An Apache Princess

Young Duane was officer of the day and, after the tattoo inspection of

his little guard, had gone for a few minutes to the hospital where

Mullins lay muttering and tossing in his feverish sleep; then, meeting

Wren and Graham on the way, had tramped over to call on Blakely,

thinking, perhaps, to chat a while and learn something. Soon after

"taps" was sounded, however, the youngster joined the little group

gossiping in guarded tones on the porch at Captain Sanders', far down

the row, and, in response to question, said that "Bugs"--that being

Blakely's briefest nom de guerre--must be convalescing rapidly, he

"had no use for his friends," and, as the lad seemed somewhat ruffled

and resentful, what more natural than that he should be called upon

for explanation? Sanders and his wife were present, and Mrs. Bridger,

very much alive with inquiry and not a little malicious interest.

Kate, too, was of the party, and Doty, the adjutant, and Mesdames

Cutler and Westervelt--it was so gloomy and silent, said these latter,

at their end of the row. Much of the talk had been about Mrs. Plume's

illness and her "sleep-walking act," as it had been referred to, and

many had thought, but few had spoken, of her possible presence on the

post of No. 5 about the time that No. 5 was stabbed. They knew she

couldn't have done it, of course, but then how strange that she should

have been there at all! The story had gained balloon-like expanse by

this time, and speculation was more than rife. But here was Duane with

a new grievance which, when put into Duane's English, reduced itself

to this: "Why, it was like as if Bugs wanted to get rid of me and

expected somebody else," and this they well remembered later. Nobody

else was observed going to Blakely's front door, at least, but at

eleven o'clock he himself could still be dimly heard and seen pacing

steadily up and down his piazza, apparently alone and deep in thought.

His lights, too, were turned down, a new man from the troop having

asked for and assumed the duties formerly devolving on the wretch

Downs, now doing time within the garrison prison. Before eleven,

however, this new martial domestic had gone upstairs to bed and

Blakely was all alone, which was as he wished it, for he had things to

plan and other things to think of that lifted him above the

possibility of loneliness.

Down the line of officers' quarters only in two or three houses could

lights be seen. Darkness reigned at Plume's, where Byrne was still

rooming. Darkness reigned at Wren's and Graham's, despite the fact

that the lords of these manors were still abroad, both at the bedside

of Trooper Mullins. A dozen people were gathered by this time at

Sanders'. All the other verandas, except Blakely's with its solitary

watcher, seemed deserted. To these idlers of the soft and starlit

night, sitting bareheaded about the gallery and chatting in the

friendly way of the frontier, there came presently a young soldier

from the direction of the adjutant's office at the south end. "The

night operator," he explained. "Two dispatches have just come for

Colonel Byrne, and I thought maybe--"