RED MEN AND WHITE

 BY

 OWEN WISTER

 ILLUSTRATED

 BY FREDERIC REMINGTON

 NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 

 _Printed in the United States of America. _

[Illustration: SPECIMEN JONES (Page 36)]

 TO

 S. B. W. AND O. J. W. 

 FROM THEIR SON

PREFACE

These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in apast as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; soswiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of lifeand manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here andthere a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separateparts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the invaluable weightof length; and they have been received by my closest friends withsuspicion. 

Many sorts of Americans live in America; and the Atlantic American, itis to be feared, often has a cautious and conventional imagination. Inhis routine he has lived unaware of the violent and romantic era ineruption upon his soil. Only the elk-hunter has at times returned withtales at which the other Atlantic Americans have deported themselvespolitely; and similarly, but for the assurances of Western readers, Ishould have come to doubt the truth of my own impressions. All this ismost natural. 

If you will look upon the term "United States" as describing what weare, you must put upon it a strict and Federal construction. Weundoubtedly use the city of Washington for our general business office, and in the event of a foreign enemy upon our coasts we should standbound together more stoutly than we have shown ourselves since 1776. Butas we are now, seldom has a great commonwealth been seen less united inits stages of progress, more uneven in its degrees of enlightenment. Never, indeed, it would seem, have such various centuries been jostledtogether as they are to-day upon this continent, and within theboundaries of our nation. We have taken the ages out of theirprocessional arrangement and set them marching disorderly abreast in ourwide territory, a harlequin platoon. We citizens of the United Statesdate our letters 18--, and speak of ourselves as living in the presentera; but the accuracy of that custom depends upon where we happen to bewriting. While portions of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco are ofthis nineteenth century, we have many ancient periods surviving amongus. What do you say, for example, to the Kentucky and Tennesseemountaineers, with their vendettas of blood descending from father toson? That was once the prevailing fashion of revenge. Yet even beforethe day when Columbus sailed had certain communities matured beyond it. This sprout of the Middle Ages flourishes fresh and green some fivehundred miles and five hundred years from New York. In the single Stateof Texas you will find a contrast more violent still. There, not longago, an African was led upon a platform in a public place for people tosee, and tortured slowly to death with knives and fire. To witness thisscene young men and women came in crowds. It is said that the railroadran a special train for spectators from a distance. How might thataudience of Paris, Texas, appropriately date its letters? Not AnnoDomini, but many years B. C. The African deserves no pity. His hideouscrime was enough to drive a father to any madness, and too many suchmonsters have by their acts made Texas justly desperate. But forAmerican citizens to crowd to the retribution, and look on as at aholiday show, reveals the Inquisition, the Pagans, the Stone Age, unreclaimed in our republic. On the other hand, the young men and womenwho will watch side by side the burning of a negro shrink from usingsuch words as bull or stallion in polite society; many in Texas willsay, instead, _male cow_ and _caviard horse_ (a term spelled as theypronounce it), and consider that delicacy is thus achieved. Yet in thislump Texas holds leaven as sterling as in any State; but it has far tospread. 

It were easy to proceed from Maine to California instancing the remotecenturies that are daily colliding within our domain, but this is enoughto show how little we cohere in opinions. How many States andTerritories is it that we count united under our Stars and Stripes? Iknow that there are some forty-five or more, and that though I belongamong the original thirteen, it has been my happiness to journey in allthe others, in most of them, indeed, many times, for the sake of makingmy country's acquaintance. With no spread-eagle brag do I gatherconviction each year that we Americans, judged not hastily, are sound atheart, kind, courageous, often of the truest delicacy, and alwaysultimately of excellent good-sense. With such belief, or, rather, knowledge, it is sorrowful to see our fatal complacence, our as yetundisciplined folly, in sending to our State Legislatures and to thatgeneral business office of ours at Washington a herd of mismanagers thatseems each year to grow more inefficient and contemptible, whetherbranded Republican or Democrat. But I take heart, because often andoftener I hear upon my journey the citizens high and low muttering, "There's too much politics in this country"; and we shake hands. 

But all this is growing too serious for a book of short stories. They are about Indians and soldiers and events west of the Missouri. They belong to the past thirty years of our development, but you willfind some of those ancient surviving centuries in them if you takemy view. In certain ones the incidents, and even some of the names, are left unchanged from their original reality. The visit ofYoung-man-afraid-of-his-horses to the Little Big Horn and the rise andfall of the young Crow impostor, General Crook's surprise of E-egante, and many other occurrences, noble and ignoble, are told as they weretold to me by those who saw them. When our national life, our own soil, is so rich in adventures to record, what need is there for one to callupon his invention save to draw, if he can, characters who shall fitthese strange and dramatic scenes? One cannot improve upon suchrealities. If this fiction is at all faithful to the truth from whichit springs, let the thanks be given to the patience and boundlesshospitality of the Army friends and other friends across the Missouriwho have housed my body and instructed my mind. And if the storiesentertain the ignorant without grieving the judicious I am content. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE 3

 SPECIMEN JONES 36

 THE SERENADE AT SISKIYOU 64

 THE GENERAL'S BLUFF 82

 SALVATION GAP 115

 THE SECOND MISSOURI COMPROMISE 131

 LA TINAJA BONITA 159

 A PILGRIM ON THE GILA 211

ILLUSTRATIONS

 SPECIMEN JONES _Frontispiece_

 "BOASTING IN INDIAN FASHION" _Facing page_ 6

 "HIS HORSE DREW CLOSE, SHOVING THE HORSE OF THE MEDICINE-MAN" " 14

 "THE HEAD LAY IN THE WATER" " 34

 AN APACHE " 38

 CUMNOR'S AWAKENING " 52

 THE MEXICAN FREIGHT-WAGON " 58

 "'AIN'T Y'U GOT SOMETHING TO SELL?'" " 90

 THE CHARGE " 102

 "HE HESITATED TO KILL THE WOMAN" " 112

 THE SHOT-GUN MESSENGER " 122

 "'I'D LIKE TO HAVE IT OVER'" " 128

 "HIS PLAN WAS TO WALK AND KEEP QUIET" " 148

 "'DON'T NOBODY HURT ANYBODY, ' SAID SPECIMEN JONES" " 156

 "'YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK THIS WAY. YOU'RE ALONE'" " 204

 "EACH BLACK-HAIRED DESERT FIGURE" " 238

RED MEN AND WHITE

LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE

Something new was happening among the Crow Indians. A young pretenderhad appeared in the tribe. What this might lead to was unknown alike towhite man and to red; but the old Crow chiefs discussed it in theircouncils, and the soldiers at Fort Custer, and the civilians at theagency twelve miles up the river, and all the white settlers in thevalley discussed it also. Lieutenants Stirling and Haines, of the FirstCavalry, were speculating upon it as they rode one afternoon. 

"Can't tell about Indians, " said Stirling. "But I think the Crows aretoo reasonable to go on the war-path. "

"Reasonable!" said Haines. He was young, and new to Indians. 

"Just so. Until you come to his superstitions, the Indian can reason asstraight as you or I. He's perfectly logical. "

"Logical!" echoed Haines again. He held the regulation Eastern view thatthe Indian knows nothing but the three blind appetites. 

"You'd know better, " remarked Stirling, "if you'd been fighting 'em forfifteen years. They're as shrewd as Æsop's fables. "

Just then two Indians appeared round a bluff--one old and shabby, theother young and very gaudy--riding side by side. 

"That's Cheschapah, " said Stirling. "That's the agitator in all hisfeathers. His father, you see, dresses more conservatively. "

The feathered dandy now did a singular thing. He galloped towards thetwo officers almost as if to bear them down, and, steering much tooclose, flashed by yelling, amid a clatter of gravel. 

"Nice manners, " commented Haines. "Seems to have a chip on hisshoulder. "

But Stirling looked thoughtful. "Yes, " he muttered, "he has a chip. "

Meanwhile the shabby father was approaching. His face was mild and sad, and he might be seventy. He made a gesture of greeting. "How!" he said, pleasantly, and ambled on his way. 

"Now there you have an object-lesson, " said Stirling. "Old Pounded Meathas no chip. The question is, are the fathers or the sons going to runthe Crow Nation?"

"Why did the young chap have a dog on his saddle?" inquired Haines. 

"I didn't notice it. For his supper, probably--probably he's getting upa dance. He is scheming to be a chief. Says he is a medicine-man, andcan make water boil without fire; but the big men of the tribe take nostock in him--not yet. They've seen soda-water before. But I'm told thiswater-boiling astonishes the young. "

"You say the old chiefs take no stock in him _yet_?"

"Ah, that's the puzzle. I told you just now Indians could reason. "

"And I was amused. "

"Because you're an Eastern man. I tell you, Haines, if it wasn't mybusiness to shoot Indians I'd study them. "

"You're a crank, " said Haines. 

But Stirling was not a crank. He knew that so far from being a mereanimal, the Indian is of a subtlety more ancient than the Sphinx. In hisprimal brain--nearer nature than our own--the directness of a childmingles with the profoundest cunning. He believes easily in powers oflight and darkness, yet is a sceptic all the while. Stirling knew this;but he could not know just when, if ever, the young charlatan Cheschapahwould succeed in cheating the older chiefs; just when, if ever, he wouldstrike the chord of their superstition. Till then they would reason thatthe white man was more comfortable as a friend than as a foe, thatrations and gifts of clothes and farming implements were better thanbattles and prisons. Once their superstition was set alight, these threethousand Crows might suddenly follow Cheschapah to burn and kill anddestroy. 

"How does he manage his soda-water, do you suppose?" inquired Haines. 

"That's mysterious. He has never been known to buy drugs, and he'scareful where he does his trick. He's still a little afraid of hisfather. All Indians are. It's queer where he was going with that dog. "

Hard galloping sounded behind them, and a courier from the Indian agencyovertook and passed them, hurrying to Fort Custer. The officers hurriedtoo, and, arriving, received news and orders. Forty Sioux were reportedup the river coming to visit the Crows. It was peaceable, but untimely. The Sioux agent over at Pine Ridge had given these forty permission togo, without first finding out if it would be convenient to the Crowagent to have them come. It is a rule of the Indian Bureau that if onetribe desire to visit another, the agents of both must consent. Now, most of the Crows were farming and quiet, and it was not wise that avisit from the Sioux and a season of feasting should tempt their heartsand minds away from the tilling of the soil. The visitors must be takencharge of and sent home. 

"Very awkward, though, " said Stirling to Haines. He had been ordered totake two troops and arrest the unoffending visitors on their way. "TheSioux will be mad, and the Crows will be madder. What a bungle! and howlike the way we manage Indian affairs!" And so they started. 

Thirty miles away, by a stream towards which Stirling with his commandwas steadily marching through the night, the visitors were gathered. There was a cook-fire and a pot, and a stewing dog leaped in the froth. Old men in blankets and feathers sat near it, listening to youngCheschapah's talk in the flighty lustre of the flames. An old squawacted as interpreter between Crow and Sioux. Round about, at a certaindistance, the figures of the crowd lounged at the edge of the darkness. Two grizzled squaws stirred the pot, spreading a clawed fist to theireyes against the red heat of the coals, while young Cheschapah haranguedthe older chiefs. 

[Illustration: "BOASTING IN INDIAN FASHION"]

"And more than that, I, Cheschapah, can do, " said he, boasting inIndian fashion. "I know how to make the white man's heart soft sohe cannot fight. " He paused for effect, but his hearers seemeduninterested. "You have come pretty far to see us, " resumed theorator, "and I, and my friend Two Whistles, and my father, PoundedMeat, have come a day to meet you and bring you to our place. I havebrought you a fat dog. I say it is good the Crow and the Sioux shallbe friends. All the Crow chiefs are glad. Pretty Eagle is a big chief, and he will tell you what I tell you. But I am bigger than PrettyEagle. I am a medicine-man. "

He paused again; but the grim old chiefs were looking at the fire, andnot at him. He got a friendly glance from his henchman, Two Whistles, but he heard his father give a grunt. 

That enraged him. "I am a medicine-man, " he repeated, defiantly. "I havebeen in the big hole in the mountains where the river goes, and spokenthere with the old man who makes the thunder. I talked with him as onechief to another. I am going to kill all the white men. "

At this old Pounded Meat looked at his son angrily, but the son was notafraid of his father just then. "I can make medicine to bring the rain, "he continued. "I can make water boil when it is cold. With this I canstrike the white man blind when he is so far that his eyes do not showhis face. "

He swept out from his blanket an old cavalry sabre painted scarlet. Young Two Whistles made a movement of awe, but Pounded Meat said, "Myson's tongue has grown longer than his sword. "

Laughter sounded among the old chiefs. Cheschapah turned his impudentyet somewhat visionary face upon his father. "What do you know ofmedicine?" said he. "Two sorts of Indians are among the Crows to-day, "he continued to the chiefs. "One sort are the fathers, and the sons arethe other. The young warriors are not afraid of the white man. The oldplant corn with the squaws. Is this the way with the Sioux?"

"With the Sioux, " remarked a grim visitor, "no one fears the white man. But the young warriors do not talk much in council. "

Pounded Meat put out his hand gently, as if in remonstrance. Otherpeople must not chide his son. 

"You say you can make water boil with no fire?" pursued the Sioux, whowas named Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses, and had been young once. 

Pounded Meat came between. "My son is a good man, " said he. "These wordsof his are not made in the heart, but are head words you need not count. Cheschapah does not like peace. He has heard us sing our wars and theenemies we have killed, and he remembers that he has no deeds, beingyoung. When he thinks of this sometimes he talks words without sense. But my son is a good man. "

The father again extended his hand, which trembled a little. The Siouxhad listened, looking at him with respect, and forgetful of Cheschapah, who now stood before them with a cup of cold water. 

"You shall see, " he said, "who it is that talks words without sense. "

Two Whistles and the young bucks crowded to watch, but the old men satwhere they were. As Cheschapah stood relishing his audience, PoundedMeat stepped up suddenly and upset the cup. He went to the stream andrefilled it himself. "Now make it boil, " said he. 

Cheschapah smiled, and as he spread his hand quickly over the cup, thewater foamed up. 

"Huh!" said Two Whistles, startled. 

The medicine-man quickly seized his moment. "What does Pounded Meatknow of my medicine?" said he. "The dog is cooked. Let the dance begin. "

The drums set up their dull, blunt beating, and the crowd of young andless important bucks came from the outer circle nearer to the council. Cheschapah set the pot in the midst of the flat camp, to be the centreof the dance. None of the old chiefs said more to him, but sat apartwith the empty cup, having words among themselves. The flame reared highinto the dark, and showed the rock wall towering close, and at its feetthe light lay red on the streaming water. The young Sioux stripped nakedof their blankets, hanging them in a screen against the wind from thejaws of the cañon, with more constant shouts as the drumming beatlouder, and strokes of echo fell from the black cliffs. The figurestwinkled across each other in the glare, drifting and alert, till thedog-dance shaped itself into twelve dancers with a united sway of bodyand arms, one and another singing his song against the lifted sound ofthe drums. The twelve sank crouching in simulated hunt for an enemy backand forth over the same space, swinging together. 

Presently they sprang with a shout upon their feet, for they had takenthe enemy. Cheschapah, leading the line closer to the central pot, begana new figure, dancing the pursuit of the bear. This went faster; andafter the bear was taken, followed the elk-hunt, and a new sway andcrouch of the twelve gesturing bodies. The thudding drums wereceaseless; and as the dance went always faster and always nearer the dogpot, the steady blows of sound inflamed the dancers; their chestsheaved, and their arms and bodies swung alike as the excited crew filedand circled closer to the pot, following Cheschapah, and shoutinguncontrollably. They came to firing pistols and slashing the air withknives, when suddenly Cheschapah caught up a piece of steaming dog fromthe pot, gave it to his best friend, and the dance was done. Thedripping figures sat quietly, shining and smooth with sweat, eatingtheir dog-flesh in the ardent light of the fire and the cool splendor ofthe moon. By-and-by they lay in their blankets to sleep at ease. 

The elder chiefs had looked with distrust at Cheschapah as he led thedance; now that the entertainment was over, they rose with gravity to goto their beds. 

"It is good for the Sioux and the Crows to be friends, " said PoundedMeat to Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses. "But we want no war with thewhite man. It is a few young men who say that war is good now. "

"We have not come for war, " replied the Sioux. "We have come to eat muchmeat together, and remember that day when war was good on the LittleHorn, and our warriors killed Yellow Hair and all his soldiers. "

Pounded Meat came to where he and Cheschapah had their blankets. 

"We shall have war, " said the confident son to his father. "My medicineis good. "

"Peace is also pretty good, " said Pounded Meat. "Get new thoughts. Myson, do you not care any more for my words?"

Cheschapah did not reply. 

"I have lived a long while. Yet one man may be wrong. But all cannot be. The other chiefs say what I say. The white men are too strong. "

"They would not be too strong if the old men were not cowards. "

"Have done, " said the father, sternly. "If you are a medicine-man, donot talk like a light fool. "

The Indian has an "honor thy father" deep in his religion too, andCheschapah was silent. But after he was asleep, Pounded Meat laybrooding. He felt himself dishonored, and his son to be an evil in thetribe. With these sore notions keeping him awake, he saw the night waneinto gray, and then he heard the distant snort of a horse. He looked, and started from his blankets, for the soldiers had come, and he ran towake the sleeping Indians. Frightened, and ignorant why they should besurrounded, the Sioux leaped to their feet; and Stirling, from where hesat on his horse, saw their rushing, frantic figures. 

"Go quick, Kinney, " he said to the interpreter, "and tell them it'speace, or they'll be firing on us. "

Kinney rode forward alone, with one hand raised; and seeing that sign, they paused, and crept nearer, like crafty rabbits, while the sun roseand turned the place pink. And then came the parley, and the longexplanation; and Stirling thanked his stars to see they were going toallow themselves to be peaceably arrested. Bullets you get used to; butafter the firing's done, you must justify it to important personages wholive comfortably in Eastern towns and have never seen an Indian in theirlives, and are rancid with philanthropy and ignorance. 

Stirling would sooner have faced Sioux than sentimentalists, and he wasfervently grateful to these savages for coming with him quietly withoutobliging him to shoot them. Cheschapah was not behaving so amiably; andrecognizing him, Stirling understood about the dog. The medicine-man, with his faithful Two Whistles, was endeavoring to excite the prisonersas they were marched down the river to the Crow Agency. 

Stirling sent for Kinney. "Send that rascal away, " he said. "I'll nothave him bothering here. "

The interpreter obeyed, but with a singular smile to himself. When hehad ordered Cheschapah away, he rode so as to overhear Stirling andHaines talking. When they speculated about the soda-water, Kinney smiledagain. He was a quiet sort of man. The people in the valley admired hisbusiness head. He supplied grain and steers to Fort Custer, and used tosay that business was always slow in time of peace. 

By evening Stirling had brought his prisoners to the agency, and therewas the lieutenant of Indian police of the Sioux come over from PineRidge to bring them home. There was restlessness in the air as nightfell round the prisoners and their guard. It was Cheschapah's hour, andthe young Crows listened while he declaimed against the white man forthwarting their hospitality. The strong chain of sentinels was kept busypreventing these hosts from breaking through to fraternize with theirguests. Cheschapah did not care that the old Crow chiefs would notlisten. When Pretty Eagle remarked laconically that peace was good, theagitator laughed; he was gaining a faction, and the faction was feelingits oats. Accordingly, next morning, though the prisoners were meek onbeing started home by Stirling with twenty soldiers, and the majority ofthe Crows were meek at seeing them thus started, this was not all. Cheschapah, with a yelling swarm of his young friends, began to buzzabout the column as it marched up the river. All had rifles. 

"It's an interesting state of affairs, " said Stirling to Haines. "Thereare at least fifty of these devils at our heels now, and more coming. We've got twenty men. Haines, your Indian experiences may begin quiteearly in your career. "

"Yes, especially if our prisoners take to kicking. "

"Well, to compensate for spoiling their dinner-party, the agent gavethem some rations and his parting blessing. It may suffice. "

The line of march had been taken up by ten men in advance, followed inthe usual straggling fashion by the prisoners, and the rear-guard wascomposed of the other ten soldiers under Stirling and Haines. With themrode the chief of the Crow police and the lieutenant of the Sioux. Thislittle band was, of course, far separated from the advance-guard, and itlistened to the young Crow bucks yelling at its heels. They yelled inEnglish. Every Indian knows at least two English words; they arepungent, and far from complimentary. 

"It's got to stop here, " said Stirling, as they came to a ford known asReno's Crossing. "They've got to be kept on this side. "

"Can it be done without gunpowder?" Haines asked. 

"If a shot is fired now, my friend, it's war, and a court of inquiry inWashington for you and me, if we're not buried here. Sergeant, you willtake five men and see the column is kept moving. The rest remain withme. The prisoners must be got across and away from their friends. "

The fording began, and the two officers went over to the east bank tosee that the instructions were carried out. 

"See that?" observed Stirling. As the last of the rear-guard steppedinto the stream, the shore they were leaving filled instantly with theCrows. "Every man jack of them is armed. And here's an interestingdevelopment, " he continued. 

It was Cheschapah riding out into the water, and with him Two Whistles. The rear guard passed up the trail, and the little knot of men with theofficers stood halted on the bank. There were nine--the two Indianpolice, the two lieutenants, and five long muscular boys of K troop ofthe First Cavalry. They remained on the bank, looking at the thickpainted swarm that yelled across the ford. 

"Bet you there's a hundred, " remarked Haines. 

"You forget I never gamble, " murmured Stirling. Two of the five longboys overheard this, and grinned at each other, which Stirling noted;and he loved them. It was curious to mark the two shores: the featheredmultitude and its yells and its fifty yards of rifles that fronted asmall spot of white men sitting easily in the saddle, and the clear, pleasant water speeding between. Cheschapah and Two Whistles cametauntingly towards this spot, and the mass of Crows on the other sidedrew forward a little. 

"You tell them, " said Stirling to the chief of the Crow police, "thatthey must go back. "

Cheschapah came nearer, by way of obedience. 

"Take them over, then, " the officer ordered. 

[Illustration: "HIS HORSE DREW CLOSE, SHOVING THE HORSE OF THEMEDICINE-MAN"]

The chief of Crow police rode to Cheschapah, speaking and pointing. His horse drew close, shoving the horse of the medicine-man, who nowlaunched an insult that with Indians calls for blood. He struck theman's horse with his whip, and at that a volume of yells chorussedfrom the other bank. 

"Looks like the court of inquiry, " remarked Stirling. "Don't shoot, boys, " he commanded aloud. 

The amazed Sioux policeman gasped. "You not shoot?" he said. "But he hitthat man's horse--all the same hit your horse, all the same hit you. "

"Right. Quite right, " growled Stirling. "All the same hit Uncle Sam. Butwe soldier devils have orders to temporize. " His eye rested hard andserious on the party in the water as he went on speaking with jocularunconcern. "Tem-po-rize, Johnny, " said he. "You savvy temporize?"

"Ump! Me no savvy. "

"Bully for you, Johnny. Too many syllables. Well, now! he's hit thathorse again. One more for the court of inquiry. Steady, men! There's TwoWhistles switching now. They ought to call that lad Young Dog Tray. Andthere's a chap in paint fooling with his gun. If any more do that--it'svery catching--Yes, we're going to have a circus. Attention! Now what'sthat, do you suppose?"

An apparition, an old chief, came suddenly on the other bank, pushingthrough the crowd, grizzled and little and lean, among the smooth, full-limbed young blood. They turned and saw him, and slunk from thetones of his voice and the light in his ancient eye. They swerved andmelted among the cottonwoods, so that the ford's edge grew bare ofdusky bodies and looked sandy and green again. Cheschapah saw thewrinkled figure coming, and his face sank tame. He stood uncertain inthe stream, seeing his banded companions gone and the few white soldiersfirm on the bank. The old chief rode to him through the water, his facebrightened with a last flare of command. 

"Make your medicine!" he said. "Why are the white men not blind? Is themedicine bad to-day?" And he whipped his son's horse to the right, andto the left he slashed the horse of Two Whistles, and, whirling theleather quirt, drove them cowed before him and out of the stream, withnever a look or word to the white men. He crossed the sandy margin, andas a man drives steers to the corral, striking spurs to his horse andfollowing the frightened animals close when they would twist aside, sodid old Pounded Meat herd his son down the valley. 

"Useful old man, " remarked Stirling; "and brings up his childrencarefully. Let's get these prisoners along. "

"How rural the river looks now!" Haines said, as they left the desertedbank. 

So the Sioux went home in peace, the lieutenants, with their command oftwenty, returned to the post, and all white people felt much obliged toPounded Meat for his act of timely parental discipline--all except onewhite person. 

Sol Kinney sauntered into the agency store one evening. "I want tenpounds of sugar, " said he, "and navy plug as usual. And say, I'll takeanother bottle of the Seltzer fizz salts. Since I quit whiskey, " heexplained, "my liver's poorly. "

He returned with his purchase to his cabin, and set a lamp in thewindow. Presently the door opened noiselessly, and Cheschapah came in. 

"Maybe you got that now?" he said, in English. 

The interpreter fumbled among bottles of liniment and vaseline, and fromamong these household remedies brought the blue one he had just bought. Cheschapah watched him like a child, following his steps round thecabin. Kinney tore a half-page from an old Sunday _World_, and poured alittle heap of salts into it. The Indian touched the heap timidly withhis finger. "Maybe no good, " he suggested. 

"Heap good!" said the interpreter, throwing a pinch into a glass. WhenCheschapah saw the water effervesce, he folded his newspaper with thesalt into a tight lump, stuck the talisman into his clothes, anddeparted, leaving Mr. Kinney well content. He was doing his best tonourish the sinews of war, for business in the country wasdiscouragingly slack. 

Now the Crows were a tribe that had never warred with us, but only withother tribes; they had been valiant enough to steal our cattle, butsufficiently discreet to stop there; and Kinney realized that he haduphill work before him. His dearest hopes hung upon Cheschapah, in whomhe thought he saw a development. From being a mere humbug, the youngIndian seemed to be getting a belief in himself as something genuinelyout of the common. His success in creating a party had greatly increasedhis conceit, and he walked with a strut, and his face was more unsettledand visionary than ever. One clear sign of his mental change was that heno longer respected his father at all, though the lonely old man lookedat him often with what in one of our race would have been tenderness. Cheschapah had been secretly maturing a plot ever since his humiliationat the crossing, and now he was ready. With his lump of newspapercarefully treasured, he came to Two Whistles. 

"Now we go, " he said. "We shall fight with the Piegans. I will make bigmedicine, so that we shall get many of their horses and women. ThenPretty Eagle will be afraid to go against me in the council. PoundedMeat whipped my horse. Pounded Meat can cut his hay without Cheschapah, since he is so strong. "

But little Two Whistles wavered. "I will stay here, " he ventured to sayto the prophet. 

"Does Two Whistles think I cannot do what I say?"

"I think you make good medicine. "

"You are afraid of the Piegans. "

"No, I am not afraid. I have hay the white man will pay me for. If I go, he will not pay me. If I had a father, I would not leave him. " He spokepleadingly, and his prophet bore him down by ridicule. Two Whistlesbelieved, but he did not want to lose the money the agent was to pay forhis hay. And so, not so much because he believed as because he wasafraid, he resigned his personal desires. 

The next morning the whole band had disappeared with Cheschapah. Theagent was taken aback at this marked challenge to his authority--ofcourse they had gone without permission--and even the old Crow chiefsheld a council. 

Pretty Eagle resorted to sarcasm. "He has taken his friends to the oldman who makes the thunder, " he said. But others did not feel sarcastic, and one observed, "Cheschapah knows more than we know. "

"Let him make rain, then, " said Pretty Eagle. "Let him make the whiteman's heart soft. "

The situation was assisted by a step of the careful Kinney. He took aprivate journey to Junction City, through which place he expectedCheschapah to return, and there he made arrangements to have as muchwhiskey furnished to the Indian and his friends as they should ask for. It was certainly a good stroke of business. The victorious raiders didreturn that way, and Junction City was most hospitable to their thirst. The valley of the Big Horn was resonant with their homeward yells. Theyswept up the river, and the agent heard them coming, and he locked hisdoor immediately. He listened to their descent upon his fold, and hepeeped out and saw them ride round the tightly shut buildings in theirwar-paint and the pride of utter success. They had taken booty from thePiegans, and now, knocking at the store, they demanded ammunition, proclaiming at the same time in English that Cheschapah was a big man, and knew a "big heap medicine. " The agent told them from inside thatthey could not have any ammunition. He also informed them that he knewwho they were, and that they were under arrest. This touched theirprimitive sense of the incongruous. On the buoyancy of the whiskey theyrode round and round the store containing the agent, and then rushedaway, firing shots at the buildings and shots in the air, and sogloriously home among their tribe, while the agent sent a courierpacking to Fort Custer. 

The young bucks who had not gone on the raid to the Piegans thronged tohear the story, and the warriors told it here and there, walking intheir feathers among a knot of friends, who listened with gayexclamations of pleasure and envy. Great was Cheschapah, who had doneall this! And one and another told exactly and at length how he had seenthe cold water rise into foam beneath the medicine-man's hand; it couldnot be told too often; not every companion of Cheschapah's had beenaccorded the privilege of witnessing this miracle, and each narrator inhis circle became a wonder himself to the bold boyish faces thatsurrounded him. And after the miracle he told how the Piegans had beenlike a flock of birds before the medicine-man. Cheschapah himself passedamong the groups, alone and aloof; he spoke to none, and he looked atnone, and he noted how their voices fell to whispers as he passed; hisear caught the magic words of praise and awe; he felt the gaze ofadmiration follow him away, and a mist rose like incense in his brain. He wandered among the scattered tepees, and, turning, came along thesame paths again, that he might once more overhear his worshippers. Great was Cheschapah! His heart beat, a throb of power passed throughhis body, and "Great is Cheschapah!" said he, aloud; for the fumes ofhallucination wherewith he had drugged others had begun to make himdrunk also. He sought a tepee where the wife of another chief was alone, and at his light call she stood at the entrance and heard him longerthan she had ever listened to him before. But she withstood thetemptation that was strong in the young chief's looks and words. She didnot speak much, but laughed unsteadily, and, shaking her head withaverted eyes, left him, and went where several women were together, andsat among them. 

Cheschapah told his victory to the council, with many sentences abouthimself, and how his medicine had fended all hurt from the Crows. Theelder chiefs sat cold. 

"Ump!" said one, at the close of the oration, and "Heh!" remarkedanother. The sounds were of assent without surprise. 

"It is good, " said Pretty Eagle. His voice seemed to enrage Cheschapah. 

"Heh! it is always pretty good!" remarked Spotted Horse. 

"I have done this too, " said Pounded Meat to his son, simply. "Once, twice, three times. The Crows have always been better warriors than thePiegans. "

"Have you made water boil like me?" Cheschapah said. 

"I am not a medicine-man, " replied his father. "But I have taken horsesand squaws from the Piegans. You make good medicine, maybe; but a cup ofwater will not kill many white men. Can you make the river boil? LetCheschapah make bigger medicine, so the white man shall fear him as wellas the Piegans, whose hearts are well known to us. "

Cheschapah scowled. "Pounded Meat shall have this, " said he. "I willmake medicine to-morrow, old fool!"

"Drive him from the council!" said Pretty Eagle. 

"Let him stay, " said Pounded Meat. "His bad talk was not to the council, but to me, and I do not count it. "

But the medicine-man left the presence of the chiefs, and came to thecabin of Kinney. 

"Hello!" said the white man. "Sit down. "

"You got that?" said the Indian, standing. 

"More water medicine? I guess so. Take a seat. "

"No, not boil any more. You got that other?"

"That other, eh? Well, now, you're not going to blind them yet? What'syour hurry?"

"Yes. Make blind to-morrow. Me great chief!"

A slight uneasiness passed across the bantering face of Kinney. HisSeltzer salts performed what he promised, but he had mentioned anothermiracle, and he did not want his dupe to find him out until a war wasthoroughly set agoing. He looked at the young Indian, noticing his eyes. 

"What's the matter with you, anyway, Cheschapah?"

"Me great chief!" The raised voice trembled with unearthly conviction. 

"Well, I guess you are. I guess you've got pretty far along, " said thefrontier cynic. He tilted his chair back and smiled at the child whoseprimitive brain he had tampered with so easily. The child stood lookingat him with intent black eyes. "Better wait, Cheschapah. Come again. Medicine heap better after a while. "

The Indian's quick ear caught the insincerity without understanding it. "You give me that quick!" he said, suddenly terrible. 

"Oh, all right, Cheschapah. You know more medicine than me. "

"Yes, I know more. "

The white man brought a pot of scarlet paint, and the Indian's staringeyes contracted. Kinney took the battered cavalry sabre in his hand, andset its point in the earth floor of the cabin. "Stand back, " he said, inmysterious tones, and Cheschapah shrank from the impending sorcery. NowKinney had been to school once, in his Eastern childhood, and there hadcommitted to memory portions of Shakespeare, Mrs. Hemans, and otherpoets out of a Reader. He had never forgotten a single word of any ofthem, and it now occurred to him that for the purposes of an incantationit would be both entertaining for himself and impressive to Cheschapahif he should recite "The Battle of Hohenlinden. " He was drawing squaresand circles with the point of the sabre. 

