That night the wire across the mountains to Prescott was long alive
with news, and there was little rest for operator, adjutant, or
commanding officer at Sandy. Colonel Byrne, it seems, had lost
telegraphic touch with his chief, who, quitting Camp McDowell, had
personally taken the field somewhere over in the Tonto Basin beyond
the Matitzal Range, and Byrne had the cares of a continent on his
hands. Three of the five commands out in the field had had sharp
encounters with the foe. Official business itself was sufficiently
engrossing, but there were other matters assuming grave proportions.
Mrs. Plume had developed a feverish anxiety to hie on to the Pacific
and out of Arizona just at a time when, as her husband had to tell
her, it was impossible for him, and impolitic for her, to go. Matters
at Sandy, he explained, were in tangled shape. Mullins partially
restored, but still, as Plume assured her, utterly out of his head,
had declared that his assailants were women; and other witnesses,
Plume would not give names, had positively asserted that Elise had
been seen along the sentry post just about the time the stabbing
occurred. Everything now, said he, must depend on Captain Wren, who
was known to have seen and spoken to Elise, and who could probably
testify that she returned to their roof before the tragic affair of
the night. But Wren was now away up in the mountains beyond Snow Lake
and might be going far over through Sunset Pass to the Colorado
Chiquito. Meantime he, Plume, was responsible for Elise, in duty bound
to keep her there to face any accuser. In her nervous, semi-hysterical
state the wife could not well be told how much she, too, was involved.
It was not necessary. She knew--all Fort Whipple, as Prescott's
military post was called, knew all about the fire that had destroyed
the "beetle shop" and Blakely's belongings. Elise, in wild excitement,
had rushed to her mistress with that news and the further information
that Downs was gone and could not be found. This latter fact, indeed,
they learned before Plume ever heard of it--and made no mention of it
in his presence.
"I shall have to run down to Sandy again," said Byrne, to Plume. "Keep
up your heart and--watch that Frenchwoman. The jade!" And with the
following day he was bounding and bumping down the stony road that led
from the breezy, pine-crested heights about headquarters to the sandy
flats and desert rocks and ravines fifty miles to the east and
twenty-five hundred feet below. "Shall be with you after dark," he
wired Cutler, who was having a bad quarter of an hour on his own
account, and wishing all Sandy to the devil. It had transpired that
Strom's rival ranchman, a little farther down the valley, was short
just one horse and set of horse equipments. He had made no complaint.
He had accused nobody. He had never failed in the past to appear at
Sandy with charge of theft and demand for damages at the expense of
the soldiery whenever he missed an item, big or little--and sometimes
when he didn't miss a thing. But now he came not at all, and Cutler
jumped at the explanation: he had sold that steed, and Downs, the
deserter, was the purchaser. Downs must have had money to aid in his
escape. Downs must have received it from someone eager to get him out
of the way. It might well be Elise, for who else would trust him? and
Downs must be striking for the south, after wide détour. No use now
to chase him. The wire was the only thing with which to round him up,
so the stage stations on the Gila route, and the scattered army posts,
were all notified of the desertion, and Downs's description, with all
his imperfections, was flashed far and wide over the Territory. He
could no more hope to escape than fly on the wings of night. He would
be cut off or run down long before he could reach Mexico; that is, he
would be if only troopers got after him. The civil list of Arizona
in 1875 was of peculiar constitution. It stood ready at any time to
resolve itself into a modification of the old-day underground
railways, and help spirit off soldier criminals, first thoughtfully
relieving them of care and responsibility for any surplus funds in
their possession.