Without event of material importance, it has been said, the journey
from Prescott to Sandy was effected. Yet the journey was not devoid of
interest.
For two or three days previous Mr. Truscott had seen little or nothing
of Grace Pelham. He had been stunned by the angry words that both
he and the general’s wife had overheard when Lady Pelham’s door was
opened for that one brief instant, he had pondered over them that
night after going to bed, and the more he thought the more his blood
boiled within him at the idea of this coarse, imperious woman daring
to speak so shamefully of his gentle little friend. Next morning Grace
did not appear at all, as we have seen, and it was all Truscott could
to do to behave with common civility to her ladyship. As for their
hostess, it must be confessed that she absolutely snubbed Mrs. Pelham
on two or three occasions, kept out of her way as much as possible,
and when the time for starting came she kissed Miss Pelham warmly and
affectionately, begged her to come up and spend the Christmas holidays
with her, but not a word of invitation did she extend to her mother.
“Good-day, Mrs. Pelham, I trust you have enjoyed your visit,” was
all she vouchsafed her ladyship, and that lady readily comprehended
that she had offended her hostess, and, true to nature, hated her
accordingly.
Only in company had Truscott met Miss Pelham since that night until
the morning of their start. Then he suddenly encountered her alone,
he returning from a visit to the corral to inspect the condition of
the ambulances that were to convey the party to Sandy, she from the
infantry quarters on the other side of the garrison, whither she had
been to say good-by to a baby pet of hers, the daughter of one of the
officers here stationed.
Truscott greeted her cordially and complimented her upon such very
early rising. Her reply was a nervous and embarrassed platitude, and
she hurried along with bent head and downcast eyes up the very path
which she and Glenham had taken the night of the “Pelham Ball.” All her
old frank, bright manner had disappeared; she would not even look at
him. Stung to the quick by her evident wish to avoid him, he presently
raised his forage-cap, and turning at a side-path, said,—
“Pardon my not escorting you home, Miss Pelham; there are some matters
I must arrange before we can start.”
Then for an instant her eyes met his, she faltered when she marked the
pain and surprise in his face. She almost held out her hand to him, but
as though suddenly recollecting herself, simply bowed, said in a low
tone something that sounded like “Good-b—morning, Mr.——” and scurried
away up the path like a frightened fawn. With a sadder brow than we
have yet seen in Truscott he turned aside, and by a circuitous route
regained the house, where he found them all at an early breakfast.
Half an hour afterwards and they were off. Mrs. and Miss Pelham and
her ladyship’s homesick maid occupying one ambulance, Mesdames Turner,
Raymond, and Wilkins another, while Mrs. Tanner with Rosalie and one of
the young ladies from Sandy were bestowed in a third,—Captain Tanner’s
own; for Tanner was a man of substance, and had money enough to buy out
the rest of the regiment, Glenham perhaps excepted. A fourth ambulance
contained a small guard of infantry-men, while two or three trailers,
left behind in the rush for the Apaches, the mail messenger, and two
scouts, who had come in with despatches, accompanied the party as
escort.
Amid the fluttering of handkerchiefs and cheery _au revoirs_ the party
rattled off, cracking whips and whistling drivers sending the lively
little mule-teams along at a spanking gait. Truscott paused one moment
to hold out both hands to his kind hostess and with something of a
tremor in his voice to say farewell. She looked up in his face and
seized the outstretched hands,—“Jack, don’t you worry. _It’ll come out
all right yet, and I know it._” He turned quickly, mounted his horse,
and, with a wave of the hand, cantered off down the slope after his
convoy.
The journey to the Agua Fria was accomplished without incident.