"No, " he said to himself, "that piece won't do. He knows too muchEnglish. Some of them words might strike him as bein' too usual, andhe'd start to kill me, and spoil the whole thing. 'Munich' and'chivalry' are snortin', but 'sun was low' ain't worth a damn. Iguess--"

He stopped guessing, for the noon recess at school came in his mind, like a picture, and with it certain old-time preliminaries to the gameof tag. 

 "'Eeny, meeny, money, my, '"

said Kinney, tapping himself, the sabre, the paint-pot, and Cheschapahin turn, one for each word. The incantation was begun. He held the sabresolemnly upright, while Cheschapah tried to control his excitedbreathing where he stood flattened against the wall. 

 "'Butter, leather, boney, stry; Hare-bit, frost-neck, Harrico, barrico, whee, why, whoa, whack!'

"You're it, Cheschapah. " After that the weapon was given its fresh coatof paint, and Cheschapah went away with his new miracle in the dark. 

"He is it, " mused Kinney, grave, but inwardly lively. He was one ofthose sincere artists who need no popular commendation. "And whoever hedoes catch, it won't be me, " he concluded. He felt pretty sure therewould be war now. 

Dawn showed the summoned troops near the agency at the corral, standingto horse. Cheschapah gathered his hostiles along the brow of the ridgein the rear of the agency buildings, and the two forces watched eachother across the intervening four hundred yards. 

"There they are, " said the agent, jumping about. "Shoot them, colonel;shoot them!"

"You can't do that, you know, " said the officer, "without an order fromthe President, or an overt act from the Indians. "

So nothing happened, and Cheschapah told his friends the white men werealready afraid of him. He saw more troops arrive, water their horses inthe river, form line outside the corral, and dismount. He made ready atthis movement, and all Indian on-lookers scattered from the expectedfight. Yet the white man stayed quiet. It was issue day, but no familiesremained after drawing their rations. They had had no dance the nightbefore, as was usual, and they did not linger a moment now, but came anddeparted with their beef and flour at once. 

"I have done all this, " said Cheschapah to Two Whistles. 

"Cheschapah is a great man, " assented the friend and follower. He hadgone at once to his hay-field on his return from the Piegans, but someone had broken the little Indian's fence, and cattle were wandering inwhat remained of his crop. 

"Our nation knows I will make a war, and therefore they do not stayhere, " said the medicine-man, caring nothing what Two Whistles mighthave suffered. "And now they will see that the white soldiers dare notfight with Cheschapah. The sun is high now, but they have not movedbecause I have stopped them. Do you not see it is my medicine?"

"We see it. " It was the voice of the people. 

But a chief spoke. "Maybe they wait for us to come. "

Cheschapah answered. "Their eyes shall be made sick. I will ride amongthem, but they will not know it. " He galloped away alone, and lifted hisred sword as he sped along the ridge of the hills, showing against thesky. Below at the corral the white soldiers waited ready, and heard himchanting his war song through the silence of the day. He turned in along curve, and came in near the watching troops and through the agency, and then, made bolder by their motionless figures and guns held idle, heturned again and flew, singing, along close to the line, so they saw hiseyes; and a few that had been talking low as they stood side by sidefell silent at the spectacle. They could not shoot until some Indianshould shoot. They watched him and the gray pony pass and return to thehostiles on the hill. Then they saw the hostiles melt away like magic. Their prophet had told them to go to their tepees and wait for the greatrain he would now bring. It was noon, and the sky utterly blue over thebright valley. The sun rode a space nearer the west, and the thick blackclouds assembled in the mountains and descended; their shadow floodedthe valley with a lake of slatish blue, and presently the suddentorrents sluiced down with flashes and the ample thunder of Montana. Thus not alone the law against our soldiers firing the first shot in anIndian excitement, but now also the elements coincided to help themedicine-man's destiny. 

Cheschapah sat in a tepee with his father, and as the rain splashedheavily on the earth the old man gazed at the young one. 

"Why do you tremble, my son? You have made the white soldier's heartsoft, " said Pounded Meat. "You are indeed a great man, my son. "

Cheschapah rose. "Do not call me your son, " said he. "That is a lie. "He went out into the fury of the rain, lifting his face against thedrops, and exultingly calling out at each glare of the lightning. Hewent to Pretty Eagle's young squaw, who held off from him no longer, butgot on a horse, and the two rode into the mountains. Before the sun hadset, the sky was again utterly blue, and a cool scent rose everywhere inthe shining valley. 

The Crows came out of their tepees, and there were the white soldiersobeying orders and going away. They watched the column slowly moveacross the flat land below the bluffs, where the road led down the rivertwelve miles to the post. 

"They are afraid, " said new converts. "Cheschapah's rain has made theirhearts soft. "

"They have not all gone, " said Pretty Eagle. "Maybe he did not makeenough rain. " But even Pretty Eagle began to be shaken, and he heardseveral of his brother chiefs during the next few days openly declarefor the medicine-man. Cheschapah with his woman came from the mountains, and Pretty Eagle did not dare to harm him. Then another coincidencefollowed that was certainly most reassuring to the war party. Some ofthem had no meat, and told Cheschapah they were hungry. With consummateaudacity he informed them he would give them plenty at once. On the sameday another timely electric storm occurred up the river, and six steerswere struck by lightning. 

When the officers at Fort Custer heard of this they became serious. 

"If this was not the nineteenth century, " said Haines, "I should beginto think the elements were deliberately against us. "

"It's very careless of the weather, " said Stirling. "Very inconsiderate, at such a juncture. "

Yet nothing more dangerous than red-tape happened for a while. There wasan expensive quantity of investigation from Washington, and this gavethe hostiles time to increase both in faith and numbers. 

Among the excited Crows only a few wise old men held out. As forCheschapah himself, ambition and success had brought him to the weirdenthusiasm of a fanatic. He was still a charlatan, but a charlatan whobelieved utterly in his star. He moved among his people with growingmystery, and his hapless adjutant, Two Whistles, rode with him, slavedfor him, abandoned the plans he had for making himself a farm, and, desiring peace in his heart, weakly cast his lot with war. Then one daythere came an order from the agent to all the Indians: they were to comein by a certain fixed day. The department commander had assembled sixhundred troops at the post, and these moved up the river and went intocamp. The usually empty ridges, and the bottom where the road ran, filled with white and red men. Half a mile to the north of thebuildings, on the first rise from the river, lay the cavalry, and someinfantry above them with a howitzer, while across the level, threehundred yards opposite, along the river-bank, was the main Indian camp. Even the hostiles had obeyed the agent's order, and came in close to thetroops, totally unlike hostiles in general; for Cheschapah had told themhe would protect them with his medicine, and they shouted and sang allthrough this last night. The women joined with harsh cries andshriekings, and a scalp-dance went on, besides lesser commotions andgatherings, with the throbbing of drums everywhere. Through thesleepless din ran the barking of a hundred dogs, that herded and hurriedin crowds of twenty at a time, meeting, crossing from fire to fire amongthe tepees. Their yelps rose to the high bench of land, summoning ahorde of coyotes. These cringing nomads gathered from the desert in atramp army, and, skulking down the bluffs, sat in their outer darknessand ceaselessly howled their long, shrill greeting to the dogs that satin the circle of light. The general sent scouts to find the nature ofthe dance and hubbub, and these brought word it was peaceful; and in themorning another scout summoned the elder chiefs to a talk with thefriend who had come from the Great Father at Washington to see them andfind if their hearts were good. 

"Our hearts are good, " said Pretty Eagle. "We do not want war. If youwant Cheschapah, we will drive him out from the Crows to you. "

"There are other young chiefs with bad hearts, " said the commissioner, naming the ringleaders that were known. He made a speech, but PrettyEagle grew sullen. "It is well, " said the commissioner; "you will nothelp me to make things smooth, and now I step aside and the war chiefwill talk. "

"If you want any other chiefs, " said Pretty Eagle, "come and take them. "

"Pretty Eagle shall have an hour and a half to think on my words, " saidthe general. "I have plenty of men behind me to make my words good. Youmust send me all those Indians who fired at the agency. "

The Crow chiefs returned to the council, which was apart from the warparty's camp; and Cheschapah walked in among them, and after him, slowly, old Pounded Meat, to learn how the conference had gone. 

"You have made a long talk with the white man, " said Cheschapah. "Talkis pretty good for old men. I and the young chiefs will fight now andkill our enemies. "

"Cheschapah, " said Pounded Meat, "if your medicine is good, it may bethe young chiefs will kill our enemies to-day. But there are other daysto come, and after them still others; there are many, many days. My son, the years are a long road. The life of one man is not long, but enoughto learn this thing truly: the white man will always return. There was aday on this river when the dead soldiers of Yellow Hair lay in hills, and the squaws of the Sioux warriors climbed among them with theirknives. What do the Sioux warriors do now when they meet the white manon this river? Their hearts are on the ground, and they go home likechildren when the white man says, 'You shall not visit your friends. ' Myson, I thought war was good once. I have kept you from the arrows of ourenemies on many trails when you were so little that my blankets wereenough for both. Your mother was not here any more, and the chiefslaughed because I carried you. Oh, my son, I have seen the hearts of theSioux broken by the white man, and I do not think war is good. "

"The talk of Pounded Meat is very good, " said Pretty Eagle. "IfCheschapah were wise like his father, this trouble would not have cometo the Crows. But we could not give the white chief so many of ourchiefs that he asked for to-day. "

Cheschapah laughed. "Did he ask for so many? He wanted only Cheschapah, who is not wise like Pounded Meat. "

"You would have been given to him, " said Pretty Eagle. 

"Did Pretty Eagle tell the white chief that? Did he say he would giveCheschapah? How would he give me? In one hand, or two? Or would the oldwarrior take me to the white man's camp on the horse his young squawleft?"

Pretty Eagle raised his rifle, and Pounded Meat, quick as a boy, seizedthe barrel and pointed it up among the poles of the tepee, where thequiet black fire smoke was oozing out into the air. "Have you lived solong, " said Pounded Meat to his ancient comrade, "and do this in thecouncil?" His wrinkled head and hands shook, the sudden strength lefthim, and the rifle fell free. 

"Let Pretty Eagle shoot, " said Cheschapah, looking at the council. Hestood calm, and the seated chiefs turned their grim eyes upon him. Certainty was in his face, and doubt in theirs. "Let him send his bulletfive times--ten times. Then I will go and let the white soldiers shootat me until they all lie dead. "

"It is heavy for me, " began Pounded Meat, "that my friend should be theenemy of my son. "

"Tell that lie no more, " said Cheschapah. "You are not my father. I havemade the white man blind, and I have softened his heart with the rain. Iwill call the rain to-day. " He raised his red sword, and there was amovement among the sitting figures. "The clouds will come from myfather's place, where I have talked with him as one chief to another. Mymother went into the mountains to gather berries. She was young, and thethunder-maker saw her face. He brought the black clouds, so her feetturned from home, and she walked where the river goes into the greatwalls of the mountain, and that day she was stricken fruitful by thelightning. You are not the father of Cheschapah. " He dealt Pounded Meata blow, and the old man fell. But the council sat still until the soundof Cheschapah's galloping horse died away. They were ready now to riskeverything. Their scepticism was conquered. 

The medicine-man galloped to his camp of hostiles, and, seeing him, theyyelled and quickly finished plaiting their horses' tails. Cheschapah hadaccomplished his wish; he had become the prophet of all the Crows, andhe led the armies of the faithful. Each man stripped his blanket off andpainted his body for the fight. The forms slipped in and out of thebrush, buckling their cartridge-belts, bringing their ponies, while manyfamilies struck their tepees and moved up nearer the agency. The sparehorses were run across the river into the hills, and through the yellingthat shifted and swept like flames along the wind the hostiles madeready and gathered, their crowds quivering with motion, and changingplace and shape as more mounted Indians appeared. 

"Are the holes dug deep as I marked them on the earth?" said Cheschapahto Two Whistles. "That is good. We shall soon have to go into them fromthe great rain I will bring. Make these strong, to stay as we ride. Theyare good medicine, and with them the white soldiers will not see you anymore than they saw me when I rode among them that day. "

He had strips and capes of red flannel, and he and Two Whistles fastenedthem to their painted bodies. 

"You will let me go with you?" said Two Whistles. 

"You are my best friend, " said Cheschapah, "and to-day I will take you. You shall see my great medicine when I make the white man's eyes growsick. "

The two rode forward, and one hundred and fifty followed them, burstingfrom their tepees like an explosion, and rushing along quickly inskirmish-line. Two Whistles rode beside his speeding prophet, and sawthe red sword waving near his face, and the sun in the great still sky, and the swimming, fleeting earth. His superstition and the fierce rideput him in a sort of trance. 

"The medicine is beginning!" shouted Cheschapah; and at that TwoWhistles saw the day grow large with terrible shining, and heard hisown voice calling and could not stop it. They left the hundred andfifty behind, he knew not where or when. He saw the line of troopsahead change to separate waiting shapes of men, and their legs andarms become plain; then all the guns took clear form in lines ofsteady glitter. He seemed suddenly alone far ahead of the band, butthe voice of Cheschapah spoke close by his ear through the singingwind, and he repeated each word without understanding; he was watchingthe ground rush by, lest it might rise against his face, and all thewhile he felt his horse's motion under him, smooth and perpetual. Something weighed against his leg, and there was Cheschapah he hadforgotten, always there at his side, veering him around somewhere. Butthere was no red sword waving. Then the white men must be blindalready, wherever they were, and Cheschapah, the only thing he couldsee, sat leaning one hand on his horse's rump firing a pistol. Theground came swimming towards his eyes always, smooth and wide like agray flood, but Two Whistles knew that Cheschapah would not let itsweep him away. He saw a horse without a rider floated out of bluesmoke, and floated in again with a cracking noise; white soldiersmoved in a row across his eyes, very small and clear, and brokeinto a blurred eddy of shapes which the flood swept away clean andempty. Then a dead white man came by on the quick flood. Two Whistlessaw the yellow stripe on his sleeve; but he was gone, and there wasnothing but sky and blaze, with Cheschapah's head-dress in the middle. The horse's even motion continued beneath him, when suddenly thehead-dress fell out of Two Whistles' sight, and the earth returned. They were in brush, with his horse standing and breathing, and a deadhorse on the ground with Cheschapah, and smoke and moving peopleeverywhere outside. He saw Cheschapah run from the dead horse and jumpon a gray pony and go. Somehow he was on the ground too, looking at ared sword lying beside his face. He stared at it a long while, thentook it in his hand, still staring; all at once he rose and broke itsavagely, and fell again. His faith was shivered to pieces like glass. But he got on his horse, and the horse moved away. He was looking atthe blood running on his body. The horse moved always, and TwoWhistles followed with his eye a little deeper gush of blood along acrease in his painted skin, noticed the flannel, and remembering thelie of his prophet, instantly began tearing the red rags from hisbody, and flinging them to the ground with cries of scorn. Presentlyhe heard some voices, and soon one voice much nearer, and saw he hadcome to a new place, where there were white soldiers looking at himquietly. One was riding up and telling him to give up his pistol. TwoWhistles got off and stood behind his horse, looking at the pistol. The white soldier came quite near, and at his voice Two Whistles movedslowly out from behind the horse, and listened to the cool words asthe soldier repeated his command. The Indian was pointing his pistoluncertainly, and he looked at the soldier's coat and buttons, and thestraps on the shoulders, and the bright steel sabre, and the whiteman's blue eyes; then Two Whistles looked at his own naked, clottedbody, and, turning the pistol against himself, fired it into hisbreast. 

[Illustration: THE CHARGE]

Far away up the river, on the right of the line, a lieutenant with twomen was wading across after some hostiles that had been skirmishing withhis troop. The hostiles had fallen back after some hot shooting, and haddispersed among the brush and tepees on the farther shore, picking uptheir dead, as Indians do. It was interesting work, this splashingbreast-high through a river into a concealed hornets'-nest, and thelieutenant thought a little on his unfinished plans and duties in life;he noted one dead Indian left on the shore, and went steadfastly inamong the half-seen tepees, rummaging and beating in the thick brush tobe sure no hornets remained. Finding them gone, and their dead spiritedaway, he came back on the bank to the one dead Indian, who had a finehead-dress, and was still ribanded with gay red streamers of flannel, and was worth all the rest of the dead put together, and much more. Thehead lay in the water, and one hand held the rope of the gray pony, whostood quiet and uninterested over his fallen rider. They began carryingthe prize across to the other bank, where many had now collected, amongothers Kinney and the lieutenant's captain, who subsequently said, "Ifound the body of Cheschapah;" and, indeed, it was a very good thing tobe able to say. 

[Illustration: "THE HEAD LAY IN THE WATER"]

"This busts the war, " said Kinney to the captain, as the body wasbeing lifted over the Little Horn. "They know he's killed, and they'veall quit. I was up by the tepees near the agency just now, and Icould see the hostiles jamming back home for dear life. They waschucking their rifles to the squaws, and jumping in the river--ha!ha!--to wash off their war-paint, and each ---- ---- would crawl outand sit innercint in the family blanket his squaw had ready. If youwas to go there now, cap'n, you'd find just a lot of harmless Injunseatin' supper like all the year round. Let me help you, boys, withthat carcass. "

Kinney gave a hand to the lieutenant and men of G troop, First UnitedStates Cavalry, and they lifted Cheschapah up the bank. In the tiltedposition of the body the cartridge-belt slid a little, and a lump ofnewspaper fell into the stream. Kinney watched it open and float awaywith a momentary effervescence. The dead medicine-man was laid betweenthe white and red camps, that all might see he could be killed likeother people; and this wholesome discovery brought the Crows to terms atonce. Pretty Eagle had displayed a flag of truce, and now he surrenderedthe guilty chiefs whose hearts had been bad. Every one came where thedead prophet lay to get a look at him. For a space of hours Pretty Eagleand the many other Crows he had deceived rode by in single file, striking him with their whips; after them came a young squaw, and shealso lashed the upturned face. 

This night was untroubled at the agency, and both camps and the valleylay quiet in the peaceful dark. Only Pounded Meat, alone on the top of ahill, mourned for his son; and his wailing voice sounded through thesilence until the new day came. Then the general had him stopped andbrought in, for it might be that the old man's noise would unsettle theCrows again. 

SPECIMEN JONES

Ephraim, the proprietor of Twenty Mile, had wasted his day in burying aman. He did not know the man. He had found him, or what the Apaches hadleft of him, sprawled among some charred sticks just outside the Cañondel Oro. It was a useful discovery in its way, for otherwise Ephraimmight have gone on hunting his strayed horses near the cañon, and endedamong charred sticks himself. Very likely the Indians were far away bythis time, but he returned to Twenty Mile with the man tied to hissaddle, and his pony nervously snorting. And now the day was done, andthe man lay in the earth, and they had even built a fence round him; forthe hole was pretty shallow, and coyotes have a way of smelling thissort of thing a long way off when they are hungry, and the man was notin a coffin. They were always short of coffins in Arizona. 

Day was done at Twenty Mile, and the customary activity prevailed insidethat flat-roofed cube of mud. Sounds of singing, shooting, dancing, andMexican tunes on the concertina came out of the windows hand in hand, towiden and die among the hills. A limber, pretty boy, who might benineteen, was dancing energetically, while a grave old gentleman, withtobacco running down his beard, pointed a pistol at the boy's heels, and shot a hole in the earth now and then to show that the weapon wasreally loaded. Everybody was quite used to all of this--excepting theboy. He was an Eastern new-comer, passing his first evening at a placeof entertainment. 

Night in and night out every guest at Twenty Mile was either happy andfull of whiskey, or else his friends were making arrangements for hisfuneral. There was water at Twenty Mile--the only water for twoscore ofmiles. Consequently it was an important station on the road between thesouthern country and Old Camp Grant, and the new mines north of theMescal Range. The stunt, liquor-perfumed adobe cabin lay on the grayfloor of the desert like an isolated slab of chocolate. A corral, twodesolate stable-sheds, and the slowly turning windmill were all else. Here Ephraim and one or two helpers abode, armed against Indians, andselling whiskey. Variety in their vocation of drinking and killing wasbrought them by the travellers. These passed and passed through theglaring vacant months--some days only one ragged fortune-hunter, ridinga pony; again by twos and threes, with high-loaded burros; and sometimesthey came in companies, walking beside their clanking freight-wagons. Some were young, and some were old, and all drank whiskey, and woreknives and guns to keep each other civil. Most of them were bound forthe mines, and some of them sometimes returned. No man trusted the nextman, and their names, when they had any, would be O'Rafferty, Angus, Schwartzmeyer, José Maria, and Smith. All stopped for one night; somelonger, remaining drunk and profitable to Ephraim; now and then onestayed permanently, and had a fence built round him. Whoever came, andwhatever befell them, Twenty Mile was chronically hilarious aftersundown--a dot of riot in the dumb Arizona night. 

On this particular evening they had a tenderfoot. The boy, being new inArizona, still trusted his neighbor. Such people turned up occasionally. This one had paid for everybody's drink several times, because he feltfriendly, and never noticed that nobody ever paid for his. They hadplayed cards with him, stolen his spurs, and now they were making himdance. It was an ancient pastime; yet two or three were glad to standround and watch it, because it was some time since they had been to theopera. Now the tenderfoot had misunderstood these friends at thebeginning, supposing himself to be among good fellows, and theytherefore naturally set him down as a fool. But even while dancing youmay learn much, and suddenly. The boy, besides being limber, had goodtough black hair, and it was not in fear, but with a cold blue eye, thathe looked at the old gentleman. The trouble had been that his ownrevolver had somehow hitched, so he could not pull it from the holsterat the necessary moment. 

"Tried to draw on me, did yer?" said the old gentleman. "Step higher!Step, now, or I'll crack open yer kneepans, ye robin's egg. "

"Thinks he's having a bad time, " remarked Ephraim. "Wonder how he'd liketo have been that man the Injuns had sport with?"

"Weren't his ear funny?" said one who had helped bury the man. 

"Ear?" said Ephraim. "You boys ought to been along when I found him, and seen the way they'd fixed up his mouth. " Ephraim explained thedetails simply, and the listeners shivered. But Ephraim was ahumorist. "Wonder how it feels, " he continued, "to have--"

[Illustration: AN APACHE]

Here the boy sickened at his comments and the loud laughter. Yet a fewhours earlier these same half-drunken jesters had laid the man to restwith decent humanity. The boy was taking his first dose of Arizona. Byno means was everybody looking at his jig. They had seen tenderfeet sooften. There was a Mexican game of cards; there was the concertina; andover in the corner sat Specimen Jones, with his back to the company, singing to himself. Nothing had been said or done that entertained himin the least. He had seen everything quite often. 

"Higher! skip higher, you elegant calf, " remarked the old gentleman tothe tenderfoot. "High-yer!" And he placidly fired a fourth shot thatscraped the boy's boot at the ankle and threw earth over the clock, sothat you could not tell the minute from the hour hand. 

"'Drink to me only with thine eyes, '" sang Specimen Jones, softly. Theydid not care much for his songs in Arizona. These lyrics were all, ornearly all, that he retained of the days when he was twenty, although hewas but twenty-six now. 

The boy was cutting pigeon-wings, the concertina played "Matamoras, "Jones continued his lyric, when two Mexicans leaped at each other, andthe concertina stopped with a quack. 

"Quit it!" said Ephraim from behind the bar, covering the two with hisweapon. "I don't want any greasers scrapping round here to-night. We'vejust got cleaned up. "

It had been cards, but the Mexicans made peace, to the regret ofSpecimen Jones. He had looked round with some hopes of a crisis, and nowfor the first time he noticed the boy. 

"Blamed if he ain't neat, " he said. But interest faded from his eye, andhe turned again to the wall. "'Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein, '" hemelodiously observed. His repertory was wide and refined. When he sanghe was always grammatical. 

"Ye kin stop, kid, " said the old gentleman, not unkindly, and he shovedhis pistol into his belt. 

The boy ceased. He had been thinking matters over. Being lithe andstrong, he was not tired nor much out of breath, but he was tremblingwith the plan and the prospect he had laid out for himself. "Set 'emup, " he said to Ephraim. "Set 'em up again all round. "

His voice caused Specimen Jones to turn and look once more, while theold gentleman, still benevolent, said, "Yer langwidge means pleasanterthan it sounds, kid. " He glanced at the boy's holster, and knew he neednot keep a very sharp watch as to that. Its owner had bungled over itonce already. All the old gentleman did was to place himself next theboy on the off side from the holster; any move the tenderfoot's handmight make for it would be green and unskilful, and easily anticipated. The company lined up along the bar, and the bottle slid from glass toglass. The boy and his tormentor stood together in the middle of theline, and the tormentor, always with half a thought for the holster, handled his drink on the wet counter, waiting till all should be filledand ready to swallow simultaneously, as befits good manners. 

"Well, my regards, " he said, seeing the boy raise his glass; and as theold gentleman's arm lifted in unison, exposing his waist, the boyreached down a lightning hand, caught the old gentleman's own pistol, and jammed it in his face. 

"Now you'll dance, " said he. 

"Whoop!" exclaimed Specimen Jones, delighted. "_Blamed_ if he ain'tneat!" And Jones's handsome face lighted keenly. 

"Hold on!" the boy sang out, for the amazed old gentleman wasmechanically drinking his whiskey out of sheer fright. The rest hadforgotten their drinks. "Not one swallow, " the boy continued. "No, you'll not put it down either. You'll keep hold of it, and you'll danceall round this place. Around and around. And don't you spill any. AndI'll be thinking what you'll do after that. "

Specimen Jones eyed the boy with growing esteem. "Why, he ain't biggerthan a pint of cider, " said he. 

"Prance away!" commanded the tenderfoot, and fired a shot between theold gentleman's not widely straddled legs. 

"You hev the floor, Mr. Adams, " Jones observed, respectfully, at the oldgentleman's agile leap. "I'll let no man here interrupt you. " So thecapering began, and the company stood back to make room. "I've saw juicythings in this Territory, " continued Specimen Jones, aloud, to himself, "but this combination fills my bill. "

He shook his head sagely, following the black-haired boy with his eye. That youth was steering Mr. Adams round the room with the pistol, proudas a ring-master. Yet not altogether. He was only nineteen, and thoughhis heart beat stoutly, it was beating alone in a strange country. Hehad come straight to this from hunting squirrels along the Susquehanna, with his mother keeping supper warm for him in the stone farm-houseamong the trees. He had read books in which hardy heroes saw life, andalways triumphed with precision on the last page, but he remembered noreceipt for this particular situation. Being good game American blood, he did not think now about the Susquehanna, but he did long with all hismight to know what he ought to do next to prove himself a man. Hisbuoyant rage, being glutted with the old gentleman's fervent skipping, had cooled, and a stress of reaction was falling hard on his brave youngnerves. He imagined everybody against him. He had no notion that therewas another American wanderer there, whose reserved and whimsical naturehe had touched to the heart. 

The fickle audience was with him, of course, for the moment, since hewas upper dog and it was a good show; but one in that room wasdistinctly against him. The old gentleman was dancing with an ugly eye;he had glanced down to see just where his knife hung at his side, and hehad made some calculations. He had fired four shots; the boy had firedone. "Four and one hez always made five, " the old gentleman told himselfwith much secret pleasure, and pretended that he was going to stop hisdouble-shuffle. It was an excellent trap, and the boy fell straight intoit. He squandered his last precious bullet on the spittoon near whichMr. Adams happened to be at the moment, and the next moment Mr. Adamshad him by the throat. They swayed and gulped for breath, rutting theearth with sharp heels; they rolled to the floor and floundered withlegs tight tangled, the boy blindly striking at Mr. Adams with thepistol-butt, and the audience drawing closer to lose nothing, when thebright knife flashed suddenly. It poised, and flew across the room, harmless, for a foot had driven into Mr. Adams's arm, and he felt acold ring grooving his temple. It was the smooth, chilly muzzle ofSpecimen Jones's six-shooter. 

"That's enough, " said Jones. "More than enough. "

Mr. Adams, being mature in judgment, rose instantly, like a good oldsheep, and put his knife back obedient to orders. But in the brain ofthe over-strained, bewildered boy universal destruction was whirling. With a face stricken lean with ferocity, he staggered to his feet, plucking at his obstinate holster, and glaring for a foe. His eye fellfirst on his deliverer, leaning easily against the bar watching him, while the more and more curious audience scattered, and held themselvesready to murder the boy if he should point his pistol their way. He wasdragging at it clumsily, and at last it came. Specimen Jones sprang likea cat, and held the barrel vertical and gripped the boy's wrist. 

"Go easy, son, " said he. "I know how you're feelin'. "

The boy had been wrenching to get a shot at Jones, and now the quietnessof the man's voice reached his brain, and he looked at Specimen Jones. He felt a potent brotherhood in the eyes that were considering him, andhe began to fear he had been a fool. There was his dwarf Easternrevolver, slack in his inefficient fist, and the singular person stillholding its barrel and tapping one derisive finger over the end, careless of the risk to his first joint. 

"Why, you little ---- ----, " said Specimen Jones, caressingly, to thehypnotized youth, "if you was to pop that squirt off at me, I'd turn youup and spank y'u. Set 'em up, Ephraim. "

But the commercial Ephraim hesitated, and Jones remembered. His lastcent was gone. It was his third day at Ephraim's. He had stopped, havinga little money, on his way to Tucson, where a friend had a job for him, and was waiting. He was far too experienced a character ever to sell hishorse or his saddle on these occasions, and go on drinking. He looked asif he might, but he never did; and this was what disappointed businessmen like Ephraim in Specimen Jones. 

But now, here was this tenderfoot he had undertaken to see through, andEphraim reminding him that he had no more of the wherewithal. "Why, so Ihaven't, " he said, with a short laugh, and his face flushed. "I guess, "he continued, hastily, "this is worth a dollar or two. " He drew a chainup from below his flannel shirt-collar and over his head. He drew it alittle slowly. It had not been taken off for a number of years--not, indeed, since it had been placed there originally. "It ain't brass, " headded, lightly, and strewed it along the counter without looking at it. Ephraim did look at it, and, being satisfied, began to uncork a newbottle, while the punctual audience came up for its drink. 

"Won't you please let me treat?" said the boy, unsteadily. "I ain'tlikely to meet you again, sir. " Reaction was giving him trouble inside. 

"Where are you bound, kid?"

"Oh, just a ways up the country, " answered the boy, keeping a grip onhis voice. 

"Well, you _may_ get there. Where did you pick up that--that thing? Yourpistol, I mean. "

"It's a present from a friend, " replied the tenderfoot, with dignity. 

"Farewell gift, wasn't it, kid? Yes; I thought so. Now I'd hate to getan affair like that from a friend. It would start me wondering if heliked me as well as I'd always thought he did. Put up that money, kid. You're drinking with me. Say, what's yer name?"

"Cumnor--J. Cumnor. "

"Well, J. Cumnor, I'm glad to know y'u. Ephraim, let me make youacquainted with Mr. Cumnor. Mr. Adams, if you're rested from yourquadrille, you can shake hands with my friend. Step around, you Miguelsand Serapios and Cristobals, whatever y'u claim your names are. This isMr. J. Cumnor. "

The Mexicans did not understand either the letter or the spirit of theseAmerican words, but they drank their drink, and the concertina resumedits acrid melody. The boy had taken himself off without being noticed. 

"Say, Spec, " said Ephraim to Jones, "I'm no hog. Here's yer chain. You'll be along again. "

"Keep it till I'm along again, " said the owner. 

"Just as you say, Spec, " answered Ephraim, smoothly, and he hung thepledge over an advertisement chromo of a nude cream-colored lady withbright straw hair holding out a bottle of somebody's champagne. SpecimenJones sang no more songs, but smoked, and leaned in silence on the bar. The company were talking of bed, and Ephraim plunged his glasses into abucket to clean them for the morrow. 

"Know anything about that kid?" inquired Jones, abruptly. 

Ephraim shook his head as he washed. 

"Travelling alone, ain't he?"

Ephraim nodded. 

"Where did y'u say y'u found that fellow layin' the Injuns got?"

"Mile this side the cañon. 'Mong them sand-humps. "

"How long had he been there, do y'u figure?"

"Three days, anyway. "

Jones watched Ephraim finish his cleansing. "Your clock needs wiping, "he remarked. "A man might suppose it was nine, to see that thing the waythe dirt hides the hands. Look again in half an hour and it'll saythree. That's the kind of clock gives a man the jams. Sends him crazy. "

"Well, that ain't a bad thing to be in this country, " said Ephraim, rubbing the glass case and restoring identity to the hands. "If that manhad been crazy he'd been livin' right now. Injuns'll never touchlunatics. "

"That band have passed here and gone north, " Jones said. "I saw a smokeamong the foot-hills as I come along day before yesterday. I guessthey're aiming to cross the Santa Catalina. Most likely they're thatband from round the San Carlos that were reported as raiding down inSonora. "

"I seen well enough, " said Ephraim, "when I found him that they wasn'tgoing to trouble us any, or they'd have been around by then. "

He was quite right, but Specimen Jones was thinking of something else. He went out to the corral, feeling disturbed and doubtful. He saw thetall white freight-wagon of the Mexicans, looming and silent, and alittle way off the new fence where the man lay. An odd sound startledhim, though he knew it was no Indians at this hour, and he looked downinto a little dry ditch. It was the boy, hidden away flat on his stomachamong the stones, sobbing. 

