An Apache Princess

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.