It was a dismal party that rode in her ladyship’s vehicle. She
was in execrable humor herself, ready to snap at anybody. As a
consequence Grace sat silently and wistfully gazing out on the
pine-covered heights, the maid was in tears most of the way, and Lady
Pelham, echoing the sniffling from the front seat, sniffed at her
smelling-salts, and finally inquired for the sherry-flask. Twice or
thrice at difficult parts of the road Grace saw Truscott, seated on his
horse, cautioning the driver of each ambulance as in turn they came to
the spot, but ordinarily he was well to the front, and only at sharp
curves of the road could she catch sight of him, the guard ambulance
being just in front of them. Then she looked with all her eyes, for
well as he looked at all times it was in the saddle Jack Truscott was
at his best. She worshipped fine horsemanship, and never had she seen
anything to equal the grace and ease of Truscott’s. Half angry at
herself, she yet could not withstand the fascination that kept her gaze
fixed upon him at every opportunity.
Before the sun reached the meridian Truscott conducted his train
into the court of Olson’s ranch, and politely notified her ladyship
that here they would rest an hour and then push on. The ladies were
assisted from the ambulances, and were welcomed with much red-faced
embarrassment by Mrs. Olson, who showed them into her best rooms. The
ladies of the —th she knew well. They had often stopped with her, but
the stony grandeur with which her ladyship glared around the bare walls
and rude furniture, sniffing at everything, overawed and upset her
completely. None the less did she hasten to sacrifice her pet chickens
and produce the freshest eggs, in order that the ladies who were so
grand in her eyes might be regaled with the best her larder could
command.
Something like twenty minutes had the ladies been resting and chatting
among themselves when Truscott came striding up from the corrals,
whither he had been to superintend the refreshment of his horses and
mules. Seeing him approach, Mrs. Tanner quietly laid her sleeping
Rosalie upon the bed, rose and went out to meet him. Two or three
of the ladies exchanged glances, then looked at Mrs. Pelham. Taking
Truscott’s arm, Mrs. Tanner walked with him slowly through the
ranch-yard, past the corrals, and, with the eyes of every woman in
the party except Grace’s upon them, they strolled up the bank of the
stream, and were soon out of sight from the windows.
“Come with me a moment,” said Mrs. Pelham, abruptly, to her daughter,
who rose without a word and followed her mother out into the court and
around the corner. The elder lady silently pointed up the stream, and
Grace, looking, beheld Mrs. Tanner leaning on Truscott’s arm, and both
of them, some three hundred yards away, were walking farther. Another
moment and they disappeared from sight around a little knoll.
Then Lady Pelham slowly turned, and impressively the words fell from
her lips, “Grace, what did I tell you?”
When, half an hour later, Jack Truscott extended his hand to assist
Miss Pelham to her seat in the ambulance, as he had been assisting the
others, she passed it without notice, seized the door frames with both
hands, and with the agile spring of the mountain deer popped up into
her place. Truscott calmly closed and fastened the door, nodded to the
driver, and away went the Pelham equipage.
The sun was setting behind the great range to the west, and the
ambulances had halted for a moment at a point where the road wound
around a precipitous ledge, when Truscott rode up to the door of the
Pelham equipage, and, pointing far down in the valley below and some
miles to the south, quietly remarked, “Mrs. Pelham, there is Camp
Sandy,” then rode on to the head of column. Eagerly gazing, Grace could
see rows of what looked like toy-houses painted a dismal brown, but
Mrs. Pelham was cross and tired, and the sherry had been a little too
strong or too frequent, or both, she did not care to look. An hour
more and Grace was in her father’s arms, while her gracious mother was
turning up her nose at the parlor furniture. Soon afterwards, Grace,
delightedly examining her own dainty little room, heard her father’s
voice hailing from the piazza below,—
“Truscott! oh, Truscott! that you?”
A voice from the darkness out on the parade replied,—
“Yes, colonel.”
And Grace stood still—yes—to listen.
“Been to dinner or supper yet?”
“Not yet, sir; I’ve had several things to attend to.”
“Then come and take high tea with us.”
“I would with pleasure, sir, but—I’ve promised Mrs. Tanner.”
A tap at Grace’s door, and her ladyship swept in.