"Oh, snakes!" whispered Specimen Jones, and stepped back. The Latinraces embrace and weep, and all goes well; but among Saxons tears are ahorrid event. Jones never knew what to do when it was a woman, but thiswas truly disgusting. He was well seasoned by the frontier, had tried alittle of everything: town and country, ranches, saloons, stage-driving, marriage occasionally, and latterly mines. He had sundry claims stakedout, and always carried pieces of stone in his pockets, discoursing upontheir mineral-bearing capacity, which was apt to be very slight. That iswhy he was called Specimen Jones. He had exhausted all the importantsensations, and did not care much for anything any more. Perfect healthand strength kept him from discovering that he was a saddened, driftingman. He wished to kick the boy for his baby performance, and yet hestepped carefully away from the ditch so the boy should not suspect hispresence. He found himself standing still, looking at the dim, brokendesert. 

"Why, hell, " complained Specimen Jones, "he played the little man tostart with. He did so. He scared that old horse-thief, Adams, just aboutdead. Then he went to kill me, that kep' him from bein' buried earlyto-morrow. I've been wild that way myself, and wantin' to shoot up thewhole outfit. " Jones looked at the place where his middle finger used tobe, before a certain evening in Tombstone. "But I never--" He glancedtowards the ditch, perplexed. "What's that mean? Why in the world doeshe git to cryin' for _now_, do you suppose?" Jones took to singingwithout knowing it. "'Ye shepherds, tell me, ha-ve you seen my Florapass this way?'" he murmured. Then a thought struck him. "Hello, kid!"he called out. There was no answer. "Of course, " said Jones. "Now he'sashamed to hev me see him come out of there. " He walked with elaborateslowness round the corral and behind a shed. "Hello, you kid!" he calledagain. 

"I was thinking of going to sleep, " said the boy, appearing quitesuddenly. "I--I'm not used to riding all day. I'll get used to it, youknow, " he hastened to add. 

"'Ha-ve you seen my Flo'--Say, kid, where y'u bound, anyway?"

"San Carlos. "

"San Carlos? Oh. Ah. 'Flora pass this way?'"

"Is it far, sir?"

"Awful far, sometimes. It's always liable to be far through the ArivaypaCañon. "

"I didn't expect to make it between meals, " remarked Cumnor. 

"No. Sure. What made you come this route?"

"A man told me. "

"A man? Oh. Well, it _is_ kind o' difficult, I admit, for an Arizonannot to lie to a stranger. But I think I'd have told you to go by TresAlamos and Point of Mountain. It's the road the man that told you wouldchoose himself every time. Do you like Injuns, kid?"

Cumnor snapped eagerly. 

"Of course y'u do. And you've never saw one in the wholeminute-and-a-half you've been alive. I know all about it. "

"I'm not afraid, " said the boy. 

"Not afraid? Of course y'u ain't. What's your idea in going to Carlos?Got town lots there?"

"No, " said the literal youth, to the huge internal diversion of Jones. "There's a man there I used to know back home. He's in the cavalry. What sort of a town is it for sport?" asked Cumnor, in a gay Lothariotone. 

"_Town_?" Specimen Jones caught hold of the top rail of the corral. "_Sport?_ Now I'll tell y'u what sort of a town it is. There ain't nostreets. There ain't no houses. There ain't any land and water in theusual meaning of them words. There's Mount Turnbull. It's pretty near ausual mountain, but y'u don't want to go there. The Creator didn't makeSan Carlos. It's a heap older than Him. When He got around to it afterslickin' up Paradise and them fruit-trees, He just left it to be as Hefound it, as a sample of the way they done business before He comealong. He 'ain't done any work around that spot at all, He 'ain't. Mixup a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions andrattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat yerstones red-hot, and set the United States army loose over the placechasin' Apaches, and you've got San Carlos. "

Cumnor was silent for a moment. "I don't care, " he said. "I want tochase Apaches. "

"Did you see that man Ephraim found by the cañon?" Jones inquired. 

"Didn't get here in time. "

"Well, there was a hole in his chest made by an arrow. But there's noharm in that if you die at wunst. That chap didn't, y'u see. You heardEphraim tell about it. They'd done a number of things to the man beforehe could die. Roastin' was only one of 'em. Now your road takes youthrough the mountains where these Injuns hev gone. Kid, come along toTucson with me, " urged Jones, suddenly. 

Again Cumnor was silent. "Is my road different from other people's?" hesaid, finally. 

"Not to Grant, it ain't. These Mexicans are hauling freight to Grant. But what's the matter with your coming to Tucson with me?"

"I started to go to San Carlos, and I'm going, " said Cumnor. 

"You're a poor chuckle-headed fool!" burst out Jones, in a rage. "Andy'u can go, for all I care--you and your Christmas-tree pistol. Like asnot you won't find your cavalry friend at San Carlos. They've killed alot of them soldiers huntin' Injuns this season. Good-night. "

Specimen Jones was gone. Cumnor walked to his blanket-roll, where hissaddle was slung under the shed. The various doings of the evening hadbruised his nerves. He spread his blankets among the dry cattle-dung, and sat down, taking off a few clothes slowly. He lumped his coat andoveralls under his head for a pillow, and, putting the despised pistolalongside, lay between the blankets. No object showed in the night butthe tall freight-wagon. The tenderfoot thought he had made altogether afool of himself upon the first trial trip of his manhood, alone on theopen sea of Arizona. No man, not even Jones now, was his friend. Astranger, who could have had nothing against him but his inexperience, had taken the trouble to direct him on the wrong road. He did not minddefinite enemies. He had punched the heads of those in Pennsylvania, andwould not object to shooting them here; but this impersonal, surroundinghostility of the unknown was new and bitter: the cruel, assassinating, cowardly Southwest, where prospered those jail-birds whom the vigilanteshad driven from California. He thought of the nameless human carcassthat lay near, buried that day, and of the jokes about its mutilations. Cumnor was not an innocent boy, either in principles or in practice, butthis laughter about a dead body had burned into his young, unhardenedsoul. He lay watching with hot, dogged eyes the brilliant stars. Apassing wind turned the windmill, which creaked a forlorn minute, andceased. He must have gone to sleep and slept soundly, for the next heknew it was the cold air of dawn that made him open his eyes. A numbsilence lay over all things, and the tenderfoot had that moment ofcuriosity as to where he was now which comes to those who have journeyedfor many days. The Mexicans had already departed with theirfreight-wagon. It was not entirely light, and the embers where theseearly starters had cooked their breakfast lay glowing in the sand acrossthe road. The boy remembered seeing a wagon where now he saw only chill, distant peaks, and while he lay quiet and warm, shunning fullconsciousness, there was a stir in the cabin, and at Ephraim's voicereality broke upon his drowsiness, and he recollected Arizona and thekeen stress of shifting for himself. He noted the gray paling round thegrave. Indians? He would catch up with the Mexicans, and travel in theircompany to Grant. Freighters made but fifteen miles in the day, and hecould start after breakfast and be with them before they stopped tonoon. Six men need not worry about Apaches, Cumnor thought. The voice ofSpecimen Jones came from the cabin, and sounds of lighting the stove, and the growling conversation of men getting up. Cumnor, lying in hisblankets, tried to overhear what Jones was saying, for no better reasonthan that this was the only man he had met lately who had seemed to carewhether he were alive or dead. There was the clink of Ephraim'swhiskey-bottles, and the cheerful tones of old Mr. Adams, saying, "It'sbetter 'n brushin' yer teeth"; and then further clinking, and an inquiryfrom Specimen Jones. 

"Whose spurs?" said he. 

"Mine. " This from Mr. Adams. 

"How long have they been yourn?"

"Since I got 'em, I guess. "

"Well, you've enjoyed them spurs long enough. " The voice of SpecimenJones now altered in quality. "And you'll give 'em back to that kid. "

Muttering followed that the boy could not catch. "You'll give 'em back, "repeated Jones. "I seen y'u lift 'em from under that chair when I was inthe corner. "

"That's straight, Mr. Adams, " said Ephraim. "I noticed it myself, thoughI had no objections, of course. But Mr. Jones has pointed out--"

"Since when have you growed so honest, Jones?" cackled Mr. Adams, seeingthat he must lose his little booty. "And why didn't you raise yerobjections when you seen me do it?"

"I didn't know the kid, " Jones explained. "And if it don't strike youthat game blood deserves respect, why it does strike me. "

[Illustration: CUMNOR'S AWAKENING]

Hearing this, the tenderfoot, outside in his shed, thought better ofmankind and life in general, arose from his nest, and began preeninghimself. He had all the correct trappings for the frontier, and histoilet in the shed gave him pleasure. The sun came up, and with astroke struck the world to crystal. The near sand-hills went intorose, the crabbed yucca and the mesquite turned transparent, withlances and pale films of green, like drapery graciously veiling thedesert's face, and distant violet peaks and edges framed the vastenchantment beneath the liquid exhalations of the sky. The smell ofbacon and coffee from open windows filled the heart with bravery andyearning, and Ephraim, putting his head round the corner, called toCumnor that he had better come in and eat. Jones, already at table, gave him the briefest nod; but the spurs were there, replaced asCumnor had left them under a chair in the corner. In Arizona they donot say much at any meal, and at breakfast nothing at all; and asCumnor swallowed and meditated, he noticed the cream-colored lady andthe chain, and he made up his mind he should assert his identity withregard to that business, though how and when was not clear to him. Hewas in no great haste to take up his journey. The society of theMexicans whom he must sooner or later overtake did not tempt him. Whenbreakfast was done he idled in the cabin, like the other guests, whileEphraim and his assistant busied about the premises. But the morninggrew on, and the guests, after a season of smoking and tilted silenceagainst the wall, shook themselves and their effects together, saddled, and were lost among the waste thorny hills. Twenty Milebecame hot and torpid. Jones lay on three consecutive chairs, occasionally singing, and old Mr. Adams had not gone away either, but watched him, with more tobacco running down his beard. 

"Well, " said Cumnor, "I'll be going. "

"Nobody's stopping y'u, " remarked Jones. 

"You're going to Tucson?" the boy said, with the chain problem stillunsolved in his mind. "Good-bye, Mr. Jones. I hope I'll--we'll--"

"That'll do, " said Jones; and the tenderfoot, thrown back by thisseverity, went to get his saddle-horse and his burro. 

Presently Jones remarked to Mr. Adams that he wondered what Ephraim wasdoing, and went out. The old gentleman was left alone in the room, andhe swiftly noticed that the belt and pistol of Specimen Jones were leftalone with him. The accoutrement lay by the chair its owner had beenlounging in. It is an easy thing to remove cartridges from the chambersof a revolver, and replace the weapon in its holster so that everythinglooks quite natural. The old gentleman was entertained with the notionthat somewhere in Tucson Specimen Jones might have a surprise, and hedid not take a minute to prepare this, drop the belt as it lay before, and saunter innocently out of the saloon. Ephraim and Jones werecriticising the tenderfoot's property as he packed his burro. 

"Do y'u make it a rule to travel with ice-cream?" Jones was inquiring. 

"They're for water, " Cumnor said. "They told me at Tucson I'd need tocarry water for three days on some trails. "

It was two good-sized milk-cans that he had, and they bounced about onthe little burro's pack, giving him as much amazement as a jackass canfeel. Jones and Ephraim were hilarious. 

"Don't go without your spurs, Mr. Cumnor, " said the voice of old Mr. Adams, as he approached the group. His tone was particularly civil. 

The tenderfoot had, indeed, forgotten his spurs, and he ran back to getthem. The cream-colored lady still had the chain hanging upon her, andCumnor's problem was suddenly solved. He put the chain in his pocket, and laid the price of one round of drinks for last night's company onthe shelf below the chromo. He returned with his spurs on, and went tohis saddle that lay beside that of Specimen Jones under the shed. Aftera moment he came with his saddle to where the men stood talking by hispony, slung it on, and tightened the cinches; but the chain was now inthe saddle-bag of Specimen Jones, mixed up with some tobacco, stalebread, a box of matches, and a hunk of fat bacon. The men at Twenty Milesaid good-day to the tenderfoot, with monosyllables and indifference, and watched him depart into the heated desert. Wishing for a last lookat Jones, he turned once, and saw the three standing, and the chocolatebrick of the cabin, and the windmill white and idle in the sun. 

"He'll be gutted by night, " remarked Mr. Adams. 

"I ain't buryin' him, then, " said Ephraim. 

"Nor I, " said Specimen Jones. "Well, it's time I was getting to Tucson. "

He went to the saloon, strapped on his pistol, saddled, and rode away. Ephraim and Mr. Adams returned to the cabin; and here is the finalconclusion they came to after three hours of discussion as to who tookthe chain and who had it just then:

 _Ephraim. _ Jones, he hadn't no cash. 

 _Mr. Adams. _ The kid, he hadn't no sense. 

 _Ephraim. _ The kid, he lent the cash to Jones. 

 _Mr. Adams. _ Jones, he goes off with his chain. 

 _Both. _ What damn fools everybody is, anyway!

And they went to dinner. But Mr. Adams did not mention his relationswith Jones's pistol. Let it be said, in extenuation of thatperformance, that Mr. Adams supposed Jones was going to Tucson, where hesaid he was going, and where a job and a salary were awaiting him. InTucson an unloaded pistol in the holster of so handy a man on the dropas was Specimen would keep people civil, because they would not know, any more than the owner, that it was unloaded; and the mere possessionof it would be sufficient in nine chances out of ten--though it wasundoubtedly for the tenth that Mr. Adams had a sneaking hope. ButSpecimen Jones was not going to Tucson. A contention in his mind as towhether he would do what was good for himself, or what was good foranother, had kept him sullen ever since he got up. Now it was settled, and Jones in serene humor again. Of course he had started on the Tucsonroad, for the benefit of Ephraim and Mr. Adams. 

The tenderfoot rode along. The Arizona sun beat down upon the deadlysilence, and the world was no longer of crystal, but a mesa, dull andgray and hot. The pony's hoofs grated in the gravel, and after a timethe road dived down and up among lumpy hills of stone and cactus, alwaysnearer the fierce glaring Sierra Santa Catalina. It dipped so abruptlyin and out of the shallow sudden ravines that, on coming up from one ofthese into sight of the country again, the tenderfoot's heart jumped atthe close apparition of another rider quickly bearing in upon him fromgullies where he had been moving unseen. But it was only Specimen Jones. 

"Hello!" said he, joining Cumnor. "Hot, ain't it?"

"Where are you going?" inquired Cumnor. 

"Up here a ways. " And Jones jerked his finger generally towards theSierra, where they were heading. 

"Thought you had a job in Tucson. "

"That's what I have. "

Specimen Jones had no more to say, and they rode for a while, theirponies' hoofs always grating in the gravel, and the milk-cans lightlyclanking on the burro's pack. The bunched blades of the yuccas bristledsteel-stiff, and as far as you could see it was a gray waste of moundsand ridges sharp and blunt, up to the forbidding boundary walls of theTortilita one way and the Santa Catalina the other. Cumnor wondered ifJones had found the chain. Jones was capable of not finding it forseveral weeks, or of finding it at once and saying nothing. 

"You'll excuse my meddling with your business?" the boy hazarded. 

Jones looked inquiring. 

"Something's wrong with your saddle-pocket. "

Specimen saw nothing apparently wrong with it, but perceiving Cumnor wasgrinning, unbuckled the pouch. He looked at the boy rapidly, and lookedaway again, and as he rode, still in silence, he put the chain backround his neck below the flannel shirt-collar. 

"Say, kid, " he remarked, after some time, "what does J stand for?"

"J? Oh, my name! Jock. "

"Well, Jock, will y'u explain to me as a friend how y'u ever come to besuch a fool as to leave yer home--wherever and whatever it was--inexchange for this here God-forsaken and iniquitous hole?"

"If you'll explain to me, " said the boy, greatly heartened, "how youcome to be ridin' in the company of a fool, instead of goin' to your jobat Tucson. "

The explanation was furnished before Specimen Jones had framed hisreply. A burning freight-wagon and five dismembered human stumps lay inthe road. This was what had happened to the Miguels and Serapios and theconcertina. Jones and Cumnor, in their dodging and struggles to excludeall expressions of growing mutual esteem from their speech, hadforgotten their journey, and a sudden bend among the rocks where theroad had now brought them revealed the blood and fire staring them inthe face. The plundered wagon was three parts empty; its splintered, blazing boards slid down as they burned into the fiery heap on theground; packages of soda and groceries and medicines slid with them, bursting into chemical spots of green and crimson flame; a wheel crushedin and sank, spilling more packages that flickered and hissed; thegarbage of combat and murder littered the earth, and in the air hung anodor that Cumnor knew, though he had never smelled it before. Morsels ofdropped booty up among the rocks showed where the Indians had gone, andone horse remained, groaning, with an accidental arrow in his belly. 

"We'll just kill him, " said Jones; and his pistol snapped idly, andsnapped again, as his eye caught a motion--a something--two hundredyards up among the bowlders on the hill. He whirled round. The enemy wasbehind them also. There was no retreat. "Yourn's no good!" yelled Jones, fiercely, for Cumnor was getting out his little, foolish revolver. "Oh, what a trick to play on a man! Drop off yer horse, kid; drop, and dolike me. Shootin's no good here, even if I was loaded. _They_ shot, andlook at them now. God bless them ice-cream freezers of yourn, kid! Didy'u ever see a crazy man? If you 'ain't, _make it up as y'u go along_!"

More objects moved up among the bowlders. Specimen Jones ripped offthe burro's pack, and the milk-cans rolled on the ground. The burrobegan grazing quietly, with now and then a step towards new patches ofgrass. The horses stood where their riders had left them, their reinsover their heads, hanging and dragging. From two hundred yards on thehill the ambushed Apaches showed, their dark, scattered figuresappearing cautiously one by one, watching with suspicion. SpecimenJones seized up one milk-can, and Cumnor obediently did the same. 

[Illustration: THE MEXICAN FREIGHT-WAGON]

"You kin dance, kid, and I kin sing, and we'll go to it, " said Jones. Herambled in a wavering loop, and diving eccentrically at Cumnor, clashedthe milk-cans together. "'Es schallt ein Ruf wie Donnerhall, '" hebawled, beginning the song of "Die Wacht am Rhein. " "Why don't youdance?" he shouted, sternly. The boy saw the terrible earnestness of hisface, and, clashing his milk-cans in turn, he shuffled a sort of jig. The two went over the sand in loops, toe and heel; the donkey continuedhis quiet grazing, and the flames rose hot and yellow from thefreight-wagon. And all the while the stately German hymn pealed amongthe rocks, and the Apaches crept down nearer the bowing, scraping men. The sun shone bright, and their bodies poured with sweat. Jones flungoff his shirt; his damp, matted hair was half in ridges and half gluedto his forehead, and the delicate gold chain swung and struck his broad, naked breast. The Apaches drew nearer again, their bows and arrows helduncertainly. They came down the hill, fifteen or twenty, taking a longtime, and stopping every few yards. The milk-cans clashed, and Jonesthought he felt the boy's strokes weakening. "Die Wacht am Rhein" wasfinished, and now it was "'Ha-ve you seen my Flora pass this way?'""Y'u mustn't play out, kid, " said Jones, very gently. "Indeed y'umustn't;" and he at once resumed his song. The silent Apaches had nowreached the bottom of the hill. They stood some twenty yards away, andCumnor had a good chance to see his first Indians. He saw them move, andthe color and slim shape of their bodies, their thin arms, and theirlong, black hair. It went through his mind that if he had no moreclothes on than that, dancing would come easier. His boots were growingheavy to lift, and his overalls seemed to wrap his sinews in wet, strangling thongs. He wondered how long he had been keeping this up. Thelegs of the Apaches were free, with light moccasins only half-way to thethigh, slenderly held up by strings from the waist. Cumnor envied theirunencumbered steps as he saw them again walk nearer to where he wasdancing. It was long since he had eaten, and he noticed a singingdulness in his brain, and became frightened at his thoughts, which wererunning and melting into one fixed idea. This idea was to take off hisboots, and offer to trade them for a pair of moccasins. It terrifiedhim--this endless, molten rush of thoughts; he could see them coming indifferent shapes from different places in his head, but they all joinedimmediately, and always formed the same fixed idea. He ground his teethto master this encroaching inebriation of his will and judgment. Heclashed his can more loudly to wake him to reality, which he still couldrecognize and appreciate. For a time he found it a good plan to listento what Specimen Jones was singing, and tell himself the name of thesong, if he knew it. At present it was "Yankee Doodle, " to which Joneswas fitting words of his own. These ran, "Now I'm going to try a bluff. And mind you do what I do"; and then again, over and over. Cumnor waitedfor the word "bluff"; for it was hard and heavy, and fell into histhoughts, and stopped them for a moment. The dance was so long now hehad forgotten about that. A numbness had been spreading through hislegs, and he was glad to feel a sharp pain in the sole of his foot. Itwas a piece of gravel that had somehow worked its way in, and wasrubbing through the skin into the flesh. "That's good, " he said, aloud. The pebble was eating the numbness away, and Cumnor drove it hardagainst the raw spot, and relished the tonic of its burning friction. The Apaches had drawn into a circle. Standing at some interval apart, they entirely surrounded the arena. Shrewd, half convinced, and yet withawe, they watched the dancers, who clashed their cans slowly now inrhythm to Jones's hoarse, parched singing. He was quite master ofhimself, and led the jig round the still blazing wreck of the wagon, andcircled in figures of eight between the corpses of the Mexicans, clashing the milk-cans above each one. Then, knowing his strength wascoming to an end, he approached an Indian whose splendid fillet andtrappings denoted him of consequence; and Jones was near shouting withrelief when the Indian shrank backward. Suddenly he saw Cumnor let hiscan drop, and without stopping to see why, he caught it up, and, slowlyrattling both, approached each Indian in turn with tortuous steps. Thecircle that had never uttered a sound till now receded, chanting almostin a whisper some exorcising song which the man with the fillet hadbegun. They gathered round him, retreating always, and the strain, withits rapid muttered words, rose and fell softly among them. Jones hadsupposed the boy was overcome by faintness, and looked to see where helay. But it was not faintness. Cumnor, with his boots off, came by andwalked after the Indians in a trance. They saw him, and quickened theirpace, often turning to be sure he was not overtaking them. He called tothem unintelligibly, stumbling up the sharp hill, and pointing to theboots. Finally he sat down. They continued ascending the mountain, herding close round the man with the feathers, until the rocks and thefilmy tangles screened them from sight; and like a wind that humsuncertainly in grass, their chanting died away. 

The sun was half behind the western range when Jones next moved. Hecalled, and, getting no answer, he crawled painfully to where the boylay on the hill. Cumnor was sleeping heavily; his head was hot, and hemoaned. So Jones crawled down, and fetched blankets and the canteen ofwater. He spread the blankets over the boy, wet a handkerchief and laidit on his forehead; then he lay down himself. 

The earth was again magically smitten to crystal. Again the sharp cactusand the sand turned beautiful, and violet floated among the mountains, and rose-colored orange in the sky above them. 

"Jock, " said Specimen at length. 

The boy opened his eyes. 

"Your foot is awful, Jock. Can y'u eat?"

"Not with my foot. "

"Ah, God bless y'u, Jock! Y'u ain't turruble sick. But _can_ y'u eat?"

Cumnor shook his head. 

"Eatin's what y'u need, though. Well, here. " Specimen poured a judiciousmixture of whiskey and water down the boy's throat, and wrapped theawful foot in his own flannel shirt. "They'll fix y'u over to Grant. It's maybe twelve miles through the cañon. It ain't a town any more thanCarlos is, but the soldiers'll be good to us. As soon as night comes youand me must somehow git out of this. "

Somehow they did, Jones walking and leading his horse and theimperturbable little burro, and also holding Cumnor in the saddle. Andwhen Cumnor was getting well in the military hospital at Grant, helistened to Jones recounting to all that chose to hear how useful aweapon an ice-cream freezer can be, and how if you'll only chase Apachesin your stocking feet they are sure to run away. And then Jones andCumnor both enlisted; and I suppose Jones's friend is still expectinghim in Tucson. 

THE SERENADE AT SISKIYOU

Unskilled at murder and without training in running away, one of the twoHealy boys had been caught with ease soon after their crime. What theyhad done may be best learned in the following extract from a certainofficial report:

 "The stage was within five miles of its destination when it was confronted by the usual apparition of a masked man levelling a double-barrelled shot-gun at the driver, and the order to 'Pull up, and throw out the express box. ' The driver promptly complied. Meanwhile the guard, Buck Montgomery, who occupied a seat inside, from which he caught a glimpse of what was going on, opened fire at the robber, who dropped to his knees at the first shot, but a moment later discharged both barrels of his gun at the stage. The driver dropped from his seat to the foot-board with five buckshot in his right leg near the knee, and two in his left leg; a passenger by his side also dropped with three or four buckshot in his legs. Before the guard could reload, two shots came from behind the bushes back of the exposed robber, and Buck fell to the bottom of the stage mortally wounded--shot through the back. The whole murderous sally occupied but a few seconds, and the order came to 'Drive on. ' Officers and citizens quickly started in pursuit, and the next day one of the robbers, a well-known young man of that vicinity, son of a respectable farmer in Fresno County, was overtaken and arrested. "

Feeling had run high in the streets of Siskiyou when the prisoner wasbrought into town, and the wretch's life had come near a violent end atthe hands of the mob, for Buck Montgomery had many friends. But thesteadier citizens preserved the peace, and the murderer was in theprison awaiting his trial by formal law. It was now some weeks since thetragedy, and Judge Campbell sat at breakfast reading his paper. 

"Why, that is excellent!" he suddenly exclaimed. 

"May I ask what is excellent, judge?" inquired his wife. She had a bignose. 

"They've caught the other one, Amanda. Got him last evening in arestaurant at Woodland. " The judge read the paragraph to Mrs. Campbell, who listened severely. "And so, " he concluded, "when to-night's traingets up, we'll have them both safe in jail. "

Mrs. Campbell dallied over her eggs, shaking her head. Presently shesighed. But as Amanda often did this, her husband finished his own eggsand took some more. "Poor boy!" said the lady, pensively. "Onlytwenty-three last 12th of October. What a cruel fate!"

Now the judge supposed she referred to the murdered man. "Yes, " he said. "Vile. You've got him romantically young, my dear. I understood he wasthirty-five. "

"I know his age perfectly, Judge Campbell. I made it my business to findout. And to think his brother might actually have been lynched!"

"I never knew that either. You seem to have found out all about thefamily, Amanda. What were they going to lynch the brother for?"

The ample lady folded her fat, middle-aged hands on the edge of thetable, and eyed her husband with bland displeasure. "Judge Campbell!"she uttered, and her lips shut wide and firm. She would restrainherself, if possible. 

"Well, my dear?"

"You ask me that. You pretend ignorance of that disgraceful scene. Whowas it said to me right in the street that he disapproved of lynching? Iask you, judge, who was it right there at the jail--"

"Oh!" said the enlightened judge. 

"--Right at the left-hand side of the door of the jail in this town ofSiskiyou, who was it got that trembling boy safe inside from thoseyelling fiends and talked to the crowd on a barrel of number ten nails, and made those wicked men stop and go home?"

"Amanda, I believe I recognize myself. "

"I should think you did, Judge Campbell. And now they've caught theother one, and he'll be up with the sheriff on to-night's train, and Isuppose they'll lynch _him_ now!"

"There's not the slightest danger, " said the judge. "The town wants themto have a fair trial. It was natural that immediately after such anatrocious act--"

"Those poor boys had never murdered anybody before in their lives, "interrupted Amanda. 

"But they did murder Montgomery, you will admit. "

"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Campbell, with impatience. "I saw the hole in hisback. You needn't tell me all that again. If he'd thrown out the expressbox quicker they wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head. Wells andFargo's messengers know that perfectly. It was his own fault. Those boyshad no employment, and they only wanted money. They did not seek humanblood, and you needn't tell me they did. "

"They shed it, however, Amanda. Quite a lot of it. Stage-driver and apassenger too. "

"Yes, you keep going back to that as if they'd all been murdered insteadof only one, and you don't care about those two poor boys locked in adungeon, and their gray-haired father down in Fresno County who neverdid anything wrong at all, and he sixty-one in December. "

"The county isn't thinking of hanging the old gentleman, " said thejudge. 

"That will do, Judge Campbell, " said his lady, rising. "I shall say nomore. Total silence for the present is best for you and best for me. Much best. I will leave you to think of your speech, which was by nomeans silver. Not even life with you for twenty-five years this coming10th of July has inured me to insult. I am capable of understanding whomthey think of hanging, and your speaking to me as if I did not does youlittle credit; for it was a mere refuge from a woman's just accusationof heartlessness which you felt, and like a man would not acknowledge;and therefore it is that I say no more but leave you to go down thestreet to the Ladies' Lyceum where I shall find companions with somespark of humanity in their bosoms and milk of human kindness for thosewhose hasty youth has plunged them in misery and delivered them to thehands of those who treat them as if they were stones and sticks full ofnothing but monstrosity instead of breathing men like themselves to beshielded by brotherhood and hope and not dashed down by cruelty anddespair. "

It had begun stately as a dome, with symmetry and punctuation, but theclimax was untrammelled by a single comma. The orator swept from theroom, put on her bonnet and shawl, and the judge, still sitting with hiseggs, heard the front door close behind her. She was president of theLadies' Reform and Literary Lyceum, and she now trod thitherward throughSiskiyou. 

"I think Amanda will find companions there, " mused the judge. "But hernotions of sympathy beat me. " The judge had a small, wise blue eye, andhe liked his wife more than well. She was sincerely good, and had beenvery courageous in their young days of poverty. She loved their son, andshe loved him. Only, when she took to talking, he turned up a mentalcoat-collar and waited. But if the male sex did not appreciate herpowers of eloquence her sister citizens did; and Mrs. Campbell, besidespresiding at the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum in Siskiyou, oftenaddressed female meetings in Ashland, Yreka, and even as far away asTehama and Redding. She found companions this morning. 

"To think of it!" they exclaimed, at her news of the capture, for nonehad read the paper. They had been too busy talking of the next debate, which was upon the question, "Ought we to pray for rain?" But now theyinstantly forgot the wide spiritual issues raised by this inquiry, andplunged into the fascinations of crime, reciting once more to each otherthe details of the recent tragedy. The room hired for the Lyceum was ina second story above the apothecary and book shop--a combined enterprisein Siskiyou--and was furnished with fourteen rocking-chairs. Pictures ofMount Shasta and Lucretia Mott ornamented the wall, with a photographfrom an old master representing Leda and the Swan. This typified theLyceum's approval of Art, and had been presented by one of the husbandsupon returning from a three days' business trip to San Francisco. 

"Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Parsons, after they had all shuddered anew overthe shooting and the blood. "With so much suffering in the world, howfulsome seems that gay music!" She referred to the Siskiyou brass-band, which was rehearsing the march from "Fatinitza" in an adjacent room inthe building. Mrs. Parsons had large, mournful eyes, a poeticvocabulary, and wanted to be president of the Lyceum herself. 

"Melody has its sphere, Gertrude, " said Mrs. Campbell, in a wholesomevoice. "We must not be morbid. But this I say to you, one and all: Sincethe men of Siskiyou refuse, it is for the women to vindicate the town'shumanity, and show some sympathy for the captive who arrives to-night. "

They all thought so too. 

"I do not criticise, " continued their president, magnanimously, "nor doI complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, andthe most sacred is Woman's own--to console!"

"True, true!" murmured Mrs. Slocum. 

"We must do something for the prisoner, to show him we do not desert himin his hour of need, " Mrs. Campbell continued. 

"We'll go and meet the train!" Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, eagerly. "I'venever seen a real murderer. "

"A bunch of flowers for him, " said Mrs. Parsons, closing her mournfuleyes. "Roses. " And she smiled faintly. 

"Oh, lilies!" cried little Mrs. Day, with rapture. "Lilies would look_real_ nice. "

"Don't you think, " said Miss Sissons, who had not spoken before, and sata little apart from the close-drawn clump of talkers, "that we mightsend the widow some flowers too, some time?" Miss Sissons was a prettygirl, with neat hair. She was engaged to the captain of Siskiyou'sbaseball nine. 

"The widow?" Mrs. Campbell looked vague. 

"Mrs. Montgomery, I mean--the murdered man's wife. I--I went to see if Icould do anything, for she has some children; but she wouldn't see me, "said Miss Sissons. "She said she couldn't talk to anybody. "

"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Campbell. "I dare say it was a dreadful shock toher. Yes, dear, we'll attend to her after a while. We'll have her withus right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may--may be--maysoon meet a cruel death on the scaffold. " Mrs. Campbell evaded thephrase "may be hanged" rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical senseit had seemed to lack dignity. 

"So young!" said Mrs. Day. 

"And both so full of promise, to be cut off!" said Mrs. Parsons. 

