Byrne saw the instant distress in his comrade's face, and, glancing
from him to her, almost in the same instant saw the inciting cause.
Byrne had one article of faith if he lacked the needful thirty-nine.
Women had no place in official affairs, no right to meddle in official
matters, and what he said on the spur of his rising resentment was
intended for her, though spoken to him. "So Downs skipped eastward,
did he, and the Apaches got him! Well, Plume, that saves us a
hanging." And Miss Wren turned away in wrath unspeakable.
That Downs had "skipped eastward" received further confirmation with
the coming day, when Wales Arnold rode into the fort from a personally
conducted scout up the Beaver. Riding out with Captain Stout's party,
he had paid a brief visit to his, for the time, abandoned ranch, and
was surprised to find there, unmolested, the two persons and all the
property he had left the day he hurried wife and household to the
shelter of the garrison. The two persons were half-breed José and his
Hualpai squaw. They had been with the Arnolds five long years, were
known to all the Apaches, and had ever been in highest favor with them
because of the liberality with which they dispensed the largesse of
their employer. Never went an Indian empty-stomached from their door.
All the stock Wales had time to gather he had driven in to Sandy. All
that was left José had found and corraled. Just one quadruped was
missing--Arnold's old mustang saddler, Dobbin. José said he had been
gone from the first and with him an old bridle and saddle. No Indian
took him, said he. It was a soldier. He had found "government boot
tracks" in the sand. Then Downs and Dobbin had gone together, but only
Dobbin might they ever look to see again.
It had been arranged between Byrne and Captain Stout that the little
relief column should rest in a deep cañon beyond the springs from
which the Beaver took its source, and, later in the afternoon, push on
again on the long, stony climb toward the plateau of the upper
Mogollon. There stood, about twenty-five miles out from the post on a
bee line to the northeast, a sharp, rocky peak just high enough above
the fringing pines and cedars to be distinctly visible by day from the
crest of the nearest foothills west of the flagstaff. Along the sunset
face of this gleaming picacho there was a shelf or ledge that had
often been used by the Apaches for signaling purposes; the renegades
communicating with their kindred about the agency up the valley.
Invisible from the level of Camp Sandy, these fires by night, or smoke
and flashes by day, reached only those for whom they were
intended--the Apaches at the reservation; but Stout, who had known the
neighborhood since '65, had suggested that lookouts equipped with
binoculars be placed on the high ground back of the post. Inferior to
the savage in the craft, we had no code of smoke, fire, or, at that
time, even sun-flash signal, but it was arranged that one blaze was to
mean "Unmolested thus far." Two blazes, a few yards apart, would mean
"Important news by runner." In the latter event Plume was to push out
forty or fifty men in dispersed order to meet and protect the runner
in case he should be followed, or possibly headed off, by hostile
tribesmen. Only six Indian allies had gone with Stout and he had eyed
them with marked suspicion and disfavor. They, too, were Apache Yumas.
The day wore on slowly, somberly. All sound of life, melody, or
merriment had died out at Camp Sandy. Even the hounds seemed to feel
that a cloud of disaster hung over the garrison. Only at rare
intervals some feminine shape flitted along the line of deserted
verandas--some woman on a mission of mercy to some mourning,
sore-troubled sister among the scattered households. For several hours
before high noon the wires from Prescott had been hot with demand for
news, and with messages from Byrne or Plume to department
headquarters. At meridian, however, there came a lull, and at 2 P. M.
a break. Somewhere to the west the line was snapped and down. At 2.15
two linesmen galloped forth to find and repair damages, half a dozen
"doughboys" on a buckboard going as guard. Otherwise, all day long, no
soldier left the post, and when darkness settled down, the anxious
operator, seated at his keyboard, was still unable to wake the spirit
of the gleaming copper thread that spanned the westward wilderness.