"That tank--where we found the ribbon--was just about two miles

yonder," said Arnold, pointing well down the rugged slope toward the

southwest, where other rocky, pine-fringed heights barred the view to

the distant Sandy. "Surely the colonel or some of his fellows must be

along here. Ride ahead a hundred yards or so and fire a couple of

shots," this to one of his men, who silently reined his tired bronco

into the rude trail among the pine cones and disappeared. The others

waited. Presently came the half-smothered sound of a shot and a

half-stifled cry from the rearmost litter. Every such shock meant new

terror to that poor lad, but Wren never stirred. Half a minute passed

without another sound than faint and distant echo; then faint, and not

so distant, came another sound, a prolonged shout, and presently

another, and then a horseman hove in sight among the trees across a

nearly mile-wide dip. Arnold and his friends rode on to meet him,

leaving the litters at the crest. In five minutes one of the riders

reappeared and called: "It's Horn, of the orderlies. He reports

Colonel Byrne just ahead. Come on!" and turning, dove back down the

twisted trail.

The colonel might have been just ahead when last seen, but when they

reached the tank he was far aloft again, scouting from another height

to the northward, and while the orderly went on to find and tell him,

Arnold and his grave-faced comrade dismounted there to await the

coming of the litters. Graver were the faces even than before. The

news that had met them was most ominous. Two of those who searched

with Colonel Byrne had found pony tracks leading northward--leading in

the very direction in which they had seen the smoke. There was no

other pony shoe in the Sandy valley. It could be none other than

Angela's little friend and comrade--Punch.

And this news they told to Blakely as the foremost litter came. He

listened with hardly a word of comment; then asked for his scouting

notebook. He was sitting up now. They helped him from his springy

couch to a seat on the rocks, and gave him a cup of the cold water.

One by one the other litters were led into the little amphitheater and

unlashed. Everyone seemed to know that here must be the bivouac for

the night, their abiding place for another day, perhaps, unless they

should find the captain's daughter. They spoke, when they spoke at

all, in muffled tones, these rough, war-worn men of the desert and

the mountain. They bent over the wounded with sorrowing eyes, and

wondered why no surgeon had come out to meet them. Heartburn, of

course, had done his best, dressing and rebandaging the wounds at

dawn, but then he had to go on with Stout and the company, while one

of the Apache Yumas was ordered to dodge his way in to Sandy, with a

letter urging that Graham be sent out to follow the trail and meet the

returning party.




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