"Why, they can't hang them both, I should think, " said Miss Sissons. "Ithought only one killed Mr. Montgomery. "

"My dear Louise, " said Mrs. Campbell, "they can do anything they want, and they will. Shall I ever forget those ruffians who wanted to lynchthe first one? They'll be on the jury!"

The clump returned to their discussion of the flowers, and Miss Sissonspresently mentioned she had some errands to do, and departed. 

"Would that that girl had more soul!" said Mrs. Parsons. 

"She has plenty of soul, " replied Mrs. Campbell, "but she's under theinfluence of a man. Well, as I was saying, roses and lilies are toobig. "

"Oh, _why_?" said Mrs. Day. "They would _please_ him so. "

"He couldn't carry them, Mrs. Day. I've thought it all out. He'll bewalked to the jail between strong men. We must have some small bokay topin on his coat, for his hands will be shackled. "

"You don't say!" cried Mrs. Slocum. "How awful! I must get to thattrain. I've never seen a man in shackles in my life. "

So violets were selected; Mrs. Campbell brought some in the afternoonfrom her own borders, and Mrs. Parsons furnished a large pin. Sheclaimed also the right to affix the decoration upon the prisoner'sbreast because she had suggested the idea of flowers; but the otherladies protested, and the president seemed to think that they all shoulddraw lots. It fell to Mrs. Day. 

"Now I declare!" twittered the little matron. "I do believe I'll neverdare. "

"You must say something to him, " said Amanda; "something fitting andchoice. "

"Oh dear no, Mrs. Campbell. Why, I never--my gracious! Why, if I'd knownI was expected--Really, I couldn't think--I'll let _you_ do it!"

"We can't hash up the ceremony that way, Mrs. Day, " said Amanda, severely. And as they all fell arguing, the whistle blew. 

"There!" said Mrs. Slocum. "Now you've made me late, and I'll miss theshackles and everything. "

She flew down-stairs, and immediately the town of Siskiyou saw twelvemembers of the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum follow her in a hastyphalanx across the square to the station. The train approached slowly upthe grade, and by the time the wide smoke-stack of the locomotive waspuffing its wood smoke in clouds along the platform, Amanda hadmarshalled her company there. 

"Where's the gals all goin', Bill?" inquired a large citizen in boots ofthe ticket-agent. 

"Nowheres, I guess, Abe, " the agent replied. "Leastways, they 'ain'tbought any tickets off me. "

"Maybe they're for stealin' a ride, " said Abe. 

The mail and baggage cars had passed, and the women watched thesmoking-car that drew up opposite them. Mrs. Campbell had informed herfriends that the sheriff always went in the smoker; but on thisoccasion, for some reason, he had brought his prisoner in the Pullmansleeper at the rear, some way down the track, and Amanda's vigilant eyesuddenly caught the group, already descended and walking away. Theplatoon of sympathy set off, and rapidly came up with the sheriff, whileBill, Abe, the train conductor, the Pullman conductor, the engineer, andthe fireman abandoned their duty, and stared, in company with thebrakemen and many passengers. There was perfect silence but for thepumping of the air-brake on the engine. The sheriff, not understandingwhat was coming, had half drawn his pistol; but now, surrounded byuniversal petticoats, he pulled off his hat and grinned doubtfully. Thefriend with him also stood bareheaded and grinning. He was young JimHornbrook, the muscular betrothed of Miss Sissons. The prisoner couldnot remove his hat, or he would have done so. Miss Sissons, who had cometo the train to meet her lover, was laughing extremely in the middle ofthe road. 

"Take these violets, " faltered Mrs. Day, and held out the bunch, backingaway slightly at the same time. 

"Nonsense, " said Amanda, stepping forward and grasping the flowers. "Thewomen of Siskiyou are with you, " she said, "as we are with all theafflicted. " Then she pinned the violets firmly to the prisoner's flannelshirt. His face, at first amazed as the sheriff's and Hornbrook's, smoothed into cunning and vanity, while Hornbrook's turned an angry red, and the sheriff stopped grinning. 

"Them flowers would look better on Buck Montgomery's grave, madam, " saidthe officer. "Maybe you'll let us pass now. " They went on to the jail. 

"Waal, " said Abe, on the platform, "that's the most disgustin' foolthing I ever did see. "

"All aboa-rd!" said the conductor, and the long train continued its wayto Portland. 

The platoon, well content, dispersed homeward to supper, and JimHornbrook walked home with his girl. 

"For Lord's sake, Louise, " he said, "who started that move?"

She told him the history of the morning. 

"Well, " he said, "you tell Mrs. Campbell, with my respects, that she'sjust playing with fire. A good woman like her ought to have more sense. Those men are going to have a fair trial. "

"She wouldn't listen to me, Jim, not a bit. And, do you know, she reallydidn't seem to feel sorry--except just for a minute--about that poorwoman. "

"Louise, why don't you quit her outfit?"

"Resign from the Lyceum? That's so silly of you, Jim. We're not allcrazy there; and that, " said Miss Sissons, demurely, "is what makes agirl like me so valuable!"

"Well, I'm not stuck on having you travel with that lot. "

"They speak better English than you do, Jim dear. Don't! in the street!"

"Sho! It's dark now, " said Jim. "And it's been three whole days since--"But Miss Sissons escaped inside her gate and rang the bell. "Now seehere, Louise, " he called after her, "when I say they're playing withfire I mean it. That woman will make trouble in this town. "

"She's not afraid, " said Miss Sissons. "Don't you know enough about usyet to know we can't be threatened?"

"You!" said the young man. "I wasn't thinking of you. " And so theyseparated. 

Mrs. Campbell sat opposite the judge at supper, and he saw at once fromher complacent reticence that she had achieved some triumph against hisprinciples. She chatted about topics of the day in terms that wereingeniously trite. Then a letter came from their son in Denver, and sheforgot her rôle somewhat, and read the letter aloud to the judge, andwondered wistfully who in Denver attended to the boy's buttons andsocks; but she made no reference whatever to Siskiyou jail or thoseinside it. Next morning, however, it was the judge's turn to be angry. 

"Amanda, " he said, over the paper again, "you had better stick to socks, and leave criminals alone. "

Amanda gazed at space with a calm smile. 

"And I'll tell you one thing, my dear, " her husband said, moreincisively, "it don't look well that I should represent the law while mywife figures" (he shook the morning paper) "as a public nuisance. Andone thing more: _Look out!_ For if I know this community, and I think Ido, you may raise something you don't bargain for. "

"I can take care of myself, judge, " said Amanda, always smiling. Thesetwo never were angry both at once, and to-day it was the judge thatsailed out of the house. Amanda pounced instantly upon the paper. Thearticle was headed "Sweet Violets. " But the editorial satire onlyspurred the lady to higher efforts. She proceeded to the Lyceum, andfound that "Sweet Violets" had been there before her. Every woman held acopy, and the fourteen rocking-chairs were swooping up and down likethings in a factory. In the presence of this blizzard, Mount Shasta, Lucretia Mott, and even Leda and the Swan looked singularly serene ontheir wall, although on the other side of the wall the "Fatinitza" marchwas booming brilliantly. But Amanda quieted the storm. It was her giftto be calm when others were not, and soon the rocking-chairs were merelyrippling. 

"The way my boys scolded me--" began Mrs. Day. 

"For men I care not, " said Mrs. Parsons. "But when my own sisterupbraids me in a public place--" The lady's voice ceased, and she raisedher mournful eyes. It seemed she had encountered her unnatural relativeat the post-office. Everybody had a tale similar. Siskiyou had denouncedtheir humane act. 

"Let them act ugly, " said Mrs. Slocum. "We will not swerve. "

"I sent roses this morning, " said Mrs. Parsons. 

"_Did_ you, dear?" said Mrs. Day. "My lilies shall go this afternoon. "

"Here is a letter from the prisoner, " said Amanda, producing thetreasure; and they huddled to hear it. It was very affecting. Itmentioned the violets blooming beside the hard couch, and spoke ofprayer. 

"He had lovely hair, " said Mrs. Slocum. 

"_So_ brown!" said Mrs. Day. 

"Black, my dear, and curly. "

"Light brown. I was a good deal closer, Susan--"

"Never mind about his hair, " said Amanda. "We are here not to flinch. Wemust act. Our course is chosen, and well chosen. The prison fare is asin, and a beefsteak goes to them both at noon from my house. "

"Oh, why didn't we ever think of that before?" cried the ladies, in anecstasy, and fell to planning a series of lunches in spite of whatSiskiyou might say or do. Siskiyou did not say very much; but it looked;and the ladies waxed more enthusiastic, luxuriating in a sense ofmartyrdom because now the prisoners were stopped writing any moreletters to them. This was doubtless a high-handed step, and it setcertain pulpits preaching about love. The day set for the trial wasapproaching; Amanda and her flock were going. Prayer-meetings were held, food and flowers for the two in jail increased in volume, and every daysaw some of the Lyceum waiting below the prisoners' barred windows tillthe men inside would thrust a hand through and wave to them; then theywould shake a handkerchief in reply, and go away thrilled to talk itover at the Lyceum. And Siskiyou looked on all the while, darker anddarker. 

Then finally Amanda had a great thought. Listening to "Fatinitza" onemorning, she suddenly arose and visited Herr Schwartz, the band-master. Herr Schwartz was a wise and well-educated German. They had a lengthyconference. 

"I don't pelief dot vill be very goot, " said the band-master. 

But at that Amanda talked a good deal; and the worthy Teuton was soonbewildered, and at last gave a dubious consent, "since it would bleasede ladies. "

The president of the Lyceum arranged the coming event after her ownheart. The voice of Woman should speak in Siskiyou. The helpless victimsof male prejudice and the law of the land were to be flanked withconsolation and encouragement upon the eve of their ordeal in court. Intheir lonely cell they were to feel that there were those outside whosehearts beat with theirs. The floral tribute was to be sumptuous, andAmanda had sent to San Francisco for pound-cake. The special quality shedesired could not be achieved by the Siskiyou confectioner. 

Miss Sissons was not a party to this enterprise, and she told itsvarious details to Jim Hornbrook, half in anger, half in derision. Helistened without comment, and his face frightened her a little. 

"Jim, what's the matter?" said she. 

"Are you going to be at that circus?" he inquired. 

"I thought I might just look on, you know, " said Miss Sissons. "Mrs. Campbell and a brass-band--"

"You'll stay in the house that night, Louise. "

"Why, the ring isn't on my finger yet, " laughed the girl, "the fatalpromise of obedience--" But she stopped, perceiving her joke was not agood one. "Of course, Jim, if you feel that way, " she finished. "OnlyI'm grown up, and I like reasons. "

"Well--that's all right too. "

"Ho, ho! All right! Thank you, sir. Dear me!"

"Why, it ain't to please me, Louise; indeed it ain't. I can't sweareverything won't be nice and all right and what a woman could be mixedup in, but--well, how should you know what men are, anyway, when they'vebeen a good long time getting mad, and are mad all through? That's whatthis town is to-day, Louise. "

"I don't know, " said Miss Sissons, "and I'm sure I'd rather not know. "And so she gave her promise. "But I shouldn't suppose, " she added, "thatthe men of Siskiyou, mad or not, would forget that women are women. "

Jim laughed. "Oh no, " he said, "they ain't going to forget that. "

The appointed day came; and the train came, several hours late, bearingthe box of confectionery, addressed to the Ladies' Reform and LiteraryLyceum. Bill, the ticket-agent, held his lantern over it on theplatform. 

"That's the cake, " said he. 

"What cake?" Abe inquired. 

Bill told him the rumor. 

"Cake?" repeated Abe. "Fer them?" and he tilted his head towards thejail. "Will you say that again, friend? I ain't clear about it. _Cake_, did ye say?"

"Pound-cake, " said Bill. "Ordered special from San Francisco. "

Now pound-cake for adults is considered harmless. But it is curious howunwholesome a harmless thing can be if administered at the wrong time. The gaunt, savage-looking Californian went up to the box slowly. Then hekicked it lightly with his big boot, seeming to listen to itsreverberation. Then he read the address. Then he sat down on the box totake a think. After a time he began speaking aloud. "They hold up astage, " he said, slowly. "They lay up a passenger fer a month. And theylame Bob Griffiths fer life. And then they do up Buck. Shoot a holethrough his spine. And I helped bury him; fer I liked Buck. " The speakerpaused, and looked at the box. Then he got up. "I hain't attended theirprayer-meetin's, " said he, "and I hain't smelt their flowers. Suchperfume's liable to make me throw up. But I guess I'll hev a look attheir cake. "

He went to the baggage-room and brought an axe. The axe descended, and asplintered slat flew across the platform. "There's a lot of cake, " saidAbe. The top of the packing-case crashed on the railroad track, andthree new men gathered to look on. "It's fresh cake too, " remarked thedestroyer. The box now fell to pieces, and the tattered paper wrappingwas ripped away. "Step up, boys, " said Abe, for a little crowd was therenow. "Soft, ain't it?" They slung the cake about and tramped it in thegrime and oil, and the boards of the box were torn apart and whirledaway. There was a singular and growing impulse about all this. No onesaid anything; they were very quiet; yet the crowd grew quickly, as ifcalled together by something in the air. One voice said, "Don't forgitwe're all relyin' on yer serenade, Mark, " and this raised a strangeunited laugh that broke brief and loud, and stopped, leaving the silencedeeper than before. Mark and three more left, and walked towards theLyceum. They were members of the Siskiyou band, and as they went onesaid that the town would see an interesting trial in the morning. Soonafter they had gone the crowd moved from the station, compact and swift. 

Meanwhile the Lyceum had been having disappointments. When the train wasknown to be late, Amanda had abandoned bestowing the cake until morning. But now a horrid thing had happened: the Siskiyou band refused itsservices! The rocking-chairs were plying strenuously; but Amanda strodeup and down in front of Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott. 

Herr Schwartz entered. "It's all right, madam, " said he. "My trombonehaf come back, und--"

"You'll play?" demanded the president. 

"We blay for de ladies. "

The rocking-chairs were abandoned; the Lyceum put on its bonnet andshawl, and marshalled down-stairs with the band. 

"Ready, " said Amanda. 

"Ready, " said Herr Schwartz to his musicians. "Go a leedle easy mit derAllegro, or we bust 'Fatinitza. '"

The spirited strains were lifted in Siskiyou, and the procession wassoon at the jail in excellent order. They came round the corner with thetrombone going as well as possible. Two jerking bodies dangled at theend of ropes, above the flare of torches. Amanda and her flock wereshrieking. 

"So!" exclaimed Herr Schwartz. "Dot was dose Healy boys we haf come togif serenade. " He signed to stop the music. 

"No you don't, " said two of the masked crowd, closing in with pistols. "You'll play fer them fellers till you're told to quit. "

"Cerdainly, " said the philosophical Teuton. "Only dey gif brobably veryleedle attention to our Allegro. "

So "Fatinitza" trumpeted on while the two on the ropes twisted, and grewstill by-and-by. Then the masked men let the band go home. The Lyceumhad scattered and fled long since, and many days passed before itrevived again to civic usefulness, nor did its members find comfort fromtheir men. Herr Schwartz gave a parting look at the bodies of thelynched murderers. "My!" said he, "das Ewigweibliche haf draw them apovesure enough. "

Miss Sissons next day was walking and talking off her shock andexcitement with her lover. "And oh, Jim, " she concluded, after they hadsaid a good many things, "you hadn't anything to do with it, had you?"The young man did not reply, and catching a certain expression on hisface, she hastily exclaimed: "Never mind! I don't want to know--ever!"

So James Hornbrook kissed his sweetheart for saying that, and theycontinued their walk among the pleasant hills. 

THE GENERAL'S BLUFF

The troops this day had gone into winter-quarters, and sat down to killthe idle time with pleasure until spring. After two hundred and fortydays it is a good thing to sit down. The season had been spent intrailing, and sometimes catching, small bands of Indians. These hadtaken the habit of relieving settlers of their cattle and the tops oftheir heads. The weather-beaten troops had scouted over some twothousand aimless, veering miles, for the savages were fleet and mostlyinvisible, and knew the desert well. So, while the year turned, and theheat came, held sway, and went, the ragged troopers on the frontier wereled an endless chase by the hostiles, who took them back and forth overflats of lime and ridges of slate, occasionally picking off a packer ora couple of privates, until now the sun was setting at 4. 28 and it frozeat any time of day. Therefore the rest of the packers and privates wereglad to march into Boisé Barracks this morning by eleven, and see astove. 

They rolled for a moment on their bunks to get the feel of a bunk againafter two hundred and forty days; they ate their dinner at a table;those who owned any further baggage than that which partially coveredtheir nakedness unpacked it, perhaps nailed up a photograph or two, andfound it grateful to sit and do nothing under a roof and listen to thegrated snow whip the windows of the gray sandstone quarters. Suchcomfort, and the prospect of more ahead, of weeks of nothing but postduty and staying in the same place, obliterated Dry Camp, Cow CreekLake, the blizzard on Meacham's Hill, the horse-killing in the John DayValley, Saw-Tooth stampede, and all the recent evils of the past; thequarters hummed with cheerfulness. The nearest railroad was some fourhundred miles to the southeast, slowly constructing to meet the nextnearest, which was some nine hundred to the southeast; but Boisé Citywas only three-quarters of a mile away, the largest town in theTerritory, the capital, not a temperance town, a winter resort; andseveral hundred people lived in it, men and women, few of whom ever diedin their beds. The coming days and nights were a luxury to think of. 

"Blamed if there ain't a real tree!" exclaimed Private Jones. 

"Thet eer ain't no tree, ye plum; thet's the flag-pole 'n' th' Merrickinflag, " observed a civilian. His name was Jack Long, and he waspack-master. 

Sergeant Keyser, listening, smiled. During the winter of '64-65 he hadbeen in command of the first battalion of his regiment, but, on a theoryof education, had enlisted after the war. This being known, held the menmore shy of him than was his desire. 

Jones continued to pick his banjo, while a boyish trooper with toughblack hair sat near him and kept time with his heels. "It's acottonwood-tree I was speakin' of, " observed Jones. There was one--alittle, shivering white stalk. It stood above the flat where thebarracks were, on a bench twenty or thirty feet higher, on which werebuilt the officers' quarters. The air was getting dim with the fine, hard snow that slanted through it. The thermometer was ten above outthere. At the mere sight and thought Mr. Long produced a flat bottle, warm from proximity to his flesh. Jones swallowed some drink, and lookedat the little tree. "Snakes! but it feels good, " said he, "to getsomething inside y'u and be inside yerself. What's the tax at Mike'sdance-house now?"

"Dance 'n' drinks fer two fer one dollar, " responded Mr. Long, accurately. He was sixty, but that made no difference. 

"You and me'll take that in, Jock, " said Jones to his friend, theblack-haired boy. "'Sigh no more, ladies, '" he continued, singing. "Theblamed banjo won't accompany that, " he remarked, and looked out again atthe tree. "There's a chap riding into the post now. Shabby-lookin'. Mebbe he's got stuff to sell. "

Jack Long looked up on the bench at a rusty figure moving slowly throughthe storm. "Th' ole man!" he said. 

"He ain't specially old, " Jones answered. "They're apt to be older, thempeddlers. "

"Peddlers! Oh, ye-es. " A seizure of very remarkable coughing took JackLong by the throat; but he really had a cough, and, on the fit's leavinghim, swallowed a drink, and offered his bottle in a manner so cold andusual that Jones forgot to note anything but the excellence of thewhiskey. Mr. Long winked at Sergeant Keyser; he thought it a good plannot to inform his young friends, not just yet at any rate, that theirpeddler was General Crook. It would be pleasant to hear what else theymight have to say. 

The General had reached Boisé City that morning by the stage, quietlyand unknown, as was his way. He had come to hunt Indians in the districtof the Owyhee. Jack Long had discovered this, but only a few had beentold the news, for the General wished to ask questions and receiveanswers, and to find out about all things; and he had noticed that thisis not easy when too many people know who you are. He had called upon afriend or two in Boisé, walked about unnoticed, learned a number offacts, and now, true to his habit, entered the post wearing no uniform, none being necessary under the circumstances, and unattended by a singleorderly. Jones and the black-haired Cumnor hoped he was a peddler, andinnocently sat looking out of the window at him riding along the benchin front of the quarters, and occasionally slouching his wide, darkhat-brim against the stinging of the hard flakes. Jack Long, old andmuch experienced with the army, had scouted with Crook before, and knewhim and his ways well. He also looked out of the window, standing behindJones and Cumnor, with a huge hairy hand on a shoulder of each, and ahuge wink again at Keyser. 

"Blamed if he 'ain't stopped in front of the commanding officer's, " saidJones. 

"Lor'!" said Mr. Long, "there's jest nothin' them peddlers won't do. "

"They ain't likely to buy anything off him in there, " said Cumnor. 

"Mwell, ef he's purvided with any _kind_ o' Injun cur'os'tees, themissis she'll fly right on to 'em. Sh' 'ain't been merried out yere onlyhaff'n year, 'n' when she spies feathers 'n' bead truck 'n' buckskin fersale sh' hollers like a son of a gun. Enthoosiastic, ye know. "

"He 'ain't got much of a pack, " Jones commented, and at that moment"stables" sounded, and the men ran out to form and march to theirgrooming. Jack Long stood at the door and watched them file through thesnow. 

Very few enlisted men of the small command that had come in this morningfrom its campaign had ever seen General Crook. Jones, though not new tothe frontier, had not been long in the army. He and Cumnor had enlistedin a happy-go-lucky manner together at Grant, in Arizona, when theGeneral was elsewhere. Discipline was galling to his vagrant spirit, andafter each pay-day he had generally slept off the effects in theguard-house, going there for other offences between-whiles; but he wasnot of the stuff that deserts; also, he was excellent tempered, and hiscaptain liked him for the way in which he could shoot Indians. Jack Longliked him too; and getting always a harmless pleasure from the mistakesof his friends, sincerely trusted there might be more about the peddler. He was startled at hearing his name spoken in his ear. 

"_Nah!_ Johnny, how you get on?"

"Hello, Sarah! Kla-how-ya, six?" said Long, greeting in Chinook thesquaw interpreter who had approached him so noiselessly. "Hy-as klosheo-coke sun" (It is a beautiful day). 

The interpreter laughed--she had a broad, sweet, coarse face, andlaughed easily--and said in English, "You hear about E-egante?"

Long had heard nothing recently of this Pah-Ute chieftain. 

"He heap bad, " continued Sarah, laughing broadly. "Come round ranch uphere--"

"Anybody killed?" Long interrupted. 

"No. All run away quick. Meester Dailey, he old man, he run all sameyoung one. His old woman she run all same man. Get horse. Run awayquick. Hu-hu!" and Sarah's rich mockery sounded again. No tragedy hadhappened this time, and the squaw narrated her story greatly to therelish of Mr. Long. This veteran of trails and mines had seen too muchof life's bleakness not to cherish whatever of mirth his days mightbring. 

"Didn't burn the house?" he said. 

"Not burn. Just make heap mess. Cut up feather-bed hy-as ten-as (verysmall) and eat big dinner, hu-hu! Sugar, onions, meat, eat all. Thenthey find litt' cats walkin' round there. "

"Lor'!" said Mr. Long, deeply interested, "they didn't eat _them_?"

"No. Not eat litt' cats. Put 'em two--man-cat and woman-cat--inmolasses; put 'em in feather-bed; all same bird. Then they hunt forwhiskey, break everything, hunt all over, ha-lo whiskey!" Sarah shookher head. "Meester Dailey he good man. Hy-iu temperance. Drink water. They find his medicine; drink all up; make awful sick. "

"I guess 'twar th' ole man's liniment, " muttered Jack Long. 

"Yas, milinut. They can't walk. Stay there long time, then MeesterDailey come back with friends. They think Injuns all gone; make noise, and E-egante he hear him come, and he not very sick. Run away. Some morerun. But two Injuns heap sick; can't run. Meester Dailey he come roundthe corner; see awful mess everywhere; see two litt' cats sittin' indoor all same bird, sing very loud. Then he see two Injuns on ground. They dead now. "

"Mwell, " said Long, "none of eer'll do. We'll hev to ketch E-egante. "

"A--h!" drawled Sarah the squaw, in musical derision. "Maybe no catchhim. All same jack rabbit. "

"Jest ye wait, Sarah; Gray Fox hez come. "

"Gen'l Crook!" said the squaw. "He come! Ho! He heap savvy. " Shestopped, and laughed again, like a pleased child. "Maybe no catchE-egante, " she added, rolling her pretty brown eyes at Jack Long. 

"You know E-egante?" he demanded. 

"Yas, one time. Long time now. I litt' girl then. " But Sarah rememberedthat long time, when she slept in a tent and had not been captured andput to school. And she remembered the tall young boys whom she used towatch shoot arrows, and the tallest, who shot most truly--at least, hecertainly did now in her imagination. He had never spoken to her orlooked at her. He was a boy of fourteen and she a girl of eight. Now shewas twenty-five. Also she was tame and domesticated, with a whitehusband who was not bad to her, and children for each year of wedlock, who would grow up to speak English better than she could, and her owntongue not at all. And E-egante was not tame, and still lived in a tent. Sarah regarded white people as her friends, but she was proud of beingan Indian, and she liked to think that her race could outwit the soldiernow and then. She laughed again when she thought of old Mrs. Daileyrunning from E-egante. 

"What's up with ye, Sarah?" said Jack Long, for the squaw's laughter hadcome suddenly on a spell of silence. 

"Hé!" said she. "All same jack-rabbit. No catch him. " She stood shakingher head at Long, and showing her white, regular teeth. Then abruptlyshe went away to her tent without any word, not because she was inill-humor or had thought of something, but because she was an Indian andhad thought of nothing, and had no more to say. She met the menreturning from the stables; admired Jones and smiled at him, upon whichhe murmured "Oh fie!" as he passed her. The troop broke ranks anddispersed, to lounge and gossip until mess-call. Cumnor and Jones wereputting a little snow down each other's necks with friendly profanity, when Jones saw the peddler standing close and watching them. A highcollar of some ragged fur was turned up round his neck, disguising thecharacter of the ancient army overcoat to which it was attached, andspots and long stains extended down the legs of his corduroys to thecharred holes at the bottom, where the owner had scorched them warminghis heels and calves at many camp-fires. 

"Hello, uncle, " said Jones. "What y'u got in your pack?" He and Cumnorleft their gambols and eagerly approached, while Mr. Jack Long, seeingthe interview, came up also to hear it. "'Ain't y'u got something tosell?" continued Jones. "Y'u haven't gone and dumped yer whole outfit atthe commanding officer's, have y'u now?"

"I'm afraid I have. " The low voice shook ever so little, and if Joneshad looked he would have seen a twinkle come and go in the gray-blueeyes. 

"We've been out eight months, y'u know, fairly steady, " pursued Jones, "and haven't seen nothing; and we'd buy most anything that ain't toodamn bad, " he concluded, plaintively. 

Mr. Long, in the background, was whining to himself with joy, and he nowurgently beckoned Keyser to come and hear this. 

"If you've got some cheap poker chips, " suggested Cumnor. 

"And say, uncle, " said Jones, raising his voice, for the peddler wasmoving away, "decks, and tobacco better than what they keep at thecommissary. Me and my friend'll take some off your hands. And if you'recomin' with new stock to-morrow, uncle" (Jones was now shouting afterhim), "why, we're single men, and y'u might fetch along a couple ofsquaws!"

"Holy smoke!" screeched Mr. Long, dancing on one leg. 

"What's up with you, y'u ape?" inquired Specimen Jones. He looked at thedeparting peddler and saw Sergeant Keyser meet him and salute withstern, soldierly aspect. Then the peddler shook hands with the sergeant, seemed to speak pleasantly, and again Keyser saluted as he passed on. "What's that for?" Jones asked, uneasily. "Who is that hobo?"

But Mr. Long was talking to himself in a highly moralizing strain. "Itain't every young enlisted man, " he was saying, "ez hez th' privilege ofexplainin' his wants at headquarters. "

"Jones, " said Sergeant Keyser, arriving, "I've a compliment for you. General Crook said you were a fine-looking man. "

"General?--What's that?--Where did y'u see--What? _Him?_" Thedisgusting truth flashed clear on Jones. Uttering a singledisconcerted syllable of rage, he wheeled and went by himself intothe barracks, and lay down solitary on his bunk and read a newspaperuntil mess-call without taking in a word of it. "If they go to putme in the mill fer that, " he said, sulkily, to many friends who broughthim their congratulations, "I'm going to give 'em what I think aboutwearin' disguises. "

[Illustration: "'AIN'T Y'U GOT SOMETHING TO SELL?'"]

"What do you think, Specimen?" said one. 

"Give it to us now, Specimen, " said another. 

"Against the law, ain't it, Specimen?"

"Begosh!" said Jack Long, "ef thet's so, don't lose no time warnin' theGeneral, Specimen. Th' ole man'd hate to be arrested. "

And Specimen Jones told them all to shut their heads. 

But no thought was more distant from General Crook's busy mind thanputting poor Jones in the guard-house. The trooper's willingness, aftereight months hunting Indians, to buy almost anything brought a smile tohis lips, and a certain sympathy in his heart. He knew what those eightmonths had been like; how monotonous, how well endured, how oftendangerous, how invariably plucky, how scant of even the necessities oflife, how barren of glory, and unrewarded by public recognition. TheAmerican "statesman" does not care about our army until it becomesnecessary for his immediate personal protection. General Crook knew allthis well; and realizing that these soldiers, who had come intowinter-quarters this morning at eleven, had earned a holiday, he wassorry to feel obliged to start them out again to-morrow morning at two;for this was what he had decided upon. 

He had received orders to drive on the reservation the various smallbands of Indians that were roving through the country of the Snake andits tributaries, a danger to the miners in the Bannock Basin, and tothe various ranches in west Idaho and east Oregon. As usual, he hadbeen given an insufficient force to accomplish this, and, as always, hehad been instructed by the "statesmen" to do it without violence--thatis to say, he must never shoot the poor Indian until after the poorIndian had shot him; he must make him do something he did not want to, pleasantly, by the fascination of argument, in the way a "statesman"would achieve it. The force at the General's disposal was the garrisonat Boisé Barracks--one troop of cavalry and one company of infantry. Thelatter was not adapted to the matter in hand--rapid marching andsurprises; all it could be used for was as a reinforcement, and, moreover, somebody must be left at Boisé Barracks. The cavalry had hadits full dose of scouting and skirmishing and long exposed marches, thehorses were poor, and nobody had any trousers to speak of. Also, thetroop was greatly depleted; it numbered forty men. Forty had deserted, and three--a sergeant and three privates--had cooked and eaten avegetable they had been glad to dig up one day, and had spent theensuing forty-five minutes in attempting to make their ankles beat thebacks of their heads; after that the captain had read over them asentence beginning, "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short timeto live, and is full of misery"; and after that the camp was referred toas Wild Carrot Camp, because the sergeant had said the vegetable waswild carrot, whereas it had really been wild parsnip, which is quiteanother thing. 

General Crook shook his head over what he saw. The men wereill-provided, the commissary and the quartermaster department wereill-provided; but it would have to do; the "statesmen" said our armywas an extravagance. The Indians must be impressed and intimidated bythe unlimited resources which the General had--not. Having come to thisconclusion, he went up to the post commander's, and at supper astonishedthat officer by casual remarks which revealed a knowledge of thesurrounding country, the small streams, the best camps for pasture, spots to avoid on account of bad water, what mules had sore backs, andmany other things that the post commander would have liked dearly to askthe General where and when he had learned, only he did not dare. He didnot even venture to ask him what he was going to do. Neither did CaptainGlynn, who had been asked to meet the General. The General soon toldthem, however. "It may be a little cold, " he concluded. 

"To-morrow, sir?" This from Captain Glynn. He had come in with the fortythat morning. He had been enjoying his supper very much. 

"I think so, " said the General. "This E-egante is likely to make troubleif he is not checked. " Then, understanding the thoughts of CaptainGlynn, he added, with an invisible smile, "_You_ need no preparations. You're in marching order. It's not as if your men had been here a longtime and had to get ready for a start. "

"Oh no, " said Glynn, "it isn't like that. " He was silent. "I think, ifyou'll excuse me, General, " he said next, "I'll see my sergeant and givesome orders. "

"Certainly. And, Captain Glynn, I took the liberty of giving a fewdirections myself. We'll take an A tent, you know, for you and me. I seeKeyser is sergeant in F troop. Glad we have a non-commissioned officerso competent. Haven't seen him since '64, at Winchester. Why, it'scleared off, I declare!"

It had, and the General looked out of the open door as Captain Glynn, departing, was pulling at his cigar. "How beautiful the planets are!"exclaimed Crook. "Look at Jupiter--there, just to the left of thatlittle cottonwood-tree. Haven't you often noticed how much finer thestars shine in this atmosphere than in the East? Oh, captain! I forgotto speak of extra horseshoes. I want some brought along. "

"I'll attend to it, General. "

"They shouldn't be too large. These California fourteen-and-a-halfhorses have smallish hoofs. "

"I'll see the blacksmith myself, General. "

"Thank you. Good-night. And just order fresh stuffing put into theaparejos. I noticed three that had got lumpy. " And the General shut thedoor and went to wipe out the immaculate barrels of his shot-gun; forbesides Indians there were grouse among the hills where he expected togo. 