“You heard that, I suppose. How much confirmation do you require, may I
ask?”
And all that evening Grace Pelham was feverishly gay.
The general, it seems, had gone out into the Mogollon after the
troops; he had spent a day at the agency with Tanner, and then, on his
renowned saddle-mule, had struck eastward for the trail leading to the
Colorado Chiquito. Every hour the renegades were sneaking back into
their limits, and the next day were begging around camp as persistently
as ever and with that childlike expression of innocence and utter
lack of guile in which the Apache excels. In the brief conversation
Colonel Pelham had enjoyed with Truscott after tea, when the latter had
betaken himself to the office and was working away by candle-light,
the adjutant learned that the entire command was on its way back,
having had only one or two unimportant brushes with the Indians, who
had scattered all over the Territory on finding themselves pursued by
so large a force. Then the colonel went back to his quarters to enjoy
the unaccustomed luxury of the society of his wife and daughter; but
Truscott remained at his desk “straightening out” the regimental papers
until long after midnight. Grace Pelham, going to her room after a
long, loving talk with her father, had thrown open her window and stood
there gazing out into the starlit night. Way across the dark parade
she saw towards her right the dim lights of the guard-house. She knew
it to be such, because, even as she gazed, there came from that point
the prolonged call of the sentry, “Nu-mber One. Ha-lf pa-st twelve
o’clock.” Then way beyond, over towards the corrals, a shrill Hibernian
tenor responded for Number Two, and added, “A-a-ll’s w-ell!” and so the
watch-call went the rounds, echoing back from the foot-hills until it
again reached the guard-house. Grace thought it lovely. But what was
that brilliant light off to her left? She could make out the outlines
of a low one-story building that seemed to stand by itself, and from
two windows broad beams of light streamed forth and illuminated the
parade. Hearing her father’s step on the stairway, she called him in.
“I’m so interested in it all, father; the sentries have just been
calling off. Now that’s the guard-house over there; but what is this
bright light here to the left?”
The colonel peered over her shoulder. “That! It’s the adjutant’s
office, and that confounded Jack Truscott is sitting up there at work
when, with his shoulder, he ought to have been in bed long ago. By
Jove, I’ll go and send him!”
Then he turned, took her in his arms, and looked proudly, fondly, down
into the sweet upraised face.
“I wonder if you dream, my little girl, what a joy it is to your old
father to have you here? God bless and guard you, my child!” With that
he kissed tenderly her white forehead, and the next minute she heard
him tramping across the parade to the office. She was about to close
her blind, when the sound of hoof-beats and voices coming into the
garrison from the north attracted her attention. At rapid lope the
riders came, and in a moment flashed into view in the lights from the
adjutant’s office. Then came her father’s cheery voice,—
“Why, Ray, is that you? You, too, Glenham? Welcome back, boys!”
Then she heard Truscott’s deep baritone and Ray’s and Glenham’s mingled
greetings, and the “old fellows” and hearty slaps on back and shoulder
with which the comrades of the frontier are wont to welcome one
another; and then she did close her blind, and for a while sat there
in the darkness thinking, thinking.
Two days more and the entire command was once more in garrison. Rough,
stubbly beards were shaven off, ragged hair trimmed to soldier style,
scouting-rigs were stowed away, and on the following Sunday morning
six fine troops of the —th formed line, mounted and in full dress, for
inspection. The band, too, had returned from a visit to the southern
posts of the Territory, and for three days the rank and file had been
cleaning, polishing, and scrubbing generally, for “Old Catnip” was a
stickler for drill, discipline, and neatness in every particular.
Much of the time the officers had been occupied superintending the
overhauling of the barracks and stables, but such hours as Captain
Canker would allow him Arthur Glenham had spent at Grace’s side. _Was_
it hope that fathered the thought, he wondered, or was she really more
gracious, more encouraging in her manner towards him? Mrs. Pelham was
everything that was delightful to him, inviting him there to tea,
affording him frequent opportunity for uninterrupted interviews with
Grace, and eagerly inquiring how soon Ranger would be ready for the
promised rides. Tanner, too, had come in with his troop, and Ranger had
been duly inspected and delightedly praised by Grace, but the captain
preferred that she should not ride until after the general inspection.
