An Apache Princess

Three days later the infantry guard of the garrison were in sole

charge. Wren and Sanders, with nearly fifty troopers apiece, had taken

the field in compliance with telegraphic orders from Prescott. The

general had established field headquarters temporarily at Camp

McDowell, down the Verde Valley, and under his somewhat distant

supervision four or five little columns of horse, in single file, were

boring into the fastnesses of the Mogollon and the Tonto Basin. The

runners had been unsuccessful. The renegades would not return. Half a

dozen little nomad bands, forever out from the reservation, had

eagerly welcomed these malcontents and the news they bore that two of

their young braves had been murdered while striving to defend Natzie

and Lola.

It furnished all that was needed as excuse for instant

descent upon the settlers in the deep valleys north of the Rio Salado,

and, all unsuspecting, all unprepared, several of these had met their

doom. Relentless war was already begun, and the general lost no time

in starting his horsemen after the hostiles. Meantime the infantry

companies, at the scattered posts and camps, were left to "hold the

fort," to protect the women, children, and property, and Neil Blakely,

a sore-hearted man because forbidden by the surgeon to attempt to go,

was chafing, fuming, and retarding his recovery at his lonely

quarters. The men whom he most liked were gone, and the few among the

women who might have been his friends seemed now to stand afar off.

Something, he knew not what, had turned garrison sentiment against

him.

For a day or two, so absorbed was he in his chagrin over Graham's

verdict and the general's telegraphic orders in the case, Mr. Blakely

never knew or noticed that anything else was amiss. Then, too, there

had been no opportunity of meeting garrison folk except the few

officers who dropped in to inquire civilly how he was progressing. The

bandages were off, but the plaster still disfigured one side of his

face and neck. He could not go forth and seek society. There was

really only one girl at the post whose society he cared to seek. He

had his books and his bugs, and that, said Mrs. Bridger, was "all he

demanded and more than he deserved." To think that the very room so

recently sacred to the son and heir should be transformed into what

that irate little woman called a "beetle shop"! It was one of Mr.

Blakely's unpardonable sins in the eyes of the sex that he found so

much to interest him in a pursuit that neither interested nor included

them.