Captain Glynn, arriving at his own door, stuck his glowing cigar againstthe thermometer hanging outside: twenty-three below zero. "Oh Lord!"said the captain, briefly. He went in and told his striker to getSergeant Keyser. Then he sat down and waited. "'Look at Jupiter!'" hemuttered, angrily. "What an awful old man!"

It was rather awful. The captain had not supposed generals in the firsttwo hours of their arrival at a post to be in the habit of finding outmore about your aparejos than you knew yourself. But old the General wasnot. At the present day many captains are older than Crook was then. 

Down at the barracks there was the same curiosity about what the "OldMan" was going to do as existed at the post commander's during the earlypart of supper. It pleased the cavalry to tell the infantry that theOld Man proposed to take the infantry to the Columbia River next week;and the infantry replied to the cavalry that they were quite right as tothe river and the week, and it was hard luck the General needed onlymounted troops on this trip. Others had heard he had come to superintendthe building of a line of telegraph to Klamath, which would be a goodwinter's job for somebody; but nobody supposed that anything wouldhappen yet awhile. 

And then a man came in and told them the General had sent his boots tothe saddler to have nails hammered in the soles. 

"That eer means business, " said Jack Long, "'n' I guess I'll nail up meeown cowhides. "

"Jock, " said Specimen Jones to Cumnor, "you and me 'ain't got any solesto ourn because they're contract boots, y'u see. I'll nail up yer feetif y'u say so. It's liable to be slippery. "

Cumnor did not take in the situation at once. "What's your hurry?" heinquired of Jack Long. Therefore it was explained to him that whenGeneral Crook ordered his boots fixed you might expect to be on the roadshortly. Cumnor swore some resigned, unemphatic oaths, fondly supposingthat "shortly" meant some time or other; but hearing in the next fiveminutes the definite fact that F troop would get up at two, he made useof profound and thorough language, and compared the soldier with theslave. 

"Why, y'u talk almost like a man, Jock, " said Specimen Jones. "Blamed ify'u don't sound pretty near growed up. "

Cumnor invited Jones to mind his business. 

"Yer muss-tache has come since Arizona, " continued Jones, admiringly, "and yer blue eye is bad-lookin'--worse than when we shot at yer heelsand y'u danced fer us. "

"I thought they were going to give us a rest, " mumbled the youth, flushing. "I thought we'd be let stay here a spell. "

"I thought so too, Jock. A little monotony would be fine variety. But aman must take his medicine, y'u know, and not squeal. " Jones had loweredhis voice, and now spoke without satire to the boy whom he had in acurious manner taken under his protection. 

"Look at what they give us for a blanket to sleep in, " said Cumnor. "Afellow can see to read the newspaper through it. "

"Look at my coat, Cumnor. " It was Sergeant Keyser showing the articlefurnished the soldier by the government. "You can spit through that. " Hehad overheard their talk, and stepped up to show that all were in thesame box. At his presence reticence fell upon the privates, and Cumnorhauled his black felt hat down tight in embarrassment, which strainsplit it open half-way round his head. It was another sample ofregulation clothing, and they laughed at it. 

"We all know the way it is, " said Keyser, "and I've seen it a big sightworse. Cumnor, I've a cap I guess will keep your scalp warm till we getback. "

And so at two in the morning F troop left the bunks it had expectedto sleep in for some undisturbed weeks, and by four o'clock had eatenits well-known breakfast of bacon and bad coffee, and was followingthe "awful old man" down the north bank of the Boisé, leaving thesilent, dead, wooden town of shanties on the other side half a milebehind in the darkness. The mountains south stood distant, ignoble, plain-featured heights, looming a clean-cut black beneath the piercingstars and the slice of hard, sharp-edged moon, and the surroundingplains of sage and dry-cracking weed slanted up and down to nowhere andnothing with desolate perpetuity. The snowfall was light and dry assand, and the bare ground jutted through it at every sudden lump orknoll. The column moved through the dead polar silence, scarcelybreaking it. Now and then a hoof rang on a stone, here and there abridle or a sabre clinked lightly; but it was too cold and early fortalking, and the only steady sound was the flat, can-like tankle of thesquare bell that hung on the neck of the long-eared leader of thepack-train. They passed the Dailey ranch, and saw the kittens and theliniment-bottle, but could get no information as to what way E-egantehad gone. The General did not care for that, however; he had devised hisown route for the present, after a talk with the Indian guides. At thesecond dismounting during march he had word sent back to the pack-trainnot to fall behind, and the bell was to be taken off if the rest of themules would follow without the sound of its shallow music. No wind movedthe weeds or shook the stiff grass, and the rising sun glittered pink onthe patched and motley-shirted men as they blew on their red hands orbeat them against their legs. Some were lucky enough to have woollen orfur gloves, but many had only the white cotton affairs furnished by thegovernment. Sarah the squaw laughed at them: the interpreter was warm asshe rode in her bright green shawl. While the dismounted troopersstretched their limbs during the halt, she remained on her pony talkingto one and another. 

"Gray Fox heap savvy, " said she to Mr. Long. "He heap get up in themornin'. "

"Thet's what he does, Sarah. "

"Yas. No give soldier hy-as Sunday" (a holiday). 

"No, no, " assented Mr. Long. "Gray Fox go téh-téh" (trot). 

"Maybe he catch E-egante, maybe put him in skookum-house (prison)?"suggested Sarah. 

"Oh no! Lor'! E-egante good Injun. White Father he feed him. Give himheap clothes, " said Mr. Long. 

"A--h!" drawled Sarah, dubiously, and rode by herself. 

"You'll need watchin', " muttered Jack Long. 

The trumpet sounded, the troopers swung into their saddles, and the lineof march was taken up as before, Crook at the head of the column, hisragged fur collar turned up, his corduroys stuffed inside a wrinkledpair of boots, the shot-gun balanced across his saddle, and nothing toreveal that he was any one in particular, unless you saw his face. Asthe morning grew bright, and empty, silent Idaho glistened under theclear blue, the General talked a little to Captain Glynn. 

"E-egante will have crossed Snake River, I think, " said he. "I shall tryto do that to-day; but we must be easy on those horses of yours. Weought to be able to find these Indians in three days. "

"If I were a lusty young chief, " said Glynn, "I should think it prettytough to be put on a reservation for dipping a couple of kittens in themolasses. "

"So should I, captain. But next time he might dip Mrs. Dailey. And I'mnot sure he didn't have a hand in more serious work. Didn't you runacross his tracks anywhere this summer?"

"No, sir. He was over on the Des Chutes. "

"Did you hear what he was doing?"

"Having rows about fish and game with those Warm Spring Indians on thewest side of the Des Chutes. "

"They're always poaching on each other. There's bad blood betweenE-egante and Uma-Pine. "

"Uma-Pine's friendly, sir, isn't he?"

"Well, that's a question, " said Crook. "But there's no question aboutthis E-egante and his Pah-Utes. We've got to catch him. I'm sorry forhim. He doesn't see why he shouldn't hunt anywhere as his fathers did. Ishouldn't see that either. "

"How strong is this band reported, sir?"

"I've heard nothing I can set reliance upon, " said Crook, instinctivelylevelling his shot-gun at a big bird that rose; then he replaced thepiece across his saddle and was silent. Now Captain Glynn had heardthere were three hundred Indians with E-egante, which was a largernumber than he had been in the habit of attacking with forty men. But hefelt discreet about volunteering any information to the General afterlast night's exhibition of what the General knew. Crook partly answeredwhat was in Glynn's mind. "This is the only available force I have, "said he. "We must do what we can with it. You've found out by this time, captain, that rapidity in following Indians up often works well. Theyhave made up their minds--that is, if I know them--that we're going toloaf inside Boisé Barracks until the hard weather lets up. "

Captain Glynn had thought so too, but he did not mention this, and theGeneral continued. "I find that most people entertained this notion, " hesaid, "and I'm glad they did, for it will help my first operations verymaterially. "

The captain agreed that there was nothing like a false impression forassisting the efficacy of military movements, and presently the Generalasked him to command a halt. It was high noon, and the sun gleamed onthe brass trumpet as the long note blew. Again the musical strainsounded on the cold, bright stillness, and the double line of twentylegs swung in a simultaneous arc over the horses' backs as the mendismounted. 

"We'll noon here, " said the General; and while the cook broke the ice onBoisé River to fill his kettles, Crook went back to the mules to see howthe sore backs were standing the march. "How d'ye do, Jack Long?" saidhe. "Your stock is travelling pretty well, I see. They're loaded withthirty days' rations, but I trust we're not going to need it all. "

"Mwell, General, I don't specially kyeer meself 'bout eatin' the hulloutfit. " Mr. Long showed his respect for the General by never swearingin his presence. 

"I see you haven't forgotten how to pack, " Crook said to him. "Can wemake Snake River to-day, Jack?"

"That'll be forty miles, General. The days are pretty short. "

"What are you feeding to the animals?" Crook inquired. 

"Why, General, _you_ know jest 's well 's me, " said Jack, grinning. 

"I suppose I do if you say so, Jack. Ten pounds first ten days, fivepounds next ten, and you're out of grain for the next ten. Is that theway still?"

"Thet's the way, General, on these yere thirty-day affairs. "

Through all this small-talk Crook had been inspecting the mules and thehorses on picket-line, and silently forming his conclusion. He nowreturned to Captain Glynn and shared his mess-box. 

They made Snake River. Crook knew better than Long what the animalscould do. And next day they crossed, again by starlight, turned for alittle way up the Owyhee, decided that E-egante had not gone that road, trailed up the bluffs and ledges from the Snake Valley on to the barrenheight of land, and made for the Malheur River, finding the eight hoofsof two deer lying in a melted place where a fire had been. Mr. Daileyhad insisted that at least fifty Indians had drunk his liniment andtrifled with his cats. Indeed, at times during his talk with GeneralCrook the old gentleman had been sure there were a hundred. If this weretheir trail which the command had now struck, there may possibly havebeen eight. It was quite evident that the chief had not taken any threehundred warriors upon that visit, if he had that number anywhere. So thecolumn went up the Malheur main stream through the sage-brush and thegray weather (it was still cold, but no sun any more these last twodays), and, coming to the North Fork, turned up towards a spur of themountains and Castle Rock. The water ran smooth black between its edgingof ice, thick, white, and crusted like slabs of cocoanut candy, andthere in the hollow of a bend they came suddenly upon what they sought. 

Stems of smoke, faint and blue, spindled up from a blurred acre ofwillow thicket, dense, tall as two men, a netted brown and yellow meshof twigs and stiff wintry rods. Out from the level of their close, nature-woven tops rose at distances the straight, slight bluesmoke-lines, marking each the position of some invisible lodge. Thewhole acre was a bottom ploughed at some former time by a wash-out, andthe troops looked down on it from the edge of the higher ground, silentin the quiet, gray afternoon, the empty sage-brush territory stretchinga short way to fluted hills that were white below and blackened withpines above. 

The General, taking a rough chance as he often did, sent ground scoutsforward and ordered a charge instantly, to catch the savages unready;and the stiff rods snapped and tangled between the beating hoofs. Thehorses plunged at the elastic edges of this excellent fortress, sometimes half lifted as a bent willow levered up against their bellies, and the forward-tilting men fended their faces from the whipping twigs. They could not wedge a man's length into that pliant labyrinth, and theGeneral called them out. They rallied among the sage-brush above, Crook's cheeks and many others painted with purple lines of blood, hardened already and cracking like enamel. The baffled troopers glaredat the thicket. Not a sign nor a sound came from in there. The willows, with the gentle tints of winter veiling their misty twigs, looked sereneand even innocent, fitted to harbor birds--not birds of prey--and thequiet smoke threaded upwards through the air. Of course theliniment-drinkers must have heard the noise. 

"What do you suppose they're doing?" inquired Glynn. 

"Looking at us, " said Crook. 

"I wish we could return the compliment, " said the captain. 

Crook pointed. Had any wind been blowing, what the General saw wouldhave been less worth watching. Two willow branches shook, making avanishing ripple on the smooth surface of the tree-tops. The pack-trainwas just coming in sight over the rise, and Crook immediately sent anorderly with some message. More willow branches shivered an instant andwere still; then, while the General and the captain sat on their horsesand watched, the thicket gave up its secret to them; for, as littlelight gusts coming abreast over a lake travel and touch the water, so indifferent spots the level maze of twigs was stirred; and if the eyefastened upon any one of these it could have been seen to come out fromthe centre towards the edge, successive twigs moving, as the tops oflong grass tremble and mark the progress of a snake. During a shortwhile this increased greatly, the whole thicket moving with innumerabletracks. Then everything ceased, with the blue wands of smoke risingalways into the quiet afternoon. 

"Can you see 'em?" said Glynn. 

"Not a bit. Did you happen to hear any one give an estimate of thisband?"

Glynn mentioned his tale of the three hundred. 

It was not new to the General, but he remarked now that it must bepretty nearly correct; and his eye turned a moment upon his fortytroopers waiting there, grim and humorous; for they knew that thethicket was looking at them, and it amused their American minds towonder what the Old Man was going to do about it. 

"It's his bet, and he holds poor cards, " murmured Specimen Jones; andthe neighbors grinned. 

And here the Old Man continued the play that he had begun when he sentthe orderly to the pack-train. That part of the command had halted inconsequence, disposed itself in an easy-going way, half in, half out ofsight on the ridge, and men and mules looked entirely careless. Glynnwondered; but no one ever asked the General questions, in spite of hisamiable voice and countenance. He now sent for Sarah the squaw. 

"You tell E-egante, " he said, "that I am not going to fight with hispeople unless his people make me. I am not going to do them any harm, and I wish to be their friend. The White Father has sent me. AskE-egante if he has heard of Gray Fox. Tell him Gray Fox wishes E-eganteand all his people to be ready to go with him to-morrow at nineo'clock. "

And Sarah, standing on the frozen bank, pulled her green shawl closer, and shouted her message faithfully to the willows. Nothing moved orshowed, and Crook, riding up to the squaw, held his hand up as a furthersign to the flag of peace that had been raised already. "Say that I amGray Fox, " said he. 

On that there was a moving in the bushes farther along, and, goingopposite that place with the squaw, Crook and Glynn saw a narrowentrance across which some few branches reached that were now spreadaside for three figures to stand there. 

"E-egante!" said Sarah, eagerly. "See him big man!" she added to Crook, pointing. A tall and splendid buck, gleaming with colors, and rich withfringe and buckskin, watched them. He seemed to look at Sarah, too. She, being ordered, repeated what she had said; but the chief did not answer. 

"He is counting our strength, " said Glynn. 

"He's done that some time ago, " said Crook. "Tell E-egante, " hecontinued to the squaw, "that I will not send for more soldiers than hesees here. I do not wish anything but peace unless he wishesotherwise. "

Sarah's musical voice sounded again from the bank, and E-egante watchedher intently till she was finished. This time he replied at some length. He and his people had not done any harm. He had heard of Gray Fox often. All his people knew Gray Fox was a good man and would not make trouble. There were some flies that stung a man sitting in his house, when he hadnot hurt them. Gray Fox would not hurt any one till their hand wasraised against him first. E-egante and his people had wondered why thehorses made so much noise just now. He and his people would cometo-morrow with Gray Fox. 

And then he went inside the thicket again, and the willows looked asinnocent as ever. Crook and the captain rode away. 

"My speech was just a little weak coming on top of a charge of cavalry, "the General admitted. "And that fellow put his finger right on theplace. I'll give you my notion, captain. If I had said we had moresoldiers behind the hill, like as not this squaw of ours would have toldhim I lied; she's an uncertain quantity, I find. But I told him theexact truth--that I had no more--and he won't believe it, and that'swhat I want. "

So Glynn understood. The pack-train had been halted in a purposelyexposed position, which would look to the Indians as if another forcewas certainly behind it, and every move was now made to give animpression that the forty were only the advance of a large command. Crook pitched his A tent close to the red men's village, and the troopswent into camp regardlessly near. The horses were turned out to grazeostentatiously unprotected, so that the people in the thicket shouldhave every chance to notice how secure the white men felt. The mulespastured comfortably over the shallow snow that crushed as they wanderedamong the sage-bush, and the square bell hung once more from the neck ofthe leader and tankled upon the hill. The shelter-tents littered theflat above the wash-out, and besides the cook-fire others were builtirregularly far down the Malheur North Fork, shedding an extendedglimmer of deceit. It might have been the camp of many hundred. A littleblaze shone comfortably on the canvas of Crook's tent, and SergeantKeyser, being in charge of camp, had adopted the troop cook-fire for hiscamp guard after the cooks had finished their work. The willow thicketbelow grew black and mysterious, and quiet fell on the white camp. Byeight the troopers had gone to bed. Night had come pretty cold, and alittle occasional breeze, that passed like a chill hand laid a moment onthe face, and went down into the willows. Now and again the waterrunning through the ice would lap and gurgle at some air-hole. SergeantKeyser sat by his fire and listened to the lonely bell sounding from thedark. He wished the men would feel more at home with him. With JackLong, satirical, old, and experienced, they were perfectly familiar, because he was a civilian; but to Keyser, because he had been in commandof a battalion, they held the attitude of school-boys to a master--theinstinctive feeling of all privates towards all officers. Jones andCumnor were members of his camp guard. Being just now off post, theystood at the fire, but away from him. 

"How do you like this compared with barracks?" the sergeant asked, conversationally. 

"It's all right, " said Jones. 

"Did you think it was all right that first morning? I didn't enjoy itmuch myself. Sit down and get warm, won't you?"

The men came and stood awkwardly. "I 'ain't never found any excitementin getting up early, " said Jones, and was silent. A burning log shifted, and the bell sounded in a new place as the leader pastured along. Joneskicked the log into better position. "But this affair's gettin'inter-esting, " he added. 

"Don't you smoke?" Keyser inquired of Cumnor, and tossed him histobacco-pouch. Presently they were seated, and the conversation goingbetter. Arizona was compared with Idaho. Everybody had gone to bed. 

"Arizona's the most outrageous outrage in the United States, " declaredJones. 

"Why did you stay there six years, then?" said Cumnor. 

"Guess I'd been there yet but for you comin' along and us both enlistin'that crazy way. Idaho's better. Only, " said Jones, thoughtfully, "comingto an ice-box from a hundred thousand in the shade, it's a wonder a mandon't just split like a glass chimbly. "

The willows crackled, and all laid hands on their pistols. 

"How! how!" said a strange, propitiating voice. 

It was a man on a horse, and directly they recognized E-egante himself. They would have raised an alarm, but he was alone, and plainly notrunning away. Nor had he weapons. He rode into the fire-light, and "How!how!" he repeated, anxiously. He looked and nodded at the three, whoremained seated. 

"Good-evening, " said the sergeant. 

"Christmas is coming, " said Jones, amicably. 

"How! how!" said E-egante. It was all the English he had. He sat on hishorse, looking at the men, the camp, the cook-fire, the A tent, andbeyond into the surrounding silence. He started when the bell suddenlyjangled near by. The wandering mule had only shifted in towards the campand shaken his head; but the Indian's nerves were evidently on thesharpest strain. 

"Sit down!" said Keyser, making signs, and at these E-egante startedsuspiciously. 

"Warm here!" Jones called to him, and Cumnor showed his pipe. 

The chief edged a thought closer. His intent, brilliant eyes seemedalmost to listen as well as look, and though he sat his horse withheedless grace and security, there was never a figure more ready forvanishing upon the instant. He came a little nearer still, alert andpretty as an inquisitive buck antelope, watching not the three soldiersonly, but everything else at once. He eyed their signs to dismount, looked at their faces, considered, and with the greatest slowness gotoff and came stalking to the fire. He was a fine tall man, and theysmiled and nodded at him, admiring his clean blankets and themagnificence of his buckskin shirt and leggings. 

"He's a jim-dandy, " said Cumnor. 

"You bet the girls think so, " said Jones. "He gets his pick. For you'rea fighter too, ain't y'u?" he added, to E-egante. 

"How! how!" said that personage, looking at them with grave affabilityfrom the other side of the fire. Reassured presently, he accepted thesergeant's pipe; but even while he smoked and responded to the gestures, the alertness never left his eye, and his tall body gave no sense ofbeing relaxed. And so they all looked at each other across the waningembers, while the old pack-mule moved about at the edge of camp, crushing the crusted snow and pasturing along. After a time E-egantegave a nod, handed the pipe back, and went into his thicket as he hadcome. His visit had told him nothing; perhaps he had never supposed itwould, and came from curiosity. One person had watched this interview. Sarah the squaw sat out in the night, afraid for her ancient hero; butshe was content to look upon his beauty, and go to sleep after he hadtaken himself from her sight. The soldiers went to bed, and Keyser laywondering for a while before he took his nap between his surveillances. The little breeze still passed at times, the running water and the icemade sounds together, and he could hear the wandering bell, now distanton the hill, irregularly punctuating the flight of the dark hours. 

By nine next day there was the thicket sure enough, and the fortywaiting for the three hundred to come out of it. Then it became teno'clock, but that was the only difference, unless perhaps Sarah thesquaw grew more restless. The troopers stood ready to be told what todo, joking together in low voices now and then; Crook sat watching Glynnsmoke; and through these stationary people walked Sarah, lookingwistfully at the thicket, and then at the faces of the adopted race sheserved. She hardly knew what was in her own mind. Then it became eleven, and Crook was tired of it, and made the capping move in his bluff. Hegave the orders himself. 

"Sergeant. "

Keyser saluted. 

"You will detail eight men to go with you into the Indian camp. The menare to carry pistols under their overcoats, and no other arms. You willtell the Indians to come out. Repeat what I said to them last night. Make it short. I'll give them ten minutes. If they don't come by then ashot will be fired out here. At that signal you will remain in there andblaze away at the Indians. "

So Keyser picked his men. 

The thirty-one remaining troopers stopped joking, and watched the squadof nine and the interpreter file down the bank to visit the threehundred. The dingy overcoats and the bright green shawl passed into thethicket, and the General looked at his watch. Along the bend of thestream clear noises tinkled from the water and the ice. 

"What are they up to?" whispered a teamster to Jack Long. Long's facewas stern, but the teamster's was chalky and tight drawn. "Say, " herepeated, insistently, "what are we going to do?"

"We're to wait, " Long whispered back, "till nothin' happens, and thenth' Ole Man'll fire a gun and signal them boys to shoot in there. "

"Oh, it's to be waitin'?" said the teamster. He fastened his eyes on thethicket, and his lips grew bloodless. The running river sounded moreplainly. "---- ---- it!" cried the man, desperately, "let's start thefun, then. " He whipped out his pistol, and Jack Long had just time toseize him and stop a false signal. 

"Why, you must be skeered, " said Long. "I've a mind to beat yer skullin. "

"Waitin's so awful, " whimpered the man. "I wisht I was along with themin there. "

Jack gave him back his revolver. "There, " said he; "ye're not skeered, Isee. Waitin' ain't nice. "

The eight troopers with Keyser were not having anything like sodistasteful a time. "Jock, " said Specimen Jones to Cumnor, as theyfollowed the sergeant into the willows and began to come among thelodges and striped savages, "you and me has saw Injuns before, Jock. "

"And we'll do it again, " said Cumnor. 

Keyser looked at his watch: Four minutes gone. "Jones, " said he, "youpatrol this path to the right so you can cover that gang there. Theremust be four or five lodges down that way. Cumnor, see that dugout withside-thatch and roofing of tule? You attend to that family. It's a bigone--all brothers. " Thus the sergeant disposed his men quietly and quickthrough the labyrinth till they became invisible to each other; and allthe while flights of Indians passed, half seen, among the tangle, fleeting visions of yellow and red through the quiet-colored twigs. Others squatted stoically, doing nothing. A few had guns, but most usedarrows, and had these stacked beside them where they squatted. Keysersingled out a somewhat central figure--Fur Cap was his name--as hisstarting-point if the signal should sound. It must sound now in a secondor two. He would not look at his watch lest it should hamper him. FurCap sat by a pile of arrows, with a gun across his knees besides. Keysercalculated that by standing close to him as he was, his boot would catchthe Indian under the chin just right, and save one cartridge. Not a redman spoke, but Sarah the squaw dutifully speechified in a central placewhere paths met near Keyser and Fur Cap. Her voice was persuasive andwarning. Some of the savages moved up and felt Keyser's overcoat. Theyfingered the hard bulge of the pistol underneath, and passed on, laughing, to the next soldier's coat, while Sarah did not cease toharangue. The tall, stately man of last night appeared. His full darkeye met Sarah's, and the woman's voice faltered and her breathing grewtroubled as she gazed at him. Once more Keyser looked at his watch:Seven minutes. E-egante noticed Sarah's emotion, and his face showedthat her face pleased him. He spoke in a deep voice to Fur Cap, stretching a fringed arm out towards the hill with a royal gesture, atwhich Fur Cap rose. 

"He will come, he will come!" said the squaw, running to Keyser. "Theyall come now. Do not shoot. "

"Let them show outside, then, " thundered Keyser, "or it's too late. Ifthat gun goes before I can tell my men--"

He broke off and rushed to the entrance. There were skirmishersdeploying from three points, and Crook was raising his hand slowly. There was a pistol in it. "General! General!" Keyser shouted, wavingboth hands, "No!" Behind him came E-egante, with Sarah, talking in lowtones, and Fur Cap came too. 

[Illustration: "HE HESITATED TO KILL THE WOMAN"]

The General saw, and did not give the signal. The sight of theskirmishers hastened E-egante's mind. He spoke in a loud voice, and atonce his warriors began to emerge from the willows obediently. Crook'sbluff was succeeding. The Indians in waiting after nine wereattempting a little bluff of their own; but the unprecedented visit ofnine men appeared to them so dauntless that all notion of resistanceleft them. They were sure Gray Fox had a large army. And they came, and kept coming, and the place became full of them. The troopers hadall they could do to form an escort and keep up the delusion, but bydegrees order began, and the column was forming. Riding along the edgeof the willows came E-egante, gay in his blankets, and saying, "How!how!" to Keyser, the only man at all near him. The pony ambled, andsidled, paused, trotted a little, and Keyser was beginning to wonder, when all at once a woman in a green shawl sprang from the thicket, leaped behind the chief, and the pony flashed by and away, round thecurve. Keyser had lifted his carbine, but forbore; for he hesitated tokill the woman. Once more the two appeared, diminutive and scurrying, the green shawl bright against the hill-side they climbed. Sarah hadbeen willing to take her chances of death with her hero, and now shevanished with him among his mountains, returning to her kind, andleaving her wedded white man and half-breeds forever. 

"I don't feel so mad as I ought, " said Specimen Jones. 

Crook laughed to Glynn about it. "We've got a big balance of 'em, " hesaid, "if we can get 'em all to Boisé. They'll probably roast me in theEast. " And they did. Hearing how forty took three hundred, but let oneescape (and a few more on the march home), the superannuated cattle ofthe War Department sat sipping their drink at the club in Washington, and explained to each other how they would have done it. 

And so the General's bluff partly failed. E-egante kept his freedom, "all along o' thet yere pizen squaw, " as Mr. Long judiciously remarked. It was not until many years after that the chief's destiny overtookhim; and concerning that, things both curious and sad could be told. [A]

[Footnote A: Let me no longer pervert General Crook's military tactics. It was a dismounted charge that he ordered on this occasion, as a friendwho was present has written me since the first publication of thisstory. 

_Mr. Remington's illustration was made to suit the text in its originalform. _--Publisher's Note. ]

SALVATION GAP

After cutting the Gazelle's throat, Drylyn had gone out of her tent, secure and happy in choosing the skilful moment. They would think it wasthe other man--the unknown one. There were his boot-prints this finemorning, marking his way from the tent down the hill into the trees. Hewas not an inhabitant of the camp. This was his first visit, cautiouslymade, and nobody had seen him come or go except Drylyn. 

The woman was proprietor of the dance-hall at Salvation Gap, and onaccount of her beauty and habits had been named the American BeerGazelle by a travelling naturalist who had education, and was interestedin the wild animals of all countries. Drylyn's relations with theGazelle were colored with sentiment. The sentiment on his part wasgenuine; so genuine that the shrewd noticing camp joked Drylyn, tellinghim he had grown to look young again under the elixir of romance. One ofthe prospectors had remarked fancifully that Drylyn's "rusted mustachehad livened up; same ez flow'rs ye've kerried a long ways when yer girlputs 'em in a pitcher o' water. " Being the sentiment of a placer miner, the lover's feeling took no offence or wound at any conduct of theGazelle's that was purely official; it was for him that she personallycared. He never thought of suspecting anything when, after one of hertrips to Folsom, she began to send away some of the profits--gold, coined sometimes, sometimes raw dust--that her hall of entertainmentearned for her. She mentioned to him that her mother in San Anton'needed it, and simple-minded Drylyn believed. It did not occur to him toask, or even wonder, how it came that this mother had never needed moneyuntil so lately, or why the trips to Folsom became so constant. Countingher middle-aged adorer a fool, the humorous Gazelle had actually once, on being prevented from taking the journey herself, asked him to carrythe package to Folsom for her, and deliver it there to a certainshot-gun messenger of the express company, who would see that it went tothe right place. A woman's name and an address at San Antonio werecertainly scrawled on the parcel. The faithful Drylyn waited till thestage came in, and handed over his treasure to the messenger, who gavehim one amazed look that he did not notice. He ought to have seen thatyoung man awhile afterwards, the package torn open, a bag of dust on hisknee, laughing almost to tears over a letter he had found with the goldinside the wrapping. But Drylyn was on the road up to Salvation Gap atthat time. The shot-gun messenger was twenty-three; Drylyn wasforty-five. Gazelles are apt to do this sort of thing. After all, though, it was silly, just for the sake of a laugh, to let the old loverlearn the face of his secret rival. It was one of those early unimaginednails people sometimes drive in their own coffins. An ancient series ofevents followed: continued abject faith and passion on the miner's part;continued presents of dust from him to the lady; on her part continuedtrips to Folsom, a lessened caution, and a brag of manner based upon hervery just popularity at the Gap; next, Drylyn's first sickening dawn ofdoubt, jealousy equipping him with a new and alien slyness; the finalaccident of his seeing the shot-gun messenger on his very first visit tothe Gap come out of the Gazelle's tent so early in the morning; theinstant blaze of truth and fury that turned Drylyn to a clever, calculating wild beast. So now her throat was cut, and she was good anddead. He had managed well. The whole game had shown instantly like apicture on his brain, complete at a stroke, with every move clear. Hehad let the man go down the hill--just for the present. The camp had gotup, eaten its breakfast, and gone out to the ditches, Drylyn along withthe rest. Owing to its situation, neighbors could not see him presentlyleave his claim and walk back quickly to the Gap at an hour when thedance-hall was likely to be lonely. He had ready what to say if theother women should be there; but they were away at the creek below, washing, and the luxurious, unsuspecting Gazelle was in bed in her owntent, not yet disturbed. The quiet wild beast walked through thedeserted front entrance of the hall in the most natural manner, and sobehind among the empty bottles, and along the plank into the tent; then, after a while, out again. She would never be disturbed now, and the wildbeast was back at his claim, knee-deep, and busy among the digging andthe wetness, in another pair of overalls just like the ones that werenow under some stones at the bottom of a mud-puddle. And then one verybad long scream came up to the ditches, and Drylyn knew the women hadreturned from their washing. 

He raised his head mechanically to listen. He had never been a bad man;had never wished to hurt anybody in his life before that he couldremember; but as he pondered upon it in his slow, sure brain, he knewthat he was glad he had done this, and was going to do more. He wasgoing to follow those tracks pretty soon, and finish the whole job withhis own hand. They had fooled him, and had taken trouble to do it; goneout of their way, made game of him to the quick; and when he remembered, for the twentieth time this morning, that day he had carried the packageof gold-dust--some of it very likely his own--to the smooth-facedmessenger at Folsom, Drylyn's stolid body trembled from head to foot, and he spoke blind, inarticulate words. 