Of Truscott the ladies at Colonel Pelham’s saw nothing except at a
distance. He spent all his time at the office, and in going thither or
returning to his quarters kept way out in the middle of the parade,
for he lived at the extreme northern end of officers’ row, and the
colonel’s house was at the other end. Officers old and young and all
the ladies had called to welcome the Pelhams to Sandy, but just as at
Prescott, when Ray, Hunter and other ineligibles attempted to converse
to any length with Grace, the “confounded old tabby” would swoop down
upon them and monopolize the talk herself.
Oh, how superb the sight was to Grace when, early Sunday morning, the
whole command appeared in full uniform, the martial-looking helmets
with their long horse-hair plumes, the bright colors of the stripes
and facings, the blue and gold and glittering sabres of the officers,
and the handsome equipments of their steeds! She stood on the piazza
watching it all,—officer after officer mounting in front of his
quarters and trotting off to join his troop. (Of course, Glenham came
down the line to exhibit himself and his beautiful horse to her before
joining his captain.) Then the four stately non-commissioned officers,
the guard of the standard, each with his war chevrons and his bronze
medal for bravery, rode up in line and received their charge from
her father’s hands. Then came the stirring adjutant’s call, and the
thrilling burst of martial music from the band, and troop after troop
rode steadily into line; and then from the right there came at full
gallop a stalwart form she had grown to recognize instantly in any
dress. The horsemanship was unmistakable, and still at full gallop on
his powerful black charger he darted out to the front until midway to
where the colonel sat on old “Rappahannock,” when with sudden halt
and wheel he reined about, and at the deep, ringing baritone, that
resounded along the line, the sabres flashed in air, and, again
wheeling, his own sabre rose and was lowered in graceful salute. Grace
Pelham gazed with all her eyes, eagerly interested in everything,
but then the ladies who had seen that sort of thing a hundred times
gathered around her, and she saw no more of the ceremony that so
delighted her.
Disappointed as she was at the interruption of her view of the
inspection, Grace found it hard work to be cordial and courteous to her
visitors. Ordinarily on each occasions the ladies swarmed about Captain
Turner’s quarters, which, bring opposite the centre of the line when
formed, afforded the best point of observation. Mrs. Turner with great
self-complacency used to attribute this gathering to her powers of
entertainment and conversation, and talked and chattered like a magpie;
but on this particular Sunday, seeing Grace alone on the piazza of the
commanding officer’s house, the meeting adjourned and proceeded _en
masse_ to entertain her with garrison platitudes, Mrs. Wilkins being by
no means the least voluble. As a consequence, when the jovial colonel
rode up to the piazza after the dismissal of the command, his face all
aglow with the unaccustomed exercise, and called out in his cheery
way, “Well, daughter, what do you think of the —th?” she replied, with
an air of serio-comic disappointment, “I could see nothing of them,
father, except (_sotto voce_) the ladies.”
“Confound those women!” growled the colonel. “I might have known they
would spoil the whole thing, and I particularly wanted you to see the
regiment. Your mother isn’t visible yet, I suppose. She never did care
for anything connected with my profession except the pay accounts,”
he added to himself, with a weary sigh. Then he and Grace went in to
breakfast.
Late that afternoon two grimy-looking, shaggy-bearded men, accompanied
by Mr. Truscott, appeared at the colonel’s door, and were promptly
ushered into the parlor, where Lady Pelham was yawning over a novel
(for which the writer of this gives her full absolution) and her
husband was snoozing on the lounge with a handkerchief over his face.
