An Apache Princess

Major Plume was seated at his desk, thoughtful and perplexed. Up at

regimental headquarters at Prescott Wren was held in high esteem, and

the major's brief telegraphic message had called forth anxious inquiry

and something akin to veiled disapprobation. Headquarters could not

see how it was possible for Wren to assault Lieutenant Blakely without

some grave reason. Had Plume investigated? No, but that was coming

now, he said to himself, as Wren entered and stood in silence before

him.

The little office had barely room for the desks of the commander and

his adjutant and the table on which were spread the files of general

orders from various superior headquarters--regimental, department,

division, the army, and the War Secretary. No curtains adorned the

little windows, front and rear. No rug or carpet vexed the warping

floor. Three chairs, kitchen pattern, stood against the pine partition

that shut off the sight, but by no means the hearing, of the three

clerks scratching at their flat-topped desks in the adjoining den.

Maps of the United States, of the Military Division of the Pacific,

and of the Territory, as far as known and surveyed, hung about the

wooden walls. Blue-prints and photographs of scout maps, made by their

predecessors of the ----th Cavalry in the days of the Crook campaigns,

were scattered with the order files about the table. But of pictures,

ornamentation, or relief of any kind the gloomy box was destitute as

the dun-colored flat of the parade. Official severity spoke in every

feature of the forbidding office as well as in those of the major

commanding.

There was striking contrast, too, between the man at the desk and the

man on the rack before him. Plume had led a life devoid of anxiety or

care. Soldiering he took serenely. He liked it, so long as no grave

hardship threatened. He had done reasonably good service at corps

headquarters during the Civil War; had been commissioned captain in

the regulars in '61, and held no vexatious command at any time

perhaps, until this that took him to far-away Arizona. Plume was a

gentlemanly fellow and no bad garrison soldier. He really shone on

parade and review at such fine stations as Leavenworth and Riley, but

had never had to bother with mountain scouting or long-distance Indian

chasing on the plains. He had a comfortable income outside his pay,

and when he was wedded, at the end of her fourth season in society, to

a prominent, if just a trifle passée belle, people thought him a

more than lucky man, until the regiment was sent to Arizona and he to

Sandy. Gossip said he went to General Sherman with appeal for some

detaining duty, whereupon that bluff and most outspoken warrior

exclaimed: "What, what, what! Not want to go with the regiment? Why,

here's Blakely begging to be relieved from Terry's staff because he's

mad to go." And this, said certain St. Louis commentators, settled it,

for Mrs. Plume declared for Arizona.