But down below there the screams were sounding. A brother miner camerunning by. Drylyn realized that he ought to be running too, of course, and so he ran. All the men were running from their various scatteredclaims, and Salvation Gap grew noisy and full of people at once. Therewas the sheriff also, come up last evening on the track of somestage-robbers, and quite opportune for this, he thought. He liked thingsto be done legally. The turmoil of execration and fierce curiositythrashed about for the right man to pitch on for this crime. Themurdered woman had been so good company, so hearty a wit, such a robustsongstress, so tireless a dancer, so thoroughly everybody's friend, thatit was inconceivable to the mind of Salvation Gap that anybody there haddone it. The women were crying and wringing their hands--the Gazelle hadbeen good to them too; the men were talking and cursing, all but Drylynthere among them, serious and strange-looking; so silent that thesheriff eyed him once or twice, though he knew nothing of the miner'sinfatuation. And then some woman shrieked out the name of Drylyn, andthe crowd had him gripped in a second, to let him go the next, laughingat the preposterous idea. Saying nothing? Of course he didn't feel liketalking. To be sure he looked dazed. It was hard luck on him. They toldthe sheriff about him and the Gazelle. They explained that Drylyn was"sort of loony, anyway, " and the sheriff said, "Oh!" and began to wonderand surmise in this half-minute they had been now gathered, whensuddenly the inevitable boot-prints behind the tent down the hill werefound. The shout of discovery startled Drylyn as genuinely as if he hadnever known, and he joined the wild rush of people to the hill. Nor wasthis acting. The violence he had set going, and in which he swam like astraw, made him forget, or for the moment drift away from, his arrangedthoughts, and the tracks on the hill had gone clean out of his head. Hewas become a mere blank spectator in the storm, incapable ofcalculation. His own handiwork had stunned him, for he had not foreseenthat consequences were going to rise and burst like this. The next thinghe knew he was in a pursuit, with pine-trees passing, and the hurryingsheriff remarking to the band that he proposed to maintain order. Drylynheard his neighbor, a true Californian, whose words were lightest whenhis purpose was most serious, telling the sheriff that order wascertainly Heaven's first law, and an elegant thing anywhere. But theanxious officer made no retort in kind, and only said thatirregularities were damaging to the county's good name, and would keepsettlers from moving in. So the neighbor turned to Drylyn and asked himwhen he was intending to wake up, as sleep-walking was considered to beunhealthy. Drylyn gave a queer, almost wistful, smile, and so they wentalong; the chatty neighbor spoke low to another man, and said he hadnever sized up the true state of Drylyn's feeling for the Gazelle, andthat the sheriff might persuade some people to keep regular, when theyfound the man they were hunting, but he doubted if the sheriff would bepersuading enough for Drylyn. They came out on a road, and thesleep-walker recognized a rock and knew how far they had gone, and thatthis was the stage-road between Folsom and Surprise Springs. Theyfollowed the road, and round a bend came on the man. He had been takingit easily, being in no hurry. He had come to this point by the stage thenight before, and now he was waiting for its return to take him back toFolsom. He had been lunching, and was seated on a stone by a smallcreek. He looked up and saw them, and their gait, and ominouscompactness. What he did was not the thing for him to do. He leaped intocover and drew his revolver. This attempt at defence and escape wasreally for the sake of the gold-dust he had in his pocket. But when herecognized the sheriff's voice, telling him it would go better with himif he did not try to kill any more people, he was greatly relieved thatit was not highwaymen after him and his little gold, and he put up hispistol and waited for them, smiling, secure in his identity; and whenthey drew nearer he asked them how many people he had killed already. They came up and caught him and found the gold in a moment, ripping itfrom his pocket; and the yell they gave at that stopped his smilingentirely. When he found himself in irons and hurried along, he began toexplain that there was some mistake, and was told by the chatty neighborthat maybe killing a woman was always a mistake, certainly one thistime. As they walked him among them they gave small notice to hisgrowing fright and bewilderment, but when he appealed to the sheriff onthe score of old acquaintanceship, and pitifully begged to know whatthey supposed he had done, the miners laughed curiously. That broughthis entreating back to them, and he assured them, looking in theirfaces, that he truly did need to be told why they wanted him. So theyheld up the gold and asked him whose that had been, and he made awretched hesitation in answering. If anything was needed to clinch theircertainty, that did. They could not know that the young successful loverhad recognized Drylyn's strange face, and did not want to tell the truthbefore him, and hence was telling an unskilful lie instead. A rattle ofwheels sounded among the pines ahead, and the stage came up and stopped. Only the driver and a friend were on it, and both of them knew theshot-gun messenger and the sheriff, and they asked in some astonishmentwhat the trouble was. It had been stage-robbers the sheriff had startedafter, the driver thought. And--as he commented in friendly tones--toturn up with Wells and Fargo's messenger was the neatest practical jokethat had occurred in the county for some time. The always serious andanxious sheriff told the driver the accusation, and it was a genuine cryof horror that the young lover gave at hearing the truth at last, and atfeeling the ghastly chain of probability that had wound itself abouthim. 

The sheriff wondered if there were a true ring in the man's voice. Itcertainly sounded so. He was talking with rapid agony, and it was thewhole true story that was coming out now. But the chatty neighbor nudgedanother neighbor at the new explanation about the gold-dust. That therewas no great quantity of it, after all, weighed little against thisdouble accounting for one simple fact; moreover, the new version did notdo the messenger credit in the estimation of the miners, but gave them astill worse opinion of him. It is scarcely fair to disbelieve what a mansays he did, and at the same time despise him for having done it. Miners, however, are rational rather than logical; while the listeningsheriff grew more determined there should be a proper trial, thedeputation from the Gap made up its mind more inexorably the other way. It had even been in the miners' heads to finish the business here on theFolsom road, and get home for supper; pine-trees were handy, and therewas rope in the stage. They were not much moved by the sheriff's pleathat something further might have turned up at the Gap; but at thedriver's more forcible suggestion that the Gap would feel disappointedat being left out, they consented to take the man back there. Drylynnever offered any opinion, or spoke at all. It was not necessary that heshould, and they forgot about him. It was time to be getting along, theysaid. What was the good in standing in the road here? They noddedgood-day to the stage-driver, and took themselves and the prisoner intothe pines. Once the sheriff had looked at the driver and his friendperched on the halted stage, but he immediately saw too much risk in hishalf-formed notion of an alliance with them to gallop off with theprisoner; his part must come later, if at all. 

But the driver had perfectly understood the sheriff's glance, andhe was on the sheriff's side, though he showed no sign. As he drovealong he began thinking about the way the prisoner had cried out justnow, and the inconsiderable value of the dust, and it became clear inhis mind that this was a matter for a court and twelve quiet men. Thefriend beside him was also intent upon his own thoughts, and neithersaid a word to the other upon the lonely road. The horses soon knewthat they were not being driven any more, and they slackened theirpace, and finding no reproof came for this, they fell to a comfortablewalk. Presently several had snatched a branch in passing, and it wavedfrom their mouths as they nibbled. After that they gave up allpretence at being stage-horses, and the driver noticed them. Fromhabit he whipped them up into shape and gait, and the next momentpulled them in short, at the thought that had come to him. Theprisoner must be got away from the Gap. The sheriff was toosingle-handed among such a crowd as that, and the driver put aquestion to his friend. It could be managed by taking a slight libertywith other people's horses; but Wells and Fargo would not find faultwith this when the case was one of their own servants, hitherto sowell thought of. The stage, being empty and light, could spare twohorses and go on, while those two horses, handled with discretion andtimeliness, might be very useful at the Gap. The driver had best notdepart from rule so far as to leave his post and duty; one man wouldbe enough. The friend thought well of this plan, and they climbed downinto the road from opposite sides and took out the wheelers. To besure these animals were heavy, and not of the best sort for escapingon, but better than walking; and timeliness and discretion can do agreat deal. So in a little while the driver and his stage were goneon their way, the friend with the two horses had disappeared in thewood, and the road was altogether lonely. 

[Illustration: THE SHOT-GUN MESSENGER]

The sheriff's brain was hard at work, and he made no protest now as hewalked along, passive in the company of the miners and their prisoner. The prisoner had said all that he had to say, and his man's firmness, which the first shock and amazement had wrenched from him, had come tohis help again, bringing a certain shame at having let his reserve andbearing fall to pieces, and at having made himself a show; so he spokeno more than his grim captors did, as they took him swiftly through thewood. The sheriff was glad it was some miles they had to go; for thoughthey went very fast, the distance and the time, and even the becomingtired in body, might incline their minds to more deliberation. He couldthink yet of nothing new to urge. He had seen and heard only the samethings that all had, and his present hopes lay upon the Gap and whatmore might have come to light there since his departure. He looked atDrylyn, but the miner's serious and massive face gave him no suggestion;and the sheriff's reason again destroyed the germ of suspicion thatsomething plainly against reason had several times put in his thoughts. Yet it stuck with him that they had hold of the wrong man. 

When they reached the Gap, and he found the people there as he had leftthem, and things the same way, with nothing new turned up to help histheory, the sheriff once more looked round; but Drylyn was not in thecrowd. He had gone, they told him, to look at _her_; he had set a heapof store by her, they repeated. 

"A heap of store, " said the sheriff, thinking. "Where is she now?"

"On her bed, " said a woman, "same as ever, only we've fixed her upsome. "

"Then I'll take a look at her--and him. You boys won't do anything tillI come back, will you?"

"Why, if ye're so anxious to see us do it, sheriff, " said the chattyneighbor, "I guess we can wait that long fer ye. "

The officer walked to the tent. Drylyn was standing over the body, quietand dumb. He was safe for the present, the sheriff knew, and so he lefthim without speaking and returned to the prisoner and his guard in frontof the dance-hall. He found them duly waiting; the only change was thatthey had a rope there. 

"Once upon a time, " said the sheriff, "there was a man in Arkansaw thathad no judgment. "

"They raise 'em that way in Arkansaw, " said the chatty neighbor, as thecompany made a circle to hear the story--a tight, cautious circle--withthe prisoner and the officer beside him standing in the centre. 

"The man's wife had good judgment, " continued the narrator, "but shewent and died on him. "

"Well, I guess that _was_ good judgment, " said the neighbor. 

"So the man, he had to run the farm alone. Now they raised poultry, which his wife had always attended to. And he knew she had a habit ofsetting hens on duck eggs. He had never inquired her reasons, beingshiftless, but that fact he knew. Well, come to investigate thehen-house, there was duck eggs, and hens on 'em, and also a heap ofhens' eggs, but no more hens wishing to set. So the man, having nojudgment, persuaded a duck to stay with those eggs. Now it's her I'mchiefly interested in. She was a good enough duck, but hasty. When theeggs hatched out, she didn't stop to notice, but up and takes them downto the pond, and gets mad with them, and shoves them in, and theydrowns. Next day or two a lot of the young ducks, they hatched out andcome down with the hen and got in the water all right, and the duckfigured out she'd made some mistake, and she felt distressed. But thechickens were in heaven. "

The sheriff studied his audience, and saw that he had lulled their ragea little. "Now, " said he, "ain't you boys just a trifle like that duck?I don't know as I can say much to you more than what I have said, and Idon't know as I can do anything, fixed as I am. This thing looks bad forhim we've got here. Why, I can see that as well as you. But, boys! it'san awful thing to kill an innocent man! I saw that done once, and--Godforgive me!--I was one of them. I'll tell you how that was. He lookedenough like the man we wanted. We were certainly on the right trail. Wecame on a cabin we'd never known of before, pretty far up in thehills--a strange cabin, you see. That seemed just right; just where aman would hide. We were mad at the crime committed, and took no thought. We knew we had caught him--that's the way we felt. So we got our gunsready, and crept up close through the trees, and surrounded that cabin. We called him to come out, and he came with a book in his hands he'dbeen reading. He did look like the man, and boys!--we gave him no time!He never knew why we fired. He was a harmless old prospector who had gottired of poor luck and knocking around, and over his door he had paintedsome words: 'Where the wicked cease from troubling. ' He had figuredthat up there by that mountain stream the world would let him alone. Andever since then I have thought my life belonged to him first, and mesecond. Now this afternoon I'm alone here. You know I can't do much. AndI'm going to ask you to help me respect the law. I don't say that inthis big country there may not be places, and there may not be times, when the law is too young or else too rotten to take care of itself, andwhen the American citizen must go back to bed-rock principles. But isthat so in our valley? Why, if this prisoner is guilty, you can't nameme one man of your acquaintance who would want him to live. And thatbeing so, don't we owe him the chance to clear himself if he can? I cansee that prospector now at his door, old, harmless, coming fearless atour call, because he had no guilt upon his conscience--and we shot himdown without a word. Boys! he has the call on me now; and if youinsist--"

The sheriff paused, satisfied with what he saw on the faces around him. Some of the men knew the story of the prospector--it had been in thepapers--but of his part in it they had not known. They understood quitewell the sacrifice he stood ready to make now in defending the prisoner. The favorable silence was broken by the sound of horses. Timeliness anddiscretion were coming up the hill. Drylyn at the same moment came outof the dead woman's tent, and, looking down, realized the intendedrescue. With his mind waked suddenly from its dull dream and opened witha human impulse, he ran to help; but the sheriff saw him, and thought hewas trying to escape. 

"That's the man!" he shouted savagely to the ring. 

Some of the Gap ran to the edge of the hill, and, seeing the hurryingDrylyn and the horses below, also realized the rescue. Putting the wrongtwo and two together, they instantly saw in all this a well-devisedscheme of delay and collusion. They came back, running through thedance-hall to the front, and the sheriff was pinioned from behind, thrown down, and held. 

"So ye were alone, were ye?" said the chatty neighbor. "Well, ye made agood talk. Keep quiet--we don't want to hurt ye. "

At this supposed perfidy the Gap's rage was at white-heat again; the menmassed together, and fierce and quick as lightning the messenger's fatewas wrought. The work of adjusting the rope and noose was complete anddeath going on in the air when Drylyn, meaning to look the ground overfor the rescue, came cautiously back up the hill and saw the body, blackagainst the clear sunset sky. At his outcry they made ready for him, andwhen he blindly rushed among them they held him, and paid no attentionto his ravings. Then, when the rope had finished its work, they let himgo, and the sheriff too. The driver's friend had left his horses amongthe pines, and had come up to see what was going on at the Gap. He nowjoined the crowd. 

"You meant well, " the sheriff said to him. "I wish you would tell theboys how you come to be here. They're thinking I lied to them. "

"Maybe I can change their minds. " It was Drylyn's deep voice. "I am theman you were hunting, " he said. 

[Illustration: "'I'D LIKE TO HAVE IT OVER'"]

They looked at him seriously, as one looks at a friend whom an illnesshas seized. The storm of feeling had spent itself, the mood of the Gapwas relaxed and torpid, and the serenity of coming dusk began to fillthe mountain air. 

"You boys think I'm touched in the head, " said Drylyn, and paused. "Thisknife done it, " said he. "This one I'm showing you. "

They looked at the knife in his hand. 

"He come between me and her, " Drylyn pursued. "I was aiming to give himhis punishment myself. That would have been square. " He turned the knifeover in his hand, and, glancing up from it, caught the look in theireyes. "You don't believe me!" he exclaimed, savagely. "Well, I'm goingto make you. Sheriff, I'll bring you some evidence. "

He walked to the creek, and they stood idle and dull till he returned. Then they fell back from him and his evidence, leaving him standingbeneath the dead man. 

"Does them look like being touched in the head?" inquired Drylyn, and hethrew down the overalls, which fell with a damp slap on the ground. "Idon't seem to mind telling you, " he said. "I feel as quiet--as quiet asthem tall pines the sun's just quittin' for the night. " He looked at themen expectantly, but none of them stirred. "I'd like to have it over, "said he. 

Still no one moved. 

"I have a right to ask it shall be quick, " he repeated. "You were quickenough with him. " And Drylyn lifted his hand towards the messenger. 

They followed his gesture, staring up at the wrong man, then down at theright one. The chatty neighbor shook his head. "Seems curious, " hesaid, slowly. "It ought to be done. But I couldn't no more do it--gosh!how _can_ a man fire his gun right after it's been discharged?"

The heavy Drylyn looked at his comrades of the Gap. "You won't?" hesaid. 

"You better quit us, " suggested the neighbor. "Go somewheres else. "

Drylyn's eyes ran painfully over ditch and diggings, the near cabins andthe distant hills, then returned to the messenger. "Him and me, " hemuttered. "It ain't square. Him and me--" Suddenly he broke out, "Idon't choose him to think I was that kind of man!"

Before they could catch him he fell, and the wet knife slid from hisfingers. "Sheriff, " he began, but his tone changed. "I'm overtakin'him!" he said. "He's going to know now. Lay me alongside--"

And so they did. 

THE SECOND MISSOURI COMPROMISE

I

The Legislature had sat up all night, much absorbed, having taken offits coat because of the stove. This was the fortieth and final day ofits first session under an order of things not new only, but novel. Itsat with the retrospect of forty days' duty done, and the prospect offorty days' consequent pay to come. Sleepy it was not, but wide andwider awake over a progressing crisis. Hungry it had been until after abreakfast fetched to it from the Overland at seven, three hours ago. Ithad taken no intermission to wash its face, nor was there just now anyapparatus for this, as the tin pitcher commonly used stood not in thebasin in the corner, but on the floor by the Governor's chair; so theeyes of the Legislature, though earnest, were dilapidated. Last nightthe pressure of public business had seemed over, and no turning back thehands of the clock likely to be necessary. Besides Governor Ballard, Mr. Hewley, Secretary and Treasurer, was sitting up too, small, iron-gray, in feature and bearing every inch the capable, dignified official, buthis necktie had slipped off during the night. The bearded Councillorshad the best of it, seeming after their vigil less stale in the facethan the member from Silver City, for instance, whose day-old blackgrowth blurred his dingy chin, or the member from Big Camas, whosescantier red crop bristled on his cheeks in sparse wanderingarrangements, like spikes on the barrel of a musical box. For comfort, most of the pistols were on the table with the Statutes of the UnitedStates. Secretary and Treasurer Hewley's lay on his strong-boximmediately behind him. The Governor's was a light one, and always hungin the arm hole of his waistcoat. The graveyard of Boisé City this yearhad twenty-seven tenants, two brought there by meningitis, andtwenty-five by difference of opinion. Many denizens of the Territorywere miners, and the unsettling element of gold-dust hung in the air, breeding argument. The early, thin, bright morning steadily mellowedagainst the windows distant from the stove; the panes melted clear untilthey ran, steamed faintly, and dried, this fresh May day, after thenight's untimely cold; while still the Legislature sat in itsshirt-sleeves, and several statesmen had removed their boots. Even hadappearances counted, the session was invisible from the street. Unlike agood number of houses in the town, the State-House (as they called itfrom old habit) was not all on the ground-floor for outsiders to stareinto, but up a flight of wood steps to a wood gallery. From this, to besure, the interior could be watched from several windows on both sides;but the journey up the steps was precisely enough to disincline theidle, and this was counted a sensible thing by the law-makers. They tookthe ground that shaping any government for a raw wilderness communityneeded seclusion, and they set a high value upon unworried privacy. 

The sun had set upon a concentrated Council, but it rose upon faces thatlooked momentous. Only the Governor's and Treasurer's were impassive, and they concealed something even graver than the matter in hand. 

"I'll take a hun'red mo', Gove'nuh, " said the member from Silver City, softly, his eyes on space. His name was Powhattan Wingo. 

The Governor counted out the blue, white, and red chips to Wingo, pencilled some figures on a thickly ciphered and cancelled paper thatbore in print the words "Territory of Idaho, Council Chamber, " and thenfilled up his glass from the tin pitcher, adding a little sugar. 

"And I'll trouble you fo' the toddy, " Wingo added, always softly, andhis eyes always on space. "Raise you ten, suh. " This was to theTreasurer. Only the two were playing at present. The Governor was kindlyacting as bank; the others were looking on. 

"And ten, " said the Treasurer. 

"And ten, " said Wingo. 

"And twenty, " said the Treasurer. 

"And fifty, " said Wingo, gently bestowing his chips in the middle of thetable. 

The Treasurer called. 

The member from Silver City showed down five high hearts, and a lightrustle went over the Legislature when the Treasurer displayed three twosand a pair of threes, and gathered in his harvest. He had drawn twocards, Wingo one; and losing to the lowest hand that could have beatenyou is under such circumstances truly hard luck. Moreover, it was almostthe only sort of luck that had attended Wingo since about half afterthree that morning. Seven hours of cards just a little lower than yourneighbor's is searching to the nerves. 

"Gove'nuh, I'll take a hun'red mo', " said Wingo; and once again theLegislature rustled lightly, and the new deal began. 

Treasurer Hewley's winnings flanked his right, a pillared fortress onthe table, built chiefly of Wingo's misfortunes. Hewley had not countedthem, and his architecture was for neatness and not ostentation; yet theLegislature watched him arrange his gains with sullen eyes. It wouldhave pleased him now to lose; it would have more than pleased him to beable to go to bed quite a long time ago. But winners cannot easily go tobed. The thoughtful Treasurer bet his money and deplored this luck. Itseemed likely to trap himself and the Governor in a predicament they hadnot foreseen. All had taken a hand at first, and played for severalhours, until Fortune's wheel ran into a rut deeper than usual. Wingoslowly became the loser to several, then Hewley had forged ahead, winnerfrom everybody. One by one they had dropped out, each meaning to gohome, and all lingering to see the luck turn. It was an extraordinaryrun, a rare specimen, a breaker of records, something to refer to in thefuture as a standard of measure and an embellishment of reminiscence;quite enough to keep the Idaho Legislature up all night. And then it wastheir friend who was losing. The only speaking in the room was the briefcard talk of the two players. 

"Five better, " said Hewley, winner again four times in the last five. 

"Ten, " said Wingo. 

"And twenty, " said the Secretary and Treasurer. 

"Call you. "

"Three kings. "

"They are good, suh. Gove'nuh, I'll take a hun'red mo'. "

Upon this the wealthy and weary Treasurer made a try for liberty andbed. How would it do, he suggested, to have a round of jack-pots, sayten--or twenty, if the member from Silver City preferred--and then stop?It would do excellently, the member said, so softly that the Governorlooked at him. But Wingo's large countenance remained inexpressive, hisblack eyes still impersonally fixed on space. He sat thus till his chipswere counted to him, and then the eyes moved to watch the cards fall. The Governor hoped he might win now, under the jack-pot system. At noonhe should have a disclosure to make; something that would need the mostcheerful and contented feelings in Wingo and the Legislature to bereceived with any sort of calm. Wingo was behind the game to the tuneof--the Governor gave up adding as he ran his eye over the figures ofthe bank's erased and tormented record, and he shook his head tohimself. This was inadvertent. 

"May I inquah who yo're shakin' yoh head at, suh?" said Wingo, wheelingupon the surprised Governor. 

"Certainly, " answered that official. "You. " He was never surprised forvery long. In 1867 it did not do to remain surprised in Idaho. 

"And have I done anything which meets yoh disapprobation?" pursued themember from Silver City, enunciating with care. 

"You have met my disapprobation. "

Wingo's eye was on the Governor, and now his friends drew a littletogether, and as a unit sent a glance of suspicion at the lone bank. 

"You will gratify me by being explicit, suh, " said Wingo to the bank. 

"Well, you've emptied the toddy. "

"Ha-ha, Gove'nuh! I rose, suh, to yoh little fly. We'll awduh some mo'. "

"Time enough when he comes for the breakfast things, " said GovernorBallard, easily. 

"As you say, suh. I'll open for five dolluhs. " Wingo turned back to hisgame. He was winning, and as his luck continued his voice ceased to besoft, and became a shade truculent. The Governor's ears caught thischange, and he also noted the lurking triumph in the faces of Wingo'sfellow-statesmen. Cheerfulness and content were scarcely reigning yet inthe Council Chamber of Idaho as Ballard sat watching the friendly game. He was beginning to fear that he must leave the Treasurer alone and takesome precautions outside. But he would have to be separated for sometime from his ally, cut off from giving him any hints. Once theTreasurer looked at him, and he immediately winked reassuringly, but theTreasurer failed to respond. Hewley might be able to wink aftereverything was over, but he could not find it in his serious heart to doso now. He was wondering what would happen if this game should last tillnoon with the company in its present mood. Noon was the time fixed forpaying the Legislative Assembly the compensation due for its servicesduring this session; and the Governor and the Treasurer had put theirheads together and arranged a surprise for the Legislative Assembly. They were not going to pay them. 

A knock sounded at the door, and on seeing the waiter from the Overlandenter, the Governor was seized with an idea. Perhaps precaution couldbe taken from the inside. "Take this pitcher, " said he, "and have itrefilled with the same. Joseph knows my mixture. " But Joseph was nightbar-tender, and now long in his happy bed, with a day successor in thesaloon, and this one did not know the mixture. Ballard had foreseen thiswhen he spoke, and that his writing a note of directions would seemquite natural. 

"The receipt is as long as the drink, " said a legislator, watching theGovernor's pencil fly. 

"He don't know where my private stock is located, " explained Ballard. The waiter departed with the breakfast things and the note, and whilethe jack-pots continued the Governor's mind went carefully over thesituation. 

Until lately the Western citizen has known one every-day experience thatno dweller in our thirteen original colonies has had for two hundredyears. In Massachusetts they have not seen it since 1641; in Virginianot since 1628. It is that of belonging to a community of which everyadult was born somewhere else. When you come to think of this a littleit is dislocating to many of your conventions. Let a citizen of Salem, for instance, or a well-established Philadelphia Quaker, try to imaginehis chief-justice fresh from Louisiana, his mayor from Arkansas, histax-collector from South Carolina, and himself recently arrived in awagon from a thousand-mile drive. To be governor of such a communityBallard had travelled in a wagon from one quarter of the horizon; fromanother quarter Wingo had arrived on a mule. People reached Boisé inthree ways: by rail to a little west of the Missouri, after which it waswagon, saddle, or walk for the remaining fifteen hundred miles; fromCalifornia it was shorter; and from Portland, Oregon, only about fivehundred miles, and some of these more agreeable, by water up theColumbia. Thus it happened that salt often sold for its weight ingold-dust. A miner in the Bannock Basin would meet a freight teamstercoming in with the staples of life, having journeyed perhaps sixtyconsecutive days through the desert, and valuing his salt highly. Thetwo accordingly bartered in scales, white powder against yellow, andboth parties content. Some in Boisé to-day can remember these bargains. After all, they were struck but thirty years ago. Governor Ballard andTreasurer Hewley did not come from the same place, but they constituteda minority of two in Territorial politics because they hailed from northof Mason and Dixon's line. Powhattan Wingo and the rest of the Councilwere from Pike County, Missouri. They had been Secessionists, some ofthem Knights of the Golden Circle; they had belonged to Price's LeftWing, and they flocked together. They were seven--two lying unwell atthe Overland, five now present in the State-House with the Governor andTreasurer. Wingo, Gascon Claiborne, Gratiot des Pères, Pete Cawthon, andF. Jackson Gilet were their names. Besides this Council of seven werethirteen members of the Idaho House of Representatives, mostly of thesame political feather with the Council, and they too would be presentat noon to receive their pay. How Ballard and Hewley came to be aminority of two is a simple matter. Only twenty-five months had gonesince Appomattox Court-House. That surrender was presently followed byJohnston's to Sherman, at Durhams Station, and following this thevarious Confederate armies in Alabama, or across the Mississippi, orwherever they happened to be, had successively surrendered--but notPrice's Left Wing. There was the wide open West under its nose, and noGrant or Sherman infesting that void. Why surrender? Wingos, Claibornes, and all, they melted away. Price's Left Wing sailed into the prairie andpassed below the horizon. To know what it next did you must, likeBallard or Hewley, pass below the horizon yourself, clean out of sightof the dome at Washington to remote, untracked Idaho. There, besideswild red men in quantities, would you find not very tame white ones, gentlemen of the ripest Southwestern persuasion, and a Legislature tofit. And if, like Ballard or Hewley, you were a Union man, and thePresident of the United States had appointed you Governor or Secretaryof such a place, your days would be full of awkwardness, though yourdifference in creed might not hinder you from playing draw-poker withthe unreconstructed. These Missourians were whole-souled, ample-naturedmales in many ways, but born with a habit of hasty shooting. TheGovernor, on setting foot in Idaho, had begun to study pistolship, butacquired thus in middle life it could never be with him that spontaneousart which it was with Price's Left Wing. Not that the weapons now lyingloose about the State-House were brought for use there. Everybody alwayswent armed in Boisé, as the gravestones impliedly testified. Still, thethought of the bad quarter of an hour which it might come to at noon didcross Ballard's mind, raising the image of a column in the morrow'spaper: "An unfortunate occurrence has ended relations between esteemedgentlemen hitherto the warmest personal friends. .. . They will be laidto rest at 3 p. M. .. . As a last token of respect for our lamentedGovernor, the troops from Boisé Barracks. .. . " The Governor trusted thatif his friends at the post were to do him any service it would not be afuneral one. 

The new pitcher of toddy came from the Overland, the jack-potscontinued, were nearing a finish, and Ballard began to wonder ifanything had befallen a part of his note to the bar-tender, an enclosureaddressed to another person. 

"Ha, suh!" said Wingo to Hewley. "My pot again, I declah. " The chips hadbeen crossing the table his way, and he was now loser but six hundreddollars. 

"Ye ain't goin' to whip Mizzooruh all night an' all day, ez a rule, "observed Pete Cawthon, Councillor from Lost Leg. 

"'Tis a long road that has no turnin', Gove'nuh, " said F. Jackson Gilet, more urbanely. He had been in public life in Missouri, and was nowPresident of the Council in Idaho. He, too, had arrived on a mule, butcould at will summon a rhetoric dating from Cicero, and preserved bymany luxuriant orators until after the middle of the present century. 

"True, " said the Governor, politely. "But here sits the long-sufferingbank, whichever way the road turns. I'm sleepy. "

"You sacrifice yo'self in the good cause, " replied Gilet, pointing tothe poker game. "Oneasy lies the head that wahs an office, suh. " AndGilet bowed over his compliment. 

The Governor thought so indeed. He looked at the Treasurer's strong-box, where lay the appropriation lately made by Congress to pay the IdahoLegislature for its services; and he looked at the Treasurer, in whosepocket lay the key of the strong-box. He was accountable to the Treasuryat Washington for all money disbursed for Territorial expenses. 

"Eleven twenty, " said Wingo, "and only two hands mo' to play. "

The Governor slid out his own watch. 

"I'll scahsely recoup, " said Wingo. 

They dealt and played the hand, and the Governor strolled to the window. 

"Three aces, " Wingo announced, winning again handsomely. "I struck myluck too late, " he commented to the on-lookers. While losing he had beenable to sustain a smooth reticence; now he gave his thoughts freely tothe company, and continually moved and fingered his increasing chips. The Governor was still looking out of the window, where he could see farup the street, when Wingo won the last hand, which was small. "That endsit, suh, I suppose?" he said to Hewley, letting the pack of cards lingerin his grasp. 

"I wouldn't let him off yet, " said Ballard to Wingo from the window, with sudden joviality, and he came back to the players. "I'd make himthrow five cold hands with me. "

"Ah, Gove'nuh, that's yoh spo'tin' blood! Will you do it, MistuhHewley--a hun'red a hand?"

Mr. Hewley did it; and winning the first, he lost the second, third, andfourth in the space of an eager minute, while the Councillors drew theirchairs close. 

"Let me see, " said Wingo, calculating, "if I lose this--why still--" Helost. "But I'll not have to ask you to accept my papuh, suh. Wingoliquidates. Fo'ty days at six dolluhs a day makes six times fo' istwenty-fo'--two hun'red an' fo'ty dolluhs spot cash in hand at noon, without computation of mileage to and from Silver City at fo' dolluhsevery twenty miles, estimated according to the nearest usually travelledroute. " He was reciting part of the statute providing mileage for Idaholegislators. He had never served the public before, and he knew all thelaws concerning compensation by heart. "You'll not have to wait fo' yohmoney, suh, " he concluded. 

"Well, Mr. Wingo, " said Governor Ballard, "it depends on yourselfwhether your pay comes to you or not. " He spoke cheerily. "If you don'tsee things my way, our Treasurer will have to wait for his money. " Hehad not expected to break the news just so, but it made as easy abeginning as any. 

"See things yoh way, suh?"

"Yes. As it stands at present I cannot take the responsibility of payingyou. "

"The United States pays me, suh. My compensation is provided by act ofCongress. "

"I confess I am unable to discern your responsibility, Gove'nuh, " saidF. Jackson Gilet. "Mr. Wingo has faithfully attended the session, andis, like every gentleman present, legally entitled to his emoluments. "

"You can all readily become entitled--"

"All? Am I--are my friends--included in this new depa'tyuh?"

"The difficulty applies generally, Mr. Gilet. "

"Do I understand the Gove'nuh to insinuate--nay, gentlemen, do not rise!Be seated, I beg. " For the Councillors had leaped to their feet. 

"Whar's our money?" said Pete Cawthon. "Our money was put in thet yerebox. "

Ballard flushed angrily, but a knock at the door stopped him, and hemerely said, "Come in. "

A trooper, a corporal, stood at the entrance, and the disordered Councilendeavored to look usual in a stranger's presence. They resumed theirseats, but it was not easy to look usual on such short notice. 

"Captain Paisley's compliments, " said the soldier, mechanically, "andwill Governor Ballard take supper with him this evening?"

"Thank Captain Paisley, " said the Governor (his tone was quite usual), "and say that official business connected with the end of the sessionmakes it imperative for me to be at the State-House. Imperative. "

The trooper withdrew. He was a heavy-built, handsome fellow, with blackmustache and black eyes that watched through two straight, narrow slitsbeneath straight black brows. His expression in the Council Chamber hadbeen of the regulation military indifference, and as he went down thesteps he irrelevantly sang an old English tune:

 "'Since first I saw your face I resolved To honor and re--'

"I guess, " he interrupted himself as he unhitched his horse, "parrot andmonkey hev broke loose. "

The Legislature, always in its shirt-sleeves, the cards on the table, and the toddy on the floor, sat calm a moment, cooled by this briefpause from the first heat of its surprise, while the clatter of CorporalJones's galloping shrank quickly into silence. 