In response to Truscott’s courteous bow, her ladyship rose from her
chair, stared for an instant at the uncouth-looking bipeds who stood
uneasily at the door, then, with an indignant “Well, I declare!” and
without noticing Truscott in the least, she swept majestically into the
adjoining room, slamming the door behind her.
The colonel woke with a start, and for an instant gazed stupidly at his
visitors.
“What’s up, Truscott?” he asked.
“Fanshawe and Craig have come in to report, sir; they bring important
news,” replied the adjutant.
“Fanshawe, hey! Craig, too! Good! Sit down, boys. What news do you
bring?”
The taller of the two cleared his throat, while the other, “his
pardner,” slowly twisted his old slouch hat in his hands and looked
to his senior to do the talking. Wiping his face with a faded
red bandanna, then stowing it away in the breast of his buckskin
hunting-shirt, Fanshawe, with a voice like a cracked bassoon, began.
“We’ve treed ’em, colonel. There’s three big rancherias out yet. We
follered ’em down from nigh Chevlon’s butte into the Tonto basin.
There’s two on ’em there somewhere, close in under the Black Mesa, nigh
the head o’ the creek. The other band cut loose and seemed to go over
to the Chiquito. Craig and I wanted to go in farther and find just
where they were, but old Kwonahelka and Charley,—Washington Charley,
you know, colonel; Araháwa ’s his ’Patchie name,—they dasn’t resk it;
so we come back. If the gin’ral will send out a couple of troops now,
with fifteen days’ rations and ’Patchie-Mohave scouts, I reckon he can
gobble the Tonto basin crowd, and it’ll only take a small detachment to
corral the outfit that slid out over towards the Chiquito; there can’t
be more’n forty bucks among ’em.”
“Where are Kwonahelka and Charley?” asked the colonel, after a moment’s
thought.
“Right outside, sir,” said Fanshawe. “We didn’t like to bring ’em in.”
The colonel nodded to Truscott, who quickly stepped into the hall and
signed to the two Apache Indians squatting on the piazza. They silently
rose and entered the house.
An exclamation of “Goodness!” caused Truscott to glance to the head
of the stairs. There stood Grace, her eyes opened in wonderment “What
strange creatures are those, Mr. Truscott?” she asked.
“Apache scouts, Miss Pelham.”
“Oh, _may_ I come down and see them?”
“Most assuredly,” he answered.
So down she came, pausing irresolutely at the door until her father,
catching sight of her, called out, “Come in, come in, Grace. You’ve
never seen our Apaches. Gentlemen,” he continued, turning to Fanshawe
and partner, “this is my daughter, just arrived in Arizona.” Whereat
Fanshawe and partner arose in bewilderment and awkwardness and bobbed
their heads, and grew redder under the bronze which desert suns and
winds had painted on their faces.
Grace bowed and smiled a pleasant welcome, not knowing what to call
them, and being quite uncertain as to whether she ought to shake hands
or not.
“This will all interest Grace,” said her father, at once. “Truscott,
you explain the situation to her. Now I want to question these
aborigines.”
And so, despite herself, Grace was thrown into confidential relations
with the man she had been trying to avoid, and yet—and yet—whom she had
caught herself watching from her window, or gazing over at the midnight
lights in his office, a dozen times in the last four days.
She colored, then turned and became absorbed in contemplation of
the Indians, strange objects indeed to her. Their swarthy features,
glittering, bead-like eyes; their coarse, matted black hair, for
all the world like a Shetland pony’s mane and forelock, falling in
masses like an immense “bang” over their foreheads and down to the
eyes in front, hanging in tangled clumps to the neck behind; their
slender but sinewy legs and arms; their rude dress,—not an ornament
or a patch of paint, things she supposed inseparable from the red
warriors, no gracefully-draped blanket, no eagle’s-feather war-bonnet,
none of the accessories she had supposed were always to be seen with
the Indians. But here were two noted men of their tribes,—Kwonahelka,
a chief of the Apache-Mohaves; Araháwa, sub-chief and interpreter
of the Apache-Yumas,—and dirty white cotton turbans, shirts, and
breech-clouts, with substantial moccasins, constituted their costume.
