Part 2 (1/2)
”Search 'em both. See if they've a flask betune 'em, Latham. Answer me, Mullan, did you see the burned camp? Did you see the dead man?
Did--Oh, murther! he's gone! There's never a word to be got out of aither of them this night. But don't you believe that letther, major.
Don't you trust a word of it; it's false as h.e.l.l. It's only a plant to rob ye of your escort first and your life and money later. That's it, men, douse them, kick them, murther them both if you like,--the curs!--and they'd drink when they knowed every man was needed.” And adding force to his words, Feeny drove a furious kick at the luckless Mullan.
”Do you mean there is no truth in this? Do you mean you think it all a fraud, a trick?” at last queried the major. ”Why, it seems incredible!”
”I say just what I mean, major. It's a plot to rob you. I mean the gang has gathered for that very purpose. I mean that every story told us about the Apaches west or south of here or between us and the Gila is a b.l.o.o.d.y lie. The guard at the signal-station hadn't seen or heard of them. They laughed at me when I told them what they tried to make us believe at Ceralvo's. 'Twas there they wanted to have you stop, for there you'd have no chance at all. Shure, do you suppose if the Apaches _were_ out--if this story _was_ true--they wouldn't have heard it and investigated it by this time, and the beacon-fire would have been blazing at the Picacho?”
Then Murphy turned and ran around the corner of the corral to a point where he could see the dim outline of the range against the western sky. The next moment his voice rose upon the night air, vibrant, thrilling,--
”Look! G.o.d be good to us, major! It's no lie. The signal-fire's blazing at the peak.”
II.
Late that night, with jaded steeds, a little troop of cavalry was pus.h.i.+ng westward across the desert. The young May moon was sinking to rest, its pure pallid light s.h.i.+ning faintly in contrast with the ruddy glow of some distant beacon in the mountains beneath. Ever since nightfall the rock b.u.t.tress at the pa.s.s had been reflecting the lurid glare of the leaping flames as, time and again, unseen but busy hands heaped on fresh fuel and sent the sparks whirling in fiery eddies to the sky. Languid and depressed after a long day's battling with the fierce white suns.h.i.+ne, horses and men would gladly have spent the early hours of night dozing at their rude bivouac in the Christobal.
Ever since nine in the morning, after a long night march, they had sought such shade as the burning rocks might afford, scooping up the tepid water from the natural tanks at the bottom of the canon and thanking Providence it was not alkali. The lieutenant commanding, a tall, wiry, keen-faced young fellow, had made the rounds of his camp at sunset, carefully picking up and scrutinizing the feet of his horses and sending the farrier to tack on here and there a starting shoe. Gaunt and sunburned were his short-coupled California chargers, as were their tough-looking riders; fetlocks and beards were uniformly ragged; shoes of leather and shoes of iron showed equal wear. A bronze-faced sergeant, silently following his young chief, watched him with inquiring eyes and waited for the decision that was to condemn the command to another night march across the desert, or remand them to rest until an hour or so before the dawn.
”How far did you say it was to Ceralvo's, sergeant?”
”About twenty-two miles, west.”
”And to Moreno's?”
”About fifteen, sir; off here.” And the sergeant pointed out across the plain, lying like a dun-colored blanket far towards the southern horizon.
”We can get barley and water at both?”
”Plenty, sir.”
”The men would rather wait here, I suppose, until two or three o'clock?”
”Very much, sir; they haven't been able to rest at all to-day. I've fed out the last of the barley, though.”
The lieutenant reflected a moment, pensively studying the legs of the trumpeter's horse.
”Is there any chance of Moreno's people not having heard about the Apaches in the Christobal?”
”Hardly, sir; they are nearer the Tucson road than we are. The stage must have gone through this morning early. It's nothing new anyhow.
I've never known the time when the Indians were not in the neighborhood of that range. Moreno, too, is an old hand, sir.”
The lieutenant looked long and intently out over the dreary flats beyond the foot-hills. Like the bottom of some prehistoric lake long since sucked dry by the action of the sun, the parched earth stretched away in mile after mile of monotonous, life-ridden desert, a Sahara without sign of an oasis, a sandy barren shunned even by scorpion and centipede. Already the glow was dying from the western sky. The red rim of the distant range was purpling. The golden gleam that flashed from rock to rock as the sun went down had vanished from all but the loftiest summits, and deep, dark shadows were creeping slowly out across the plain. Over the great expanse not so much as the faintest spark could be seen. Aloft, the greater stars were beginning to peep through the veil of pallid blue, while over the distant pa.s.s the sun's fair hand-maiden and train-bearer, with slow, stately mien, was sinking in the wake of her lord, as though following him to his rest.
Not a breath of air was astir. The night came on still as the realms of solitude. Only the low chatter of the men, the occasional stamp of iron-shod hoof or the munching jaws of the tired steeds broke in upon the perfect silence. From their covert in the westward slope of the Christobal the two sentries of the little command looked out upon a lifeless world. Beneath them, whiffing their pipes after their frugal supper, the troopers were chatting in low tone, some of them already spreading their blankets among the shelving rocks. The embers from the cook fire glowed a deeper red as the darkness gathered in the pa.s.s, and every man seemed to start as though stung with sudden spur when sharp, quick, and imperative there came the cry from the lips of the farther sentry,--
”Fire, sir,--out to the west!”
In an instant Lieutenant Drummond had leaped down the rocky canon and, field-gla.s.s in hand, was standing by the sentry's side. No need to question ”Where away?” Far out across the intervening plain a column of flame was darting upward, gaining force and volume with every moment. The lieutenant never even paused to raise the gla.s.s to his eyes. No magnifying power was needed to see the distant pyre; no prolonged search to tell him what was meant. The troopers who had sprung to their feet and were already eagerly following turned short in their tracks at his first word.