II

Captain Paisley walked slowly from the adjutant's office at BoiséBarracks to his quarters, and his orderly walked behind him. The captaincarried a letter in his hand, and the orderly, though distant arespectful ten paces, could hear him swearing plain as day. When hereached his front door Mrs. Paisley met him. 

"Jim, " cried she, "two more chickens froze in the night. " And thedelighted orderly heard the captain so plainly that he had to blow hisnose or burst. 

The lady, merely remarking "My goodness, Jim, " retired immediately tothe kitchen, where she had a soldier cook baking, and feared he was notquite sober enough to do it alone. The captain had paid eighty dollarsfor forty hens this year at Boisé, and twenty-nine had now passed away, victims to the climate. His wise wife perceived his extreme language notto have been all on account of hens, however; but he never allowed herto share in his professional worries, so she stayed safe with thebaking, and he sat in the front room with a cigar in his mouth. 

Boisé was a two-company post without a major, and Paisley, being seniorcaptain, was in command, an office to which he did not object. But hisduties so far this month of May had not pleased him in the least. Theoretically, you can have at a two-company post the followingresponsible people: one major, two captains, four lieutenants, a doctor, and a chaplain. The major has been spoken of; it is almost needless tosay that the chaplain was on leave, and had never been seen at Boisé byany of the present garrison; two of the lieutenants were also on leave, and two on surveying details--they had influence at Washington; theother captain was on a scout with General Crook somewhere near theMalheur Agency, and the doctor had only arrived this week. There hadresulted a period when Captain Paisley was his own adjutant, quartermaster, and post surgeon, with not even an efficient sergeant torely upon; and during this period his wife had stayed a good deal in thekitchen. Happily the doctor's coming had given relief to the hospitalsteward and several patients, and to the captain not only an equal, butan old friend, with whom to pour out his disgust; and together everyevening they freely expressed their opinion of the War Department andits treatment of the Western army. 

There were steps at the door, and Paisley hurried out. "Only you!" heexclaimed, with such frank vexation that the doctor laughed loudly. "Come in, man, come in, " Paisley continued, leading him strongly by thearm, sitting him down, and giving him a cigar. "Here's a pretty how dedo!"

"More Indians!" inquired Dr. Tuck. 

"Bother! they're nothing. It's Senators--Councillors--whatever theTerritorial devils call themselves. "

"Gone on the war-path?" the doctor said, quite ignorant how nearly hehad touched the Council. 

"Precisely, man. War-path. Here's the Governor writing me they'll bescalping him in the State-House at twelve o'clock. It's past 11. 30. They'll be whetting knives about now. " And the captain roared. 

"I know you haven't gone crazy, " said the doctor, "but who has?"

"The lot of them. Ballard's a good man, and--what's his name?--thelittle Secretary. The balance are just mad dogs--mad dogs. Look here:'Dear Captain'--that's Ballard to me. I just got it--'I find myselfunexpectedly hampered this morning. The South shows signs of being toosolid. Unless I am supported, my plan for bringing our Legislature toterms will have to be postponed. Hewley and I are more likely to bebrought to terms ourselves--a bad precedent to establish in Idaho. Noonis the hour for drawing salaries. Ask me to supper as quick as you can, and act on my reply. ' I've asked him, " continued Paisley, "but I haven'ttold Mrs. Paisley to cook anything extra yet. " The captain paused toroar again, shaking Tuck's shoulder for sympathy. Then he explained thesituation in Idaho to the justly bewildered doctor. Ballard had confidedmany of his difficulties lately to Paisley. 

"He means you're to send troops?" Tuck inquired. 

"What else should the poor man mean?"

"Are you sure it's constitutional?"

"Hang constitutional! What do I know about their legal quibbles atWashington?"

"But, Paisley--"

"They're unsurrendered rebels, I tell you. Never signed a parole. "

"But the general amnesty--"

"Bother general amnesty! Ballard represents the Federal government inthis Territory, and Uncle Sam's army is here to protect the Federalgovernment. If Ballard calls on the army it's our business to obey, andif there's any mistake in judgment it's Ballard's, not mine. " Which wassound soldier common-sense, and happened to be equally good law. This isnot always the case. 

"You haven't got any force to send, " said Tuck. 

This was true. General Crook had taken with him both Captain Sinclair'sinfantry and the troop (or company, as cavalry was also then called) ofthe First. 

"A detail of five or six with a reliable non-commissioned officer willdo to remind them it's the United States they're bucking against, " saidPaisley. "There's a deal in the moral of these things. Crook--" Paisleybroke off and ran to the door. "Hold his horse!" he called out to theorderly; for he had heard the hoofs, and was out of the house beforeCorporal Jones had fairly arrived. So Jones sprang off and hurried up, saluting. He delivered his message. 

"Um--umpra--what's that? Is it _imperative_ you mean?" suggestedPaisley. 

"Yes, sir, " said Jones, reforming his pronunciation of that unaccustomedword. "He said it twiced. "

"What were they doing?"

"Blamed if I--beg the captain's pardon--they looked like they waswaitin' fer me to git out. "

"Go on--go on. How many were there?"

"Seven, sir. There was Governor Ballard and Mr. Hewley and--well, them'sall the names I know. But, " Jones hastened on with eagerness, "I've sawthem five other fellows before at a--at--" The corporal's voice failed, and he stood looking at the captain. 

"Well? Where?"

"At a cock-fight, sir, " murmured Jones, casting his eyes down. 

A slight sound came from the room where Tuck was seated, listening, andPaisley's round gray eyes rolled once, then steadied themselvesfiercely upon Jones. 

"Did you notice anything further unusual, corporal?"

"No, sir, except they was excited in there. Looked like they might begoin' to hev considerable rough house--a fuss, I mean, sir. Two was intheir socks. I counted four guns on a table. "

"Take five men and go at once to the State-House. If the Governor needsassistance you will give it, but do nothing hasty. Stop trouble, andmake none. You've got twenty minutes. "

"Captain--if anybody needs arrestin'--"

"You must be judge of that. " Paisley went into the house. There was notime for particulars. 

"Snakes!" remarked Jones. He jumped on his horse and dashed down theslope to the men's quarters. 

"Crook may be here any day or any hour, " said Paisley, returning to thedoctor. "With two companies in the background, I think Price's Left Wingwill subside this morning. "

"Supposing they don't?"

"I'll go myself; and when it gets to Washington that the commandingofficer at Boisé personally interfered with the Legislature of Idaho, it'll shock 'em to that extent that the government will have to pay fora special commission of investigation and two tons of red tape. I've gotto trust to that corporal's good sense. I haven't another man at thepost. "

[Illustration: "HIS PLAN WAS TO WALK AND KEEP QUIET"]

Corporal Jones had three-quarters of a mile to go, and it was tenminutes before noon, so he started his five men at a run. His plan wasto walk and look quiet as soon as he reached the town, and thusexcite no curiosity. The citizens were accustomed to the sight ofpassing soldiers. Jones had thought out several things, and he was notgoing to order bayonets fixed until the final necessary moment. "Stoptrouble and make none" was firm in his mind. He had not long been acorporal. It was still his first enlistment. His habits were by nomeans exemplary; and his frontier personality, strongly developed bysix years of vagabonding before he enlisted, was scarcely yetdisciplined into the military machine of the regulation pattern thatit should and must become before he could be counted a model soldier. His captain had promoted him to steady him, if that could be, and togive his better qualities a chance. Since then he had never been drunkat the wrong time. Two years ago it would not have entered hisfree-lance heart to be reticent with any man, high or low, about anypleasure in which he saw fit to indulge; to-day he had been shy overconfessing to the commanding officer his leaning to cock-fights--asign of his approach to the correct mental attitude of the enlistedman. Being corporal had wakened in him a new instinct, and thisState-House affair was the first chance he had had to show himself. Hegave the order to proceed at a walk in such a tone that one of thetroopers whispered to another, "Specimen ain't going to forget he'swearing a chevron. "

III

The brief silence that Jones and his invitation to supper had causedamong the Councillors was first broken by F. Jackson Gilet. 

"Gentlemen, " he said, "as President of the Council I rejoice in aninterruption that has given pause to our haste and saved us fromill-considered expressions of opinion. The Gove'nuh has, I confess, surprised me. Befo' examining the legal aspect of our case I will askthe Gove'nuh if he is familiar with the sundry statutes applicable. "

"I think so, " Ballard replied, pleasantly. 

"I had supposed, " continued the President of the Council--"nay, I hadcongratulated myself that our weightiuh tasks of law-making and so fo'thwere consummated yesterday, our thirty-ninth day, and that our friendlygame of last night would be, as it were, the finis that crowned withpleashuh the work of a session memorable for its harmony. "

This was not wholly accurate, but near enough. The Governor had vetoedseveral bills, but Price's Left Wing had had much more than the requiredtwo-thirds vote of both Houses to make these bills laws over theGovernor's head. This may be called harmony in a manner. Gilet now wenton to say that any doubts which the Governor entertained concerning thelegality of his paying any salaries could easily be settled withoutentering upon discussion. Discussion at such a juncture could not buttend towards informality. The President of the Council could wellremember most unfortunate discussions in Missouri between the years 1856and 1860, in some of which he had had the honor to take part--_minimapars_, gentlemen! Here he digressed elegantly upon civil dissensions, and Ballard, listening to him and marking the slow, sure progress of thehour, told himself that never before had Gilet's oratory seemed morewelcome or less lengthy. A plan had come to him, the orator nextannounced, a way out of the present dilemma, simple and regular inevery aspect. Let some gentleman present now kindly draft a bill settingforth in its preamble the acts of Congress providing for theLegislature's compensation, and let this bill in conclusion provide thatall members immediately receive the full amount due for their services. At noon both Houses would convene; they would push back the clock, andpass this bill before the term of their session should expire. 

"Then, Gove'nuh, " said Gilet, "you can amply vindicate yo'self by aveto, which, together with our votes on reconsideration of yohobjections, will be reco'ded in the journal of our proceedings, andcopies transmitted to Washington within thirty days as required by law. Thus, suh, will you become absolved from all responsibility. "

The orator's face, while he explained this simple and regular way out ofthe dilemma, beamed with acumen and statesmanship. Here they would makea law, and the Governor must obey the law!

Nothing could have been more to Ballard's mind as he calculated thefleeting minutes than this peaceful, pompous farce. "Draw your bill, gentlemen, " he said. "I would not object if I could. "

The Statutes of the United States were procured from among the pistolsand opened at the proper page. Gascon Claiborne, upon another sheet ofpaper headed "Territory of Idaho, Council Chamber, " set aboutformulating some phrases which began "Whereas, " and Gratiot des Pèresread aloud to him from the statutes. Ballard conversed apart withHewley; in fact, there was much conversing aside. 

"'Third March, 1863, c. 117, s. 8, v. 12, p. 811, '" dictated Des Pères. 

"Skip the chaptuhs and sections, " said Claiborne. "We only require thedate. "

"'Third March, 1863. The sessions of the Legislative Assemblies of theseveral Territories of the United States shall be limited to forty days'duration. '"

"Wise provision that, " whispered Ballard. "No telling how long a pokergame might last. "

But Hewley could not take anything in this spirit. "Genuine business wasnot got through till yesterday, " he said. 

"'The members of each branch of the Legislature, '" read Des Pères, "'shall receive a compensation of six dollars per day during thesessions herein provided for, and they shall receive such mileage as nowprovided by law: _Provided_, That the President of the Council and theSpeaker of the House of Representatives shall each receive acompensation of ten dollars a day. '"

At this the President of the Council waved a deprecatory hand to signifythat it was a principle, not profit, for which he battled. They hadcompleted their _Whereases_, incorporating the language of the severalsections as to how the appropriation should be made, who disbursed suchmoney, mileage, and, in short, all things pertinent to their bill, whenPete Cawthon made a suggestion. 

"Ain't there anything 'bout how much the Gove'nuh gits?" he asks. 

"And the Secretary?" added Wingo. 

"Oh, you can leave us out, " said Ballard. 

"Pardon me, Gove'nuh, " said Gilet. "You stated that yoh difficulty wasnot confined to Mr. Wingo or any individual gentleman, but was general. Does it not apply to yo'self, suh? Do you not need any bill?"

"Oh no, " said Ballard, laughing. "I don't need any bill. "

"And why not?" said Cawthon. "You've jist ez much earned yoh money ez usfellers. "

"Quite as much, " said Ballard. "But we're not alike--at present. "

Gilet grew very stately. "Except certain differences in politicalopinions, suh, I am not awah of how we differ in merit as publicservants of this Territory. "

"The difference is of your own making, Mr. Gilet, and no bill you couldframe would cure it or destroy my responsibility. You cannot make anylaw contrary to a law of the United States. "

"Contrary to a law of the United States? And what, suh, has the UnitedStates to say about my pay I have earned in Idaho?"

"Mr. Gilet, there has been but one government in this country sinceApril, 1865, and as friends you and I have often agreed to differ as tohow many there were before then. That government has a law compellingpeople like you and me to go through a formality, which I have done, andyou and your friends have refused to do each time it has been suggestedto you. I have raised no point until now, having my reasons, which weremainly that it would make less trouble now for the Territory of which Ihave been appointed Governor. I am held accountable to the Secretary ofthe Treasury semiannually for the manner in which the appropriation hasbeen expended. If you will kindly hand me that book--"

Gilet, more and more stately, handed Ballard the Statutes, which he hadtaken from Des Pères. The others were watching Ballard with gatheringsullenness, as they had watched Hewley while he was winning Wingo'smoney, only now the sullenness was of a more decided complexion. 

Ballard turned the pages. "'Second July, 1862. Every person elected orappointed to any office of honor or profit, either in the civil, military, or naval service, . .. Shall before entering upon the duties ofsuch office, and before being entitled to any salary or other emolumentsthereof, take and subscribe the following oath: I--'"

"What does this mean, suh?" said Gilet. 

"It means there is no difference in our positions as to whatpreliminaries the law requires of us, no matter how we may vary inconvictions. I as Governor have taken the oath of allegiance to theUnited States, and you as Councillor must do the same before you can getyour pay. Look at the book. "

"I decline, suh. I repudiate yoh proposition. There is a wide differencein our positions. "

"What do you understand it to be, Mr. Gilet?" Ballard's temper wasrising. 

"If you have chosen to take an oath that did not go against yohconvictions--"

"Oh, Mr. Gilet!" said Ballard, smiling. "Look at the book. " He would notrisk losing his temper through further discussion. He would stick to thelaw as it lay open before them. 

But the Northern smile sent Missouri logic to the winds. "In what areyou superior to me, suh, that I cannot choose? Who are you that I andthese gentlemen must take oaths befo' you?"

"Not before me. Look at the book. "

"I'll look at no book, suh. Do you mean to tell me you have seen me dayaftuh day and meditated this treacherous attempt?"

"There is no attempt and no treachery, Mr. Gilet. You could have takenthe oath long ago, like other officials. You can take it to-day--or takethe consequences. "

"What? You threaten me, suh? Do I understand you to threaten me?Gentlemen of the Council, it seems Idaho will be less free than Missouriunless we look to it. " The President of the Council had risen in hisindignant oratorical might, and his more and more restless friendsglared admiration at him. "When was the time that Price's Left Wingsurrendered?" asked the orator. "Nevuh! Others have, be it said to theirshame. We have not toiled these thousand miles fo' that! Others havecrooked the pliant hinges of the knee that thrift might follow fawning. As fo' myself, two grandfathers who fought fo' our libuhties rest in thesoil of Virginia, and two uncles who fought in the Revolution sleep inthe land of the Dark and Bloody Ground. With such blood in my veins Iwill nevuh, nevuh, nevuh submit to Northern rule and dictation. I willrisk all to be with the Southern people, and if defeated I can, with apatriot of old, exclaim, "'More true joy an exile feels Than Cæsuh with a Senate at his heels. '

"Aye, gentlemen! And we will not be defeated! Our rights are here andare ours. " He stretched his arm towards the Treasurer's strong-box, andhis enthusiastic audience rose at the rhetoric. "Contain yo'selves, gentlemen, " said the orator. "Twelve o'clock and our bill!"

"I've said my say, " said Ballard, remaining seated. 

"An' what'll ye do?" inquired Pete Cawthon from the agitated group. 

"I forbid you to touch that!" shouted Ballard. He saw Wingo movingtowards the box. 

"Gentlemen, do not resort--" began Gilet. 

But small, iron-gray Hewley snatched his pistol from the box, and satdown astraddle of it, guarding his charge. At this hostile movement theothers precipitated themselves towards the table where lay theirweapons, and Governor Ballard, whipping his own from his armhole, said, as he covered the table: "Go easy, gentlemen! Don't hurt our Treasurer!"

"Don't nobody hurt anybody, " said Specimen Jones, opening the door. 

This prudent corporal had been looking in at a window and hearingplainly for the past two minutes, and he had his men posted. Each memberof the Council stopped as he stood, his pistol not quite yet attained;Ballard restored his own to its armhole and sat in his chair; littleHewley sat on his box; and F. Jackson Gilet towered haughtily, gazing atthe intruding blue uniform of the United States. 

"I'll hev to take you to the commanding officer, " said Jones, briefly, to Hewley. "You and yer box. "

"Oh, my stars and stripes, but that's a keen move!" rejoiced Ballard tohimself. "He's arresting _us_. "

[Illustration: "'DON'T NOBODY HURT ANYBODY, ' SAID SPECIMEN JONES"]

In Jones's judgment, after he had taken in the situation, this hadseemed the only possible way to stop trouble without making any, andtherefore, even now, bayonets were not fixed. Best not ruffle Price'sLeft Wing just now, if you could avoid it. For a new corporal it waswell thought and done. But it was high noon, the clock not pushedback, and punctual Representatives strolling innocently towards theirexpected pay. There must be no time for a gathering and possiblereaction. "I'll hev to clear this State-House out, " Jones decided. "We're makin' an arrest, " he said, aloud, "and we want a little room. "The outside bystanders stood back obediently, but the Councillorsdelayed. Their pistols were, with Ballard's and Hewley's, of course incustody. "Here, " said Jones, restoring them. "Go home now. Thecommanding officer's waitin' fer the prisoner. Put yer boots on, sir, and leave, " he added to Pete Cawthon, who still stood in hisstockings. "I don't want to hev to disperse anybody more'n what I'vedone. "

Disconcerted Price's Left Wing now saw file out between armed soldiersthe Treasurer and his strong-box; and thus guarded they were brought toBoisé Barracks, whence they did not reappear. The Governor also went tothe post. 

After delivering Hewley and his treasure to the commanding officer, Jones with his five troopers went to the sutler's store and took a drinkat Jones's expense. Then one of them asked the corporal to have another. But Jones refused. "If a man drinks much of that, " said he (and thewhiskey certainly was of a livid, unlikely flavor), "he's liable to gohome and steal his own pants. " He walked away to his quarters, and as hewent they heard him thoughtfully humming his most inveterate song, "Yeshepherds tell me have you seen my Flora pass this way. "

But poisonous whiskey was not the inner reason for his moderation. Hefelt very much like a responsible corporal to-day, and the troopers knewit. "Jones has done himself a good turn in this fuss, " they said. "He'llbe changing his chevron. "

That afternoon the Legislature sat in the State-House and read toitself in the Statutes all about oaths. It is not believed that any ofthem sat up another night; sleeping on a problem is often much better. Next morning the commanding officer and Governor Ballard were calledupon by F. Jackson Gilet and the Speaker of the House. Every one wascivil and hearty as possible. Gilet pronounced the captain's whiskey"equal to any at the Southern, Saint Louey, " and conversed for some timeabout the cold season, General Crook's remarkable astuteness in dealingwith Indians, and other topics of public interest. "And concernin' yohdifficulty yesterday, Gove'nuh, " said he, "I've been consulting thelaws, suh, and I perceive yoh construction is entahley correct. "

And so the Legislature signed that form of oath prescribed forparticipants in the late Rebellion, and Hewley did not have to wait forhis poker money. He and Wingo played many subsequent games; for, as theyall said in referring to the matter, "A little thing like that shouldnevuh stand between friends. "

Thus was accomplished by Ballard, Paisley--and Jones--the SecondMissouri Compromise, at Boisé City, Idaho, 1867--an eccentric moment inthe eccentric years of our development westward, and historic also. Thatit has gone unrecorded until now is because of Ballard's modesty, Paisley's preference for the sword, and Jones's hatred of the pen. Hewas never known to write except, later, in the pages of his companyroster and such unavoidable official places; for the troopers wereprophetic. In not many months there was no longer a Corporal Jones, buta person widely known as Sergeant Jones of Company A; called also the"Singing Sergeant"; but still familiar to his intimate friends as"Specimen. "

LA TINAJA BONITA

 "And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. "--1 Kings xvii. 7. 

A pretty girl was kneeling on the roof of a flat mud cabin, a harvest ofred peppers round her knees. On the ground below her stood a swarthyyoung man, the bloom on his Mexican cheeks rich and dusky, like her own. His face was irresponsible and winning, and his watching eyes shone uponher with admiration and desire. She on the roof was entertained by hervisitor's attention, but unfavorable to it. Through the live-long sunnyday she had parried his love-talk with light and complete skill, enjoying herself, and liking him very well, as she had done since theywere two children playing together in the Arizona desert. She was quitemistress of the situation, because she was a woman, and he as yet merelya boy; he was only twenty-two; she was almost sixteen. The Mexican manat twenty-two may be as experienced as his Northern brother of thirty, but at sixteen the Mexican woman is also mature, and can competentlydeal with the man. So this girl had relished the thoughtless morning andnoon as they passed; but twice lately she had glanced across the lowtree-tops of her garden down the trail, where the cañon descended to thesilent plain below. 

"I think I must go back now, " said the young man, not thinking so. Hehad a guitar from the cabin. 

"Oh!" said she, diverted by his youthful feint. "Well, if you think itis so late. " She busied herself with the harvest. Her red handkerchiefand strands of her black hair had fallen loosely together from her headto her shoulders. The red peppers were heaped thick, hiding the wholeroof, and she stooped among them, levelling them to a ripening layerwith buckskin gloves (for peppers sting sharper than mustard), sortingand turning them in the bright sun. The boy looked at her mostwistfully. 

"It is not precisely late--yet, " said he. 

"To be sure not, " she assented, consulting the sky. "We have still threehours of day. "

He brightened as he lounged against a water-barrel. "But after night itis so very dark on the trail to camp, " he insincerely objected. 

"I never could have believed you were afraid of the dark. "

"It is for the horse's legs, Lolita. Of course I fear nothing. "

"Bueno! I was sure of it. Do you know, Luis, you have become a man quitesuddenly? That mustache will be beautiful in a few years. And you have agood figure. "

"I am much heavier than last year, " said he. "My arm--"

"I can see, I can see. I am not sure I shall let you kiss me any more. You didn't offer to when you came this morning--and that shows you menperceive things more quickly than we can. But don't go yet. You can leadyour horse. His legs will come to no harm, eased of your weight. Ishould have been lonely to-day, and you have made it pass so quickly. You have talked so much that my peppers are not half spread. "

"We could finish them in five minutes together, " said the youth, takinga step. 

"Two up here among all these peppers! Oh no, Luis. We should tread onthem, and our ankles would burn all night. If you want to help me, gobring some fresh water. The barrel is almost empty. "

But Luis stood ardently gazing up at the roof. 

"Very well, then, " said Lolita. "If you like this better, finish thepeppers, and I'll go for the water. "

"Why do you look down the trail so often?" said the baffled love-maker, petulantly. 

"Because Uncle Ramon said the American would be coming to-day, " the girlreplied, softly. 

"Was it Uncle Ramon said that? He told you that?"

"Why not?" She shaded her eyes, and looked where the cañon's wideningslit gave view of a slant of sand merging fan-spread into a changelesswaste of plain. Many watercourses, crooked and straight, came out of thegaps, creasing the sudden Sierra, descending to the flat through bushesand leaning margin trees; but in these empty shapes not a rill tinkledto refresh the silence, nor did a drop slide over the glaring rocks, oreven dampen the heated, cheating sand. Lolita strained her gaze at thedry distance, and stooped again to her harvest. 

"What does he come here for?" demanded Luis. 

"The American? We buy white flour of him sometimes. "

"Sometimes! That must be worth his while! He will get rich!" Luislounged back against his water-barrel, and was silent. As he watchedLolita, serenely working, his silver crescent ear-rings swung a littlewith the slight tilting of his head, and his fingers, forgotten andunguided by his thoughts, ruffled the strings of the guitar, drawingfrom it gay, purposeless tendrils of sound. Occasionally, when Lolitaknew the song, she would hum it on the roof, inattentively, busy rollingher peppers:

 "'Soy purita mejicana; Nada tengo español. '"

(I am a pure Mexican. I have nothing Spanish about me. ) And thismelodious inattention of Lolita's Luis felt to be the extreme of slight. 

"Have you seen him lately?" he asked, sourly. 

"Not very. Not since the last time he came to the mines from Maricopa. "

"I heard a man at Gun Sight say he was dead, " snapped Luis. 

But she made no sign. "That would be a pity, " she said, humming gayly. 

"Very sad. Uncle Ramon would have to go himself to Maricopa for thatwhite flour. "

Pleased with this remark, the youth took to song himself; and there theywere like two mischievous birds. Only the bird on the ground was crosswith a sense of failure. "El telele se murió, " he sang. 

 "'The hunchback is dead. Ay! Ay! Ay! And no one could be found to bury him except--'"

"Luis, aren't you going to get my water for me?"

"Poco tiempo: I'll bring it directly. "

"You have to go to the Tinaja Bonita for it. "

The Pretty Spring--or water-hole, or tank--was half a mile from thecabin. 

"Well, it's not nice out there in the sun. I like it better in here, where it is pleasant. 

 "'And no one could be found to bury him except Five dragoons and a corporal And the sacristan's cat. '"

Singing resentfully, young Luis stayed in here, where it was pleasant. Bright green branches of fruit-trees and small cottonwoods and a fencedirrigated square of green growing garden hid the tiny adobe home like anut, smooth and hard and dry in their clustered midst. The lightest airthat could blow among these limber, ready leaves set going at once theirvarnished twinkling round the house. Their white and dark sides gleamedand went out with chasing lights that quickened the torpid place into aholiday of motion. Closed in by this cool green, you did not have to seeor think of Arizona, just outside. 

"Where is Uncle Ramon to-day?" inquired Luis, dropping his music. 

She sighed. "He has gone to drive our cattle to a new spring. There isno pasture at the Tinaja Bonita. Our streams and ditches went dry lastweek. They have never done so in all the years before. I don't know whatis going to happen to us. " The anxiety in the girl's face seemed to comeoutward more plainly for a moment, and then recede to its permanentabiding-place. 

"There cannot be much water to keep flour-sellers alive on the trail toMaricopa, " chirped the bird on the ground. 

She made no answer to this. "What are you doing nowadays?" she asked. 

"I have been working very hard on the wood contract for the Americansoldiers, " he replied, promptly. 

"By Tucson?"

"No. Huachuca. "

"Away over there again? I thought you had cut all they wanted last May. "

"It is of that enterprise of which I speak, Lolita. "

"But it's October now!" Lolita lifted her face, ruddy with stooping, andbroke into laughter. 

"I do not see why you mock me. No one has asked me to work since. "

"Have you asked any one for work?"

"It is not my way to beg. "

"Luis, I don't believe you're quite a man yet, in spite of yourmustache. You complain there's no money for Mexicans in Arizona becausethe Americans get it all. Why don't you go back to Sonora, then, and berich in five minutes? It would sound finely: 'Luis Romero, Merchant, Hermosillo. ' Or perhaps gold would fall more quickly into your lap atGuaymas. You would live in a big house, perhaps with two stories, and Iwould come and visit you at Easter--if your wife would allow it. " HereLolita threw a pepper at him. 

The guitar grated a few pretty notes; otherwise there was silence. 

"And it was Uncle Ramon persuaded them to hire you in May. He told theAmerican contractor you owned a strong burro good for heavy loads. Hedidn't say much about you, " added the little lady. 

"Much good it did me! The American contractor-pig retained my wages topay for the food he supplied us. They charge you extra for starvation, those gringos. They are all pigs. Ah, Lolita, a man needs a wife, so hemay strive to win a home for her. "

"I have heard men say that they needed a home before they could striveto win a wife for it. But you go about it the other way. "

"I am not an American pig, I thank the Virgin! I have none of theirgringo customs. "

"You speak truly indeed, " murmured Lolita. 

"It is you who know about them, " the boy said, angry like a child. Hehad seen her eye drawn to the trail again as by a magnet. "They say youprefer gringos to your own people. "

"Who dares say that?"

The elated Luis played loudly on the guitar. He had touched her thattime. 

But Lolita's eye softened at the instant of speaking, and she broke intoher sweet laugh. "There!" she said, recapturing the situation; "is itnot like old times for you and me to be fighting. "

"Me? I am not fighting. "

"You relieve me. "

"I do not consider a gringo worth my notice. "

"Sensible boy! You speak as wisely as one who has been to school in alarge city. Luis, do you remember the day Uncle Ramon locked me up forriding on the kicking burro, and you came and unlocked me when uncle wasgone? You took me walking, and lost us both in the mountains. We werereally only a little, little way from home, but I thought we had gotinto another country where they eat children. I was six, and I beat youfor losing me, and cried, and you were big, and you kissed me till Istopped crying. Do you remember?"

"No. "

"Don't you remember?"

"I don't remember child's tricks. "

"Luis, I have come to a conclusion. You are still young enough for me tokiss quite safely. Every time you fight with me--I shall kiss you. Won'tyou get me some fresh water now?"

He lounged, sulky, against his barrel. 

"Come, querido! Must I go all that way myself? Well, then, if you intendto stand and glare at me till the moon rises--Ah! he moves!"

Luis laid the guitar gradually down, and gradually lifting a pail inwhich the dipper rattled with emptiness, he proceeded to crawl on hisjourney. 

"You know that is not the one we use, muchacho, " (little boy), remarkedLolita. 

"Keep your kisses for your gringo, " the water-carrier growled, with hisback to her. 

"I shall always save some for my little cousin. "

The pail clattered on the stones, and the child stopped crawling. She onthe roof stared at this performance for an open-mouthed moment, glovesidle among the spicy peppers. Then, laughing, she sprang to her feet, descended, and, catching up the water-jar (the olla de agua), overtookhim, and shook it in his face with the sweetest derision. "Now we'll gotogether, " said she, and started gayly through the green trees and thegarden. He followed her, two paces behind, half ashamed, and gazing ather red handkerchief, and the black hair blowing a little; thus did theycross the tiny cool home acre through the twinkling pleasantness of theleaves, and pass at once outside the magic circle of irrigation intoArizona's domain, among a prone herd of carcasses upon the ground--deadcattle, two seasons dead now, hunted to this sanctuary by the drought, killed in the sanctuary by cold water. 

A wise, quiet man, with a man's will, may sometimes after three days ofthirst still hold grip enough upon his slipping mind to know, when hehas found the water, that he must not drink it, must only dampen hislips and tongue in a drop-by-drop fashion until he has endured thepassing of many slow, insidious hours. Even a wise man had best have afriend by his side then, who shall fight and tear him from the perilousexcesses that he craves, knock him senseless if he cannot pin him down;but cattle know nothing of drop by drop, and you cannot pin down ahundred head that have found water after three days. So these hundredhad drunk themselves swollen, and died. Cracked hide and white bone theylay, brown, dry, gaping humps straddled stiff askew in the lastconvulsion; and over them presided Arizona--silent, vast, all sunshineeverlasting. 

Luis saw these corpses that had stumbled to their fate, and heremembered; with Lolita in those trees all day, he had forgotten for awhile. He pointed to the wide-strewn sight, familiar, monotonous asmisfortune. "There will be many more, " he said. "Another rainy season isgone without doing anything for the country. It cannot rain now foranother year, Lolita. "

"God help us and our cattle, and travellers!" she whispered. 

Luis musingly repeated a saying of the country about the Tinaja Bonita, "'When you see the Black Cross dry, Fill the wagon cisterns high'"

--a doggerel in homely Spanish metre, unwritten mouth-to-mouth wisdom, stable as a proverb, enduring through generations of unrecordedwanderers, that repeated it for a few years, and passed beneath thedesert. 

"But the Black Cross has never been dry yet, " Luis said. 

"You have not seen it lately, " said Lolita. 

"Lolita! do you mean--" He looked in her troubled eyes, and they went onin silence together. They left behind them the bones and the bald levelon which they lay, and came to where the cañon's broader descentquickened until they sank below that sight of the cattle, and for a timebelow the home and trees. They went down steeply by cactus and dry rockto a meeting of several cañons opening from side rifts in the Sierra, furrowing the main valley's mesa with deep watercourses that brought nowater. Finding their way in this lumpy meeting-ground, they came uponthe lurking-place of the Tinaja Bonita. They stood above it at the edgeof a pitch of rock, watching the motionless crystal of the pool. 

"How well it hides down there in its own cañon!" said Luis. "How prettyand clear! But there's plenty of water, Lolita. "

"Can you see the Black Cross?"

"Not from here. "

They began descending around the sides of the crumbled slate-rock facethat tilted too steep for foothold. 