Araháwa had once been taken to Washington,—hence his nickname,—and
having been kept some time at San Francisco, had picked up a little
English, not unlike the “pidgin-English” of the Chinese. It was
“Charley” whom the colonel was now questioning.
“But what I want to know is, whose bands are these down in the basin?”
said he, impatiently.
“Mebbe so Deltchay; mebbe so ’Skiminzin; no can tell,” replied Charley,
volubly.
“Ask Kwonahelka; he knows,” said Fanshawe. So Charley and his associate
held a brief confab, in which much gesticulation was used on both
sides. Finally Charley turned.
“Kwonahelka he say ’Skeltetsee by Mogeyone. ’Skeltetsee got plenty
Tonto.”
And so the strange colloquy went on, and Grace, her curiosity getting
the better of her reserve, finally turned to the silent soldier by her
side and inquired, “What _does_ it all mean, Mr. Truscott?”
“Briefly this,” he replied, still keeping his eyes fixed on Charley.
“There are still some hostile Apaches scattered over the country to
the east of us, and these scouts were sent to discover their lair if
possible. They have succeeded in tracing three of the bands, and have
come in to report.”
“And what will be done now?” she anxiously inquired.
“Their report will be telegraphed to the general at Prescott, and then,
probably, scouting-parties will be sent from here to hunt them to their
holes and fight it out.”
Grace’s face paled visibly. She was about to speak, when Glenham
entered the room, and, barely glancing at the others, addressed himself
to her,—
“Everything is ready now, Miss Gracie. Tanner has given me Ranger. Will
you ride with me to-morrow?”
And as she answered, “Gladly, Mr. Glenham,” a close observer could have
seen a contraction of the brows and a twitch of the muscles about Jack
Truscott’s stern, set mouth, but his eyes were fixed upon his colonel’s
face.
A moment more and that gentleman rose. “Well, that settles it,” he
said. “Come to the office, Truscott, and bring them along.” And so
Grace and Glenham were left alone.
That evening the colonel sent his orderly with his compliments to
Captain Canker, and the information that he, Canker, should command
at dress-parade. And taking Grace’s arm in his as the adjutant’s call
sounded, and the companies came marching out to the line dismounted,
he strode up beyond Turner’s quarters, grimly declining the dozen
invitations to “come and sit down on our piazza,” and led his daughter
out beyond the chattering groups to a point in the parade whence
she could witness the ceremony undisturbed. She gazed with pride
and delight at the long solid line, the six companies standing at
parade-rest as the band—a glorious band the old —th had in those
days—“trooped” down the front and back to its place on the right. Then
came the stirring “retreat” upon the trumpets, the roar of the evening
gun, the fluttering folds of the great garrison flag to the ground as
though its halliards were shot away; and then from the distant flank
the same deep, glorious voice rang along the line, and the tall,
soldierly form came stalking out to the front. She could not take her
eyes off him, but watched his every movement,—quick, agile, yet erect
and stately. She marked the vehement contrast between his rich voice
and Canker’s reedy twang as the latter put the battalion through the
manual; but when the officers closed on the centre, and some sixteen of
them came marching to the front to the stirring music of “_En Avant_,”
and as one man saluted the commanding officer, she could not but see
that in stature, carriage, grace, and dignity there was not his peer
among them.
“Grace,” said her father suddenly, “I’ve got the finest adjutant in the
United States army, and he is as noble a man as he is a soldier.” She
looked up in surprise, for his voice trembled, and tears had started
to his eyes. He had received a letter that day from Ralph and had not
shown it to them, but he struck his cane sharply upon the stony ground,
tossed his head, and was all joviality when, as though with one accord,
the officers came crowding around Grace to welcome her to her first
parade. All but one; Truscott went straight to his quarters.