An Apache Princess

The flag at Camp Sandy drooped from the peak. Except by order it never

hung halfway. The flag at the agency fluttered no higher than the

cross-trees, telling that Death had loved some shining mark and had

not sued in vain. Under this symbol of mourning, far up the valley,

the interpreter was telling to a circle of dark, sullen, and

unresponsive faces a fact that every Apache knew before. Under the

full-masted flag at the post, a civilian servant of the nation lay

garbed for burial. Poor Daly had passed away with hardly a chance to

tell his tale, with only a loving, weeping woman or two to mourn him.

Over the camp the shadow of death tempered the dazzling sunshine, for

all Sandy felt the strain and spoke only with sorrow. He meant well,

did Daly, that was accorded him now. He only lacked "savvy" said they

who had dwelt long in the land of Apache.

Over at the hospital two poor women wept, and twice their number

strove to soothe. Janet Wren and Mrs. Graham were there, as ever, when

sorrow and trouble came. Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Cutler, too, were

hovering about the mourners, doing what they could, and the hospital

matron, busy day and night of late, had never left her patient until

he needed her no more, and then had turned to minister to those he

left behind--the widow and the fatherless. Over on the shaded verandas

other women met and murmured in the soft, sympathetic drawl

appropriate to funereal occasion, and men nodded silently to each

other. Death was something these latter saw so frequently it brought

but little of terror. Other things were happening of far greater

moment that they could not fathom at all.

Captain Wren, after four days of close arrest, had been released by

the order of Major Plume himself, who, pending action on his

application for leave of absence, had gone on sick report and secluded

himself within his quarters. It was rumored that Mrs. Plume was

seriously ill, so ill, indeed, she had to be denied to every one of

the sympathizing women who called, even to Janet, sister of their

soldier next-door neighbor, but recently a military prisoner, yet now,

by law and custom, commander of the post.

Several things had conspired to bring about this condition of affairs.

Byrne, to begin with, had been closely questioning Shannon, and had

reached certain conclusions with regard to the stabbing of Mullins

that were laid before Plume, already stunned by the knowledge that,

sleeping as his friendly advisers declared, or waking, as his inner

consciousness would have it, Clarice, his young and still beautiful

wife, had left her pillow and gone by night toward the northern limit

of the line of quarters. If Wren were tried, or even accused, that

fact would be the first urged in his defense. Plume's stern

accusation of Elise had evoked from her nothing but a voluble storm of

protest. Madame was ill, sleepless, nervous--had gone forth to walk

away her nervousness. She, Elise, had gone in search and brought her

home. Downs, the wretch, when as stoutly questioned, declared he had

been blind drunk; saw nobody, knew nothing, and must have taken the

lieutenant's whisky. Plume shrank from asking Norah questions. He

could not bring himself to talking of his wife to the girl of the

laundresses' quarters, but he knew now that he must drop that much of

the case against Wren.