"The other well is dry, of course, " said Lolita. In the slaty, many-ledged formation a little lower down the cañon, towards the peep ofoutlying open country which the cloven hills let in, was a second roundhole, twin of the first. Except after storms, water was never in thisplace, and it lay dry as a kiln nine-tenths of the year. But in size anddepth and color, and the circular fashion of its shaft, which seemedman's rather than nature's design, it might have been the real Tinaja'sreflection, conjured in some evil mirror where everything was faithfullyrepresented except the water. 

"It must have been a real well once, " said Luis. 

"Once, yes. "

"And what made it go dry?"

"Who knows?"

"How strange it should be the lower well that failed, Lolita!"

The boy and girl were climbing down slowly, drawing near each other asthey reached the bottom of the hollow. The peep of open country wasblocked, and the tall tops of the mountains were all of the outer worldto be seen down here below the mesa's level. The silence was likesomething older than this world, like the silence of space before anyworlds were made. 

"Do you believe it ever can go dry?" asked Luis. They were now on theedge of the Tinaja. 

"Father Rafael says that it is miraculous, " said the girl, believingly. 

Opposite, and everywhere except where they were, the walls went sheerdown, not slate-colored, but white, with a sudden up-cropping formationof brick-shaped stones. These also were many-layered and crumbling, cracking off into the pool if the hand hung or the foot weighed on them. No safe way went to the water but at this lower side, where the riven, tumbled white blocks shelved easily to the bottom; and Luis and Lolitalooked down these natural stairs at the portent in the well. In thatwhite formation shot up from the earth's bowels, arbitrary andirrelevant amid the surrounding alien layers of slate, four black stoneswere lodged as if built into the wall by some hand--four small stonesshaping a cross, back against the white, symmetrical and plain. 

"It has come farther--more uncovered since yesterday, " Lolita whispered. 

"Can the Tinaja sink altogether?" repeated Luis. The arms of the crosswere a measurable space above the water-line, and he had always seen itentirely submerged. 

"How could it sink?" said Lolita, simply. "It will stop when the blackstones are wholly dry. "

"You believe Father Rafael, " Luis said, always in a low voice; "but itwas only Indians, after all, who told the mission fathers at the first. "

"That was very long ago, " said she, "and there has always been water inthe Tinaja Bonita. "

Boy and girl had set the jar down, and forgotten it and why they hadcome. Luis looked uneasily at the circular pool, and up from thiscreviced middle of the cañon to the small high tops of the mountainsrising in the free sky. 

"This is an evil place, " he said. "As for the water--no one, no three, can live long enough to be sure. "

But it was part of Lolita's religion. "I am sure, " said she. 

The young Mexican's eyes rested on the face of the girl beside him, morebeautiful just then with some wave of secret fear and faith. 

"Come away with me, Lolita!" he pleaded, suddenly. "I can work. I can bea man. It is fearful for you to live here alone. "

"Alone, Luis?" His voice had called her from her reverie back to hergay, alert self. "Do you consider Uncle Ramon nobody to live with?"

"Yes. Nobody--for you. "

"Promise me never to tell that to uncle. He is so considerate that hemight make me marry somebody for company. And then, you know, my husbandwould be certain to be stupid about your coming to see me, querido. "

"Why do you always mock me, Lolita?"

"Mock you? What a fancy! Oh, see how the sun's going! If we do not getour water, your terrible Tinaja will go dry before supper. Come, Luis, Icarried the olla. Must I do everything?"

He looked at her disconsolate. "Ah!" he vibrated, revelling in deepimaginary passion. 

"Go! go!" she cried, pushing him. "Take your olla. "

Upon the lightest passing puff of sentiment the Southern breast canheave with every genuine symptom of storm, except wreck. Of course shestirred his gregarious heart. Was she not lovely and he twenty-two? Hewent down the natural stairs and came slowly up with the water, stoppinga step below her. "Lolita, " he said, "don't you love me at all? not avery little?"

"You are my dearest, oldest friend, Luis, " she said, looking at him withsuch full sweetness that his eyes fell. "But why do you pretend fivebeans make ten?"

"Of course they only make ten with gringos. "

She held up a warning finger. 

"Oh yes, oh yes! Strangers make fine lovers!" With this he swelled to afond, dangerous appearance, and muttered, "It is not difficult to kill aman, Lolita. "

"Fighting! after what I told you!" Lolita stooped and kissed her cousinLuis, and he instantly made the most of that chance. 

"As often as you please, " he said, as she released herself angrily, andthen a stroke of sound struck their two hearts still. They jumped apart, trembling. Some of the rock slide had rattled down and plunged into theTinaja with a gulping resonance. Loitering strings of sand strewed afterit, and the boy's and girl's superstitious eyes looked up from theringed, waving water to the ledge. Lolita's single shriek of terrorturned to joy as she uttered it. 

"I thought--I thought you would not come!" she cried out. 

The dismounted horseman above made no sign of understanding her words. He stepped carefully away from the ledge his foot had crumbled, and theysaw him using his rifle like a staff, steadying its stock in successiveniches, and so working back to his horse. There he slid the rifle intoits leather sling along the left side of his saddle. 

"So he is not dead, " murmured Luis, "and we need not live alone. "

"Come down!" the girl called, and waved her hand. But the new-comerstood by his horse like an apparition. 

"Perhaps he is dead, after all, " Luis said. "You might say some of theMass, only he was a heretic. But his horse is Mexican, and a believer. "

Lolita had no eyes or ears for Luis any more. He prattled away on thestone stairs of the Tinaja, flippant after a piercing shock of fear. Tohim, unstrung by the silence and the Black Cross and the presence of thesinking pool, the stone had crashed like a clap of sorcery, and he hadstarted and stared to see--not a spirit, but a man, dismounted from hishorse, with a rifle. At that his heart clutched him like talons, and inthe flashing spasm of his mind came a picture--smoke from the rifle, andhimself bleeding in the dust. Costly love-making! For Luis did notbelieve the rifle to have been brought to the ledge there as a staff, and he thanked the Virgin for the stone that fell and frightened him, and made him move suddenly. He had chattered himself cool now, andready. Lolita was smiling at the man on the hill, glowing withoutconcealment of her heart's desire. 

"Come down!" she repeated. "Come round the side. " And, lifting the olla, she tapped it, and signed the way to him. 

"He has probably brought too much white flour for Uncle Ramon to care toclimb more than he must, " said Luis. But the man had stirred at lastfrom his sentinel stillness, and began leading his horse down. Presentlyhe was near enough for Luis to read his face. "Your gringo is a handsomefellow, certainly, " he commented. "But he does not like me to-day. "

"Like you! He doesn't think about you, " said Lolita. 

"Ha! That's your opinion?"

"It is also his opinion--if you'll ask him. "

"He is afraid of Cousin Luis, " stated the youth. 

"Cousin grasshopper! He could eat you--if he could see you. "

"There are other things in this world besides brute muscle, Lolita. Yourgringo thinks I am worth notice, if you do not. "

"How little he knows you!"

"It is you he does not know very well, " the boy said, with a pang. 

The scornful girl stared. 

"Oh, the innocent one!" sneered Luis. "Grasshopper, indeed! Well, oneman can always recognize another, and the women don't know much. "

But Lolita had run off to meet her chosen lover. She did not stop toread his face. He was here; and as she hurried towards him she had nothought except that he was come at last. She saw his eyes and lips, andto her they were only the eyes and lips that she had longed for. "Youhave come just in time, " she called out to him. At the voice, he lookedat her one instant, and looked away; but the nearer sight of her sent atide of scarlet across his face. His actions he could control, hisbearing, and the steadiness of his speech, but not the coursing of hisblood. It must have been a minute he had stood on the ledge above, getting a grip of himself. "Luis was becoming really afraid that hemight have to do some work, " continued Lolita, coming up the stony hill. "You know Luis?"

"I know him. "

"You can fill your two canteens and carry the olla for us, " she pursued, arriving eagerly beside him, her face lifted to her strong, tall lover. 

"I can. "

At this second chill of his voice, and his way of meeting her when shehad come running, she looked at him bewildered, and the smile flutteredon her lips and left them. She walked beside him, talking no more; norcould she see his furtive other hand mutely open and shut, helping himkeep his grip. 

Luis also looked at the man who had taken Lolita's thoughts away fromhim and all other men. "No, indeed, he does not understand her verywell, " he repeated, bitter in knowing the man's suspicion and itsneedlessness. Something--disappointment, it may be--had wrought morereality in the young Mexican's easy-going love. "And she likes thisgringo because--because he is light-colored!" he said, watching theAmerican's bronzed Saxon face, almost as young as his own, but ofsterner stuff. Its look left him no further doubt, and he held himselfforewarned. The American came to the bottom, powerful, blue-eyed, hismustache golden, his cheek clean-cut, and beaten to shining health bythe weather. He swung his blue-overalled leg over his saddle and rode tothe Tinaja, with a short greeting to the watcher, while the pale Lolitaunclasped the canteen straps and brought the water herself, brushingcoldly by Luis to hook the canteens to the saddle again. This slightingtouch changed the Mexican boy's temper to diversion and malice. Herewere mountains from mole-hills! Here were five beans making ten with avengeance!

"Give me that, " said the American; and Luis handed up the water-jar tohim with such feline politeness that the American's blue eyes filledwith fire and rested on him for a doubtful second. But Luis was quiteready, and more diverted than ever over the suppressed violence of hisSaxon friend. The horseman wheeled at once, and took a smooth trail outto the top of the mesa, the girl and boy following. 

As the three went silent up the cañon, Luis caught sight of Lolita'seyes shining with the hurt of her lover's rebuff, and his face sparkledwith further mischief. "She has been despising me all day, " he said tohimself. "Very well, very well. --Señor Don Ruz, " he began aloud, elaborately, "we are having a bad drought. "

The American rode on, inspecting the country. 

"I know at least four sorts of kisses, " reflected the Mexican trifler. "But there! very likely to me also they would appear alike from the topof a rock. " He looked the American over, the rifle under his leg, hispistol, and his knife. "How clumsy these gringos are when it's about agirl!" thought Luis. "Any fool could fool them. Now I should take muchcare to be friendly if ever I did want to kill a man in earnest. Comicalgringo!--Yes, very dry weather, Don Ruz. And the rainy season gone!"

The American continued to inspect the country, his supple, flannel-shirted back hinting no interest in the talk. 

"Water is getting scarce, Don Ruz, " persisted the gadfly, lightingagain. "Don Ramon's spring does not run now, and so we must come to theTinaja Bonita, you see. Don Ramon removed the cattle yesterday. Everybody absent from home, except Lolita. " Luis thought he could seehis Don Ruz listening to that last piece of gossip, and his smile overhimself and his skill grew more engaging. "Lolita has been telling meall to-day that even the Tinaja will go dry. "

"It was you said that!" exclaimed the brooding, helpless Lolita. 

"So I did. And it was you said no. Well, we found something to disagreeabout. " The man in the flannel shirt was plainly attending to histormentor. "No sabe cuantos son cinco, " Luis whispered, stepping closeto Lolita. "Your gringo could not say boo to a goose just now. " Lolitadrew away from her cousin, and her lover happened to turn his headslightly, so that he caught sight of her drawing away. "But what do yousay yourself, Don Ruz?" inquired Luis, pleased at this slightcoincidence--"will the Tinaja go dry, do you think?"

"I expect guessing won't interfere with the water's movements much, "finally remarked Don Ruz--Russ Genesmere. His drawl and the body in hisvoice were not much like the Mexican's light fluency. They were music toLolita, and her gaze went to him once more, but he got no answer. Thebitter Luis relished this too. 

"You are right, Don Ruz. Guessing is idle. Yet how can we help wonderingabout this mysterious Tinaja? I am sure that you can never have seen somuch of the cross out of water. Lolita says--"

"So that's that place, " said Genesmere, roughly. 

Luis looked inquiring. 

"Down there, " Genesmere explained, with a jerk of his head back alongthe road they had come. 

Luis was surprised that Don Ruz, who knew this country so well, shouldnever have seen the Tinaja Bonita until to-day. 

"I'd have seen it if I'd had any use for it, " said Genesmere. 

"To be sure, it lay off the road of travel, " Luis assented. And ofcourse Don Ruz knew all that was needful--how to find it. He knew whatpeople said--did he not? Father Rafael, Don Ramon, everybody? Lolitaperhaps had told him? And that if the cross ever rose entirely above thewater, that was a sign all other water-holes in the region were empty. Therefore it was a good warning for travellers, since by it they couldjudge how much water to carry on a journey. But certainly he and Lolitawere surprised to see how low the Tinaja had fallen to-day. No doubtwhat the Indians said about the great underground snake that came andsucked all the wells dry in the lower country, and in consequence wasnearly satisfied before he reached the Tinaja, was untrue. 

To this tale of Jesuits and peons the American listened with unexpressedcontempt, caring too little to mention that he had heard some of itbefore, or even to say that in the last few days he had crossed thedesert from Tucson and found water on the trail as usual where heexpected. He rode on, leading the way slowly up the cañon, suffering theglib Mexican to talk unanswered. His own suppressed feelings stillsmouldered in his eye, still now and then knotted the muscles in hischeeks; but of Luis's chatter he said his whole opinion in one word, asingle English syllable, which he uttered quietly for his own benefit. It also benefited Luis. He was familiar with that order of English, and, overhearing, he understood. It consoled the Mexican to feel how easilyhe could play this simple, unskilful American. 

They passed through the hundred corpses to the home and the green trees, where the sun was setting against the little shaking leaves. 

"So you will camp here to-night, Don Ruz?" said Luis, perceiving theAmerican's pack-mules. Genesmere had come over from the mines at GunSight, found the cabin empty, and followed Lolita's and her cousin'strail, until he had suddenly seen the two from that ledge above theTinaja. "You are always welcome to what we have at our camp, you know, Don Ruz. All that is mine is yours also. To-night it is probablyfrijoles. But no doubt you have white flour here. " He was giving hispony water from the barrel, and next he threw the saddle on and mounted. "I must be going back, or they will decide I am not coming tillto-morrow, and quickly eat my supper. " He spoke jauntily from his horse, arm akimbo, natty short jacket put on for to-day's courting, graysteeple-hat silver-embroidered, a spruce, pretty boy, not likely to toilseverely at wood contracts so long as he could hold soul and bodytogether and otherwise be merry, and the hand of that careless arm softon his pistol, lest Don Ruz should abruptly dislike him too much; forLuis contrived a tone for his small-talk that would have disconcertedthe most sluggish, sweet to his own mischievous ears, healing to hisgalled self-esteem. "Good-night, Don Ruz. Good-night, Lolita. Perhaps Ishall come to-morrow, mañana en la mañana. "

"Good-night, " said Lolita, harshly, which increased his joy; "I cannotstop you from passing my house. "

Genesmere said nothing, but sat still on his white horse, hands foldedupon the horns of his saddle, and Luis, always engaging and at ease, ambled away with his song about the hunchback. He knew that the Americanwas not the man to wait until his enemy's back was turned. 

 "'El telele se murió A enterrar ya le llevan--'"

The tin-pan Mexican voice was empty of melody and full of rhythm. 

 "'Ay! Ay! Ay!'"

Lolita and Genesmere stood as they had stood, not very near each other, looking after him and his gayety that the sun shone bright upon. Theminstrel truly sparkled. His clothes were more elegant than theAmerican's shirt and overalls, and his face luxuriant withthoughtlessness. Like most of his basking Southern breed, he had novisible means of support, and nothing could worry him for longer thanthree minutes. Frijoles do not come high, out-of-doors is good enough tosleep in if you or your friend have no roof, and it is not a hard thingto sell some other man's horses over the border and get a fine coat andhat. 

 "'Cinco dragones y un cabo, Oh, no no no no no! Y un gato de sacristan. '"

Coat and hat were getting up the cañon's side among the cactus, thelittle horse climbing the trail shrewdly with his light-weight rider;and dusty, unmusical Genesmere and sullen Lolita watched them till theywent behind a bend, and nothing remained but the tin-pan song singing inGenesmere's brain. The gadfly had stung more poisonously than he knew, and still Lolita and Genesmere stood watching nothing, while thesun--the sun of Arizona at the day's transfigured immortalpassing--became a crimson coal in a lake of saffron, burning and beatinglike a heart, till the desert seemed no longer dead, but only asleep, and breathing out wide rays of rainbow color that rose expanded overearth and sky. 

Then Genesmere spoke his first volunteered word to Lolita. "I didn'tshoot because I was afraid of hitting you, " he said. 

So now she too realized clearly. He had got off his horse above theTinaja to kill Luis during that kiss. Complete innocence had made herstupid and slow. 

"Are you going to eat?" she inquired. 

"Oh yes. I guess I'll eat. "

She set about the routine of fire-lighting and supper as if it had beenUncle Ramon, and this evening like all evenings. He, not so easily, andwith small blunderings that he cursed, attended to his horse and mules, coming in at length to sit against the wall where she was cooking. 

"It is getting dark, " said Lolita. So he found the lamp and lighted it, and sat down again. 

"I've never hurt a woman, " he said, presently, the vision of his rifle'swhite front sight held steady on the two below the ledge once moreflooding his brain. He spoke slowly. 

"Then you have a good chance now, " said Lolita, quickly, busy over hercooking. In her Southern ears such words sounded a threat. It was not inher blood to comprehend this Northern way of speaking and walking andsitting, and being one thing outside and another inside. 

"And I wouldn't hurt a woman"--he was hardly talking to her--"not if Icould think in time. "

"Men do it, " she said, with the same defiance. "But it makes talk. "

"Talk's nothing to me, " said Genesmere, flaming to fierceness. "Do Icare for opinions? Only my own. " The fierceness passed from his face, and he was remote from her again. Again he fell to musing aloud, changing from Mexican to his mother-tongue. "I wouldn't want to have toremember a thing like that. " He stretched himself, and leaned his elbowson his knees and his head in his hands, the yellow hair hiding hisfingers. She had often seen him do this when he felt lazy; it was not asign by which she could read a spiritual standstill, a quivering wreckof faith and passion. "I have to live a heap of my life alone, " thelounger went on. "Journey alone. Camp alone. Me and my mules. And Idon't propose to have thoughts a man should be ashamed of. " Lolita wasthrowing a cloth over the table and straightening it. "I'm twenty-five, and I've laid by no such thoughts yet. Church folks might saydifferent. "

"It is ready, " said Lolita, finishing her preparations. 

He looked up, and, seeing the cloth and the places set, pulled his chairto the table, and passively took the food she brought him. She movedabout the room between shelves and fire, and, when she had served him, seated herself at leisure to begin her own supper. Uncle Ramon was apeon of some substance, doing business in towns and living comparativelywell. Besides the shredded spiced stew of meat, there were severaldishes for supper. Genesmere ate the meal deliberately, attending to hisplate and cup, and Lolita was as silent as himself, only occasionallylooking at him; and in time his thoughts came to the surface again inwords. He turned and addressed Lolita in Mexican: "So, you see, yousaved his life down there. "

She laid her fork down and gave a laugh, hard and harsh; and she saidnothing, but waited for what next. 

"You don't believe that. You don't know that. He knows that. "

She laughed again, more briefly. 

"You can tell him so. From me. "

Replies seemed to struggle together on Lolita's lips and hinder eachother's escaping. 

"And you can tell him another thing. He wouldn't have stopped. He'd haveshot. Say that. From me. He'd have shot, because he's a Spaniard, likeyou. "

"You lie!" This side issue in some manner set free the girl's tongue, "Iam not Spanish. I care nothing for Spaniards or what they may do. I amMexican, and I waited to see you kill him. I wanted to watch his blood. But you! you listened to his false talk, and believed him, and let himgo. I save his life? Go after him now! Do it with this knife, and tellhim it is Lolita's. But do not sit there and talk any more. I have hadenough of men's talk to-day. Enough, enough, enough!"

Genesmere remained in his chair, while she had risen to her feet. "Isuppose, " he said, very slowly, "that folks like you folks can'tunderstand about love--not about the kind I mean. "

Lolita's two hands clinched the edge of the table, and she called uponher gods. "Believe it, then! Believe it! And kill me, if that will makeyou contented. But do not talk any more. Yes, he told me that he lovedme. Yes, I kissed him; I have kissed him hundreds of times, always, since before I can remember. And I had been laughing at him to-day, having nothing in my heart but you. All day it had rejoiced me to hearhis folly and think of you, and think how little he knew, and how youwould come soon. But your folly is worse. Kill me in this houseto-night, and I will tell you, dying, that I love you, and that it isyou who are the fool. "

She looked at her lover, and seeing his face and eyes she had sought tobring before her in the days that she had waited for him, she rushed tohim. 

"Lolita!" he whispered. "Lolita!"

But she could only sob as she felt his arms and his lips. And whenpresently he heard her voice again murmuring brokenly to him in the waythat he knew and had said over in his mind and dwelt upon through thedesert stages he had ridden, he trembled, and with savage triumph drewher close, and let his doubt and the thoughts that had chilled andchanged him sink deep beneath the flood of this present rapture. "Mylife!" she said. "Toda mi vida! All my life!" Through the open door theair of the cañon blew cool into the little room overheated by the fireand the lamp, and in time they grew aware of the endless rustling of thetrees, and went out and stood in the darkness together, until it ceasedto be darkness, and their eyes could discern the near and distant shapesof their world. The sky was black and splendid, with four or fiveplanets too bright for lesser stars to show, and the promontories of thekeen mountains shone almost as in moonlight. A certain hill down towardsthe Tinaja and its slate ledge caught Genesmere's eye, and Lolita felthim shudder, and she wound her arm more tightly about him. 

"What is it?" she said. 

"Nothing. " He was staring at the hill. "Nothing, " he replied to himself. 

"Dreamer, come!" said Lolita, pulling him. "It is cold here in thenight--and if you choose to forget, I choose you shall remember. "

"What does this girl want now?"

"The cards! our cards!"

"Why, to be sure!" He ran after her, and joy beat in her heart at thefleet kiss he tried for and half missed. She escaped into the room, laughing for delight at her lover's being himself again--his own rightself that she talked with always in the long days she waited alone. 

"Take it!" she cried out, putting the guitar at him so he should keephis distance. "There! now you have broken it, songless Americano! Youshall buy me another. " She flung the light instrument, that fell in acorner with a loud complaint of all the strings together, collapsing toa blurred hollow humming, and silence. 

"Now you have done it!" said Genesmere, mock serious. 

"I don't care. I am glad. He played on that to-day. He can have it, andyou shall give me a new one. 

 "'Yo soy purita mejicana; Nada tengo español, '"

sang the excited, breathless Lolita to her American, and seated herselfat the table, beginning a brisk shuffle of a dim, dog-eared pack. "Yousit there!" She nodded to the opposite side of the table. "Very well, move the lamp then. " Genesmere had moved it because it hid her face fromhim. "He thinks I cheat! Now, Señor Don Ruz, it shall be for the guitar. Do you hear?"

"Too many pesos, señorita. "

"Oh, oh! the miser!"

"I'm not going broke on any señoritas--not even my own girl!"

"Have you no newer thing than poverty to tell me? Now if you look at melike that I cannot shuffle properly. "

"How am I to look, please?" He held his glance on her. 

"Not foolish like a boy. There, take them, then!" She threw the cards athim, blushing and perturbed by his eyes, while he scrambled to punishher across the table. 

"Generous one!" she said. "Ardent pretender! He won't let me shufflebecause he fears to lose. "

"You shall have a silk handkerchief with flowers on it, " said he, shuffling. 

"I have two already. I can see you arranging those cards, miser!"

It was the custom of their meetings, whether at the cabin or whether shestole out to his camp, to play for the token he should bring for herwhen he next came from town. She named one thing, he some other, and thecards judged between them. And to see Genesmere in these hours, hisoldest friend could not have known him any more than he knew himself. Never had a woman been for him like Lolita, conjuring the Saxon toforget himself and bask openly in that Southern joy and laughter of themoment. 

"Say my name!" he ordered; and at the child effort she made over "Russ"he smiled with delight. "Again!" he exclaimed, bending to catch her Rand the whole odd little word she made. "More!"

"No, " pouted the girl, and beat at him, blushing again. 

"Make your bet!" he said, laying out the Mexican cards before him. "Quick! Which shall it be?"

"The caballo. Oh, my dear, I wanted to die this afternoon, and now I amso happy!"

It brought the tears to her eyes, and almost to his, till he suddenlydeclared she had stolen a card, and with that they came to soft blowsand laughing again. So did the two sit and wrangle, seizing the pack outof turn, feigning rage at being cheated, until he juggled to make herwin three times out of five; and when chance had thus settled for theguitar, they played for kisses, and so forgot the cards at last. And atlast Genesmere began to speak of the next time, and Lolita to forbidsuch talk as that so soon. She laid her hand over his lips, at which heyielded for a little, and she improvised questions of moment to ask him, without time for stopping, until she saw that this would avail nolonger. Then she sighed, and let him leave her to see to his animals, while she lighted the fire again to make breakfast for him. At thatparting meal an anxiety slowly came in her face, and it was she thatbroke their silence after a while. 

"Which road do you go this time, querido?" she asked. 

"Tucson, Maricopa, and then straight here to you. "

"From Maricopa? That is longer across the desert. "

"Shorter to my girl. "

"I--I wish you would not come that way. "

"Why?"

"That--that desert!"

"There's desert both ways--all ways. The other road puts an extra weekbetween you and me. "

"Yes, yes. I have counted. "

"What is all this, Lolita?"

Once more she hesitated, smiling uneasily beneath his scrutiny. "Yo nose" (I don't know). "You will laugh. You do not believe the things thatI believe. The Tinaja Bonita--"

"That again!"

"Yes, " she half whispered. "I am afraid. "

He looked at her steadily. 

"Return the same road by Tucson, " she urged. "That way is only half somuch desert, and you can carry water from Poso Blanco. Do not trust theCoyote Wells. They are little and shallow, and if the Black Cross--Oh, my darling, if you do not believe, do this for me because you love me, love me!"

He did not speak at once. The two had risen, and stood by the opendoor, where the dawn was entering and mixing with the lamp. "Because Ilove you, " he repeated at length, slowly, out of his uncertain thoughts. 

She implored him, and he studied her in silence. 

Suddenly hardness stamped his face. "I'll come by Tucson, then--since Ilove you!" And he walked at once out of the door. She followed him tohis horse, and there reached up and pulled him round to her, locking herfingers behind his neck. Again his passion swept him, and burned thedoubt from his eyes. "I believe you love me!" he broke out. 

"Ah, why need you say that?"

"Adios, chiquita. " He was smiling, and she looked at his white teeth andgolden mustache. She felt his hands begin to unlock her own. 

"Not yet--not yet!"

"Adios, chiquita. "

"O mi querido!" she murmured; "with you I forget day and night!"

"Bastante!" He kissed her once for all. 

"Good-bye! good-bye! Mis labios van estar frios hasta que tu los toquesotra vez" (My lips will be cold until you touch them again). 

He caught her two hands, as if to cling to something. "Say that oncemore. Tell me that once more. "

She told him with all her heart and soul, and he sprang into his saddle. She went beside him through the cold, pale-lighted trees to the garden'sedge, and there stood while he took his way across the barren groundamong the carcasses. She watched the tip of his mustache that camebeyond the line of his cheek, and when he was farther, his whole strongfigure, while the clack of the hoofs on the dead ground grew fainter. When the steeper fall of the cañon hid him from her she ran to thehouse, and from its roof among her peppers she saw him come into sightagain below, the wide, foreshortened slant of ground between them, thewhite horse and dark rider and the mules, until they became a mere lineof something moving, and so vanished into the increasing day. 

Genesmere rode, and took presently to smoking. Coming to a sandy place, he saw prints of feet and of a shod horse in the trail heading the otherway. That was his own horse, and the feet were Lolita's and Luis's--therecord and the memory of yesterday afternoon. He looked up from thetrail to the hills, now lambent with violet and shifting orange, andtheir shapes as they moved out into his approaching view were the shapesof yesterday afternoon. He came soon to the forking of the trails, onefor Tucson and the other leading down into the lumpy country, and hereagain were the prints in the sand, the shod horse, the man and thewoman, coming in from the lumpy country that lay to the left; andGenesmere found himself stock-still by the forking trails, looking athis watch. His many-journeyed mules knew which was the Tucson trail, and, not understanding why he turned them from their routine, walkedasunder, puzzled at being thus driven in the wrong direction. They wentalong a strange up-and-down path, loose with sliding stones, and came toan end at a ledge of slate, and stood about on the tricky footinglooking at their master and leaning their heads together. The master satquiet on his horse, staring down where a circular pool lay below; andthe sun rose everywhere, except in his mind. So far had he comeyesterday with that mind easy over his garnered prosperity, free andsoaring on its daily flight among the towers of his hopes--thoseconstructions that are common with men who grow fond: the air-castlerises and reaches, possessing the architect, who cherishes its slowcreation with hourly changes and additions to the plan. A house was partof Genesmere's castle, a home with a wife inside, and no more campingalone. Thus far, to this exact ledge, the edifice had gone forwardfortunately, and then a blast had crumbled house and days to come intoindistinguishable dust. The heavy echo jarred in Genesmere, now that hehad been lured to look again upon the site of the disaster, and alightning violence crossed his face. He saw the two down there as theyhad stood, the man with his arms holding the woman, before the fallingstone had startled them. Were the Mexican present now in the flesh, hewould destroy him just for what he had tried to do. If she weretrue--She was true--that was no thanks to the Mexican. Genesmere wassorry second thoughts had spared that fellow yesterday, and he looked athis watch again. It was time to be starting on the Tucson trail, and themules alertly turned their steps from the Tinaja Bonita. They could seeno good in having come here. Evidently it was not to get water. Why, then? What use was there in looking down a place into a hole? The mulesgave it up. Genesmere himself thought the Tinaja poorly named. It wasnot pretty. In his experience of trail and cañon he knew no other suchhole. He was not aware of the twin, dried up, thirty yards below, andtherefore only half knew the wonders of the spot. 

He rode back to the forks across the rolling steepness, rebuilding thecastle; then, discovering something too distant to be sure about, usedhis glass quickly. It was another rider, also moving slowly among theknolls and gullies of the mesa, and Genesmere could not make him out. Hewas going towards the cabin, but it was not the same horse that Luis hadridden yesterday. This proved nothing, and it would be easy to circleand see the man closer--only not worth the trouble. Let the Mexican goto the cabin. Let him go every day. He probably would, if she permitted. Most likely she would tell him to keep away from her. She ought to. Shemight hurt him if he annoyed her. She was a good shot with a pistol. Butwomen work differently from men--and then she was Mexican. She mighthide her feelings and make herself pleasant for three weeks. She wouldtell him when he returned, and they would laugh together over how shehad fooled this Luis. After all, shooting would have been too muchpunishment. A man with a girl like Lolita must expect to find other menafter her. It depends on your girl. You find that out when you go afterother men's girls. When a woman surely loves some other man she will notlook at you. And Lolita's love was a sure thing. A woman can say loveand a man will believe her--until he has experienced the genuine articleonce; after that he can always tell. And to have a house, with herinside waiting for you! Such a turn was strange luck for a man, not tobe accounted for. If anybody had said last year--why, as late as the20th of last March--that settling down was what you were coming to--andnow--Genesmere wondered how he could ever have seen anything in riding ahorse up and down the earth and caring nothing for what next. "No longeralone!" he said aloud, suddenly, and surprised the white horse. 

The song about the hunchback and the sacristan's cat stirred its rhythmin his mind. He was not a singer, but he could think the tune, trace it, naked of melody, in the dry realm of the brain. And it was a diversionto piece out the gait of the phantom notes, low after high, quick afterslow, until they went of themselves. Lolita would never kiss Luis again;would never want to--not even as a joke. Genesmere turned his head backto take another look at the rider, and there stood the whole mountainslike a picture, and himself far out in the flat country, and the baresun in the sky. He had come six miles on the road since he had lastnoticed. Six miles, and the air-castle was rebuilt and perfect, with nodifference from the old one except its foundation, which was upon sand. To see the unexpected plain around him, and the islands of blue, sharppeaks lying in it, drove the tune from his head, and he considered thewell-known country, reflecting that man could not be meant to live here. The small mountain-islands lay at all distances, blue in a dozen ways, amid the dead calm of this sand archipelago. They rose singly from it, sheer and sudden, toothed and triangled like icebergs, hot as stoves. The channels to the north, Santa Rosa way, opened broad and yellow, andended without shore upon the clean horizon, and to the south narrowedwith lagoons into Sonora. Genesmere could just see one top of the Sierrade la Quitabac jutting up from below the earth-line, splitting the mainchannel, the faintest blue of all. They could be having no trouble overtheir water down there, with the Laguna Esperanca and the Poso de Mazis. Genesmere killed some more of the way rehearsing the trails andwater-holes of this country, known to him like his pocket; and by-and-byfood-cooking and mule-feeding and the small machine repetitions of acamp and a journey brought the Quijotoa Mountains behind him to replaceGun Sight and the Sierra de la Naril; and later still the Cababi hid theQuijotoa, and Genesmere counted days and nights to the good, and was atthe Coyote