeper.
Among the arrivals extraordinary at head-quarters on the hill were
Captain and Mrs. Stannard of Camp Almy, Captain Bonner, Lieutenant
Strong, post adjutant thereat, and then, as Bright's special guest, was
Lieutenant "Hefty" Harris, of old Camp Bowie, and as Bright's special
charge were 'Tonio, sometime chief of the Red Rock band of
Apache-Mohaves, Kwonahelka, his associate and friend, with two young
braves of the tribe, Kwonahelka's shy, silent wife and her ward, a
motherless young Apache girl, sister to Comes Flying, he whose untimely
taking off had so seriously complicated the Indian question in the
district of the Verde. Bright had his Apache visitors comfortably
stowed, and abundantly provided for, close to his own roof, and 'Tonio,
charged with serious crimes against the peace and dignity of the people
of the U.S. in general, and Arizona in particular, received with native
dignity at the entrance to his canvas lodge callers and even
congratulations--for great was the desire to see him--and, unbailed,
unhampered, untrammelled by fetter, guard or shackle, calmly awaited
his examination before the Great Chief with the coming of the morrow.
Soldiers like Crook and the staff of his training knew 'Tonio and his
lineage, and unlike Willett, valued his word.
And early on that morrow Willett reappeared, delivered certain
despatches at the office long before office hours, betook himself to
his quarters for bath, shave and breakfast, and behind closed doors and
shrouded windows, awaited the summons if needed to appear before the
department commander. His narrative long since had been reduced to
writing. Between him and black-bearded Wickham there had been one
significant interview, never till long afterwards given even to
intimates on the general's staff. As for 'Tonio, to no one less would
he plead his cause than the department commander himself, the Great
White Chief.
Never in the chronicles of that sun-blistered land, home of the
scorpion and rattlesnake, the Apache and tarantula, had that sun shone
on scene so dramatic as that the Exiles long referred to as "'Tonio's
Trial," and never, perhaps, was trial held with less of the panoply and
observance of the law and more assurance of entire justice.
It was a great chief trying a great chief. The powerful commander of
the department sitting in judgment on the once powerful head of a
warlike band, long since scattered, absorbed, merged in neighboring
tribes, worn down in ceaseless battling against surrounding forces and
implacable Fate. Crook knew the Indian as it was given few men to know
him, and in his own simple, straightforward way generally dealt with
the Indian direct. But here was a case, as he well understood, where he
who had once moved the monarch of these silent, encircling mountains,
stood accused of treachery to the hand that had fed, sheltered and
uplifted him, to the Great Father whose service he had sought, to the
white chiefs, old and young, whom he had sworn to obey. If guilty he
deserved the extent of the law, if innocent, the fullest vindication of
the highest power he and his people knew and recognized. To no mere
captain or even post commander would 'Tonio plead. To no agency
official would he trust himself or his cause. There was one soldier
chief whom every Indian of the Pacific Slope knew well by reputation
and by name--the chief who spoke ever with the straight tongue and told
them only the truth--the chief who never broke his word or let others
ignore it. "Gray Fox" they named him later among other tribes, but
these of the Sierras spoke of him only as "Crook."
On the greensward, close to the assembly hall in the low ground, the
council lodge was pitched--two huge hospital tent flies having been
stretched from tree to tree, braced on uprights; and there, in a little
semi-circle, sat the general with his principal officers about
him--gray-haired, pale-faced Archer, looking strangely sad and old, at
his right--black-haired Wickham at his left, and high officials of the
staff departments on either flank, the judge advocate of the department
having a little table and chair at one side that all legal notes might
be made. Half a dozen officers of the garrison, with Colonel Darrah at
their head, grouped in rear of the council. Three or four orderlies
stood about, but, by order, not a rifle or revolver could be found in
the entire array. Seated to the right and left were officers prominent
in the recent campaign--Stannard, Turner, Bonner, Strong and Harris
among them, while at a distance, among the cedars and looking curiously
on, were gathered the wives and families of the officers, with their
guests and attendants--at a distance that the dignity of the occasion
in the eyes of the Indian race might not be put in jeopardy by the
presence of a woman.
Further still, on the other side across the trickling brook, to the
number of near two hundred, men, women and children, soldiers, citizens
and strangers, all in silence awaited the first act of the drama--the
coming of 'Tonio with his retinue, marshalled by that expert master of
aboriginal ceremonies, Lieutenant Bright.
And presently he came. No picturesque war bonnet distinguished him. No
robe or mantle hung in stately folds about his form. 'Tonio sought not,
as does his red brother of the plains, the theatrical aid of impressive
costume. Tall, spare and erect, his sinewy legs and arms bare almost
their entire length, his moccasins worn and faded, but his fillet,
camisa and trailing breech-clout almost snowy white; destitute of
plume, feather, necklace, armlet, ornament of any kind, unarmed, yet
unafraid, with slow and measured stop the chief approached the council
tent, three of his warriors in his train, and, escorted by Bright,
turned squarely as he came before the outspread canvas, entered beneath
its shade, and stopping midway across the greensward, his head upheld,
his black eyes fixed in calm, reposeful trust upon the general's face,
halted and stood simply before him, saying not a word.
"'Tonio, will you be seated?" asked the general, and an orderly stepped
forward with a camp chair. Even before the interpreter could translate,
'Tonio understood, motioned the orderly aside, turned and signalled to
his followers, who quickly settled to the ground and seated themselves,
cross-legged, in half circle beneath him, but the chieftain, accused,
would stand. On the dead silence that followed, all men listening with
attentive ear, even the women and children across the little ravine,
hushing their nervous giggle and chatter, 'Tonio's voice was presently
uplifted, neither harsh nor guttural, but deep and almost musical. In
the tongue of his people he spoke seven words, and there seemed no need
of the interpreter's translation:
"My father has sent for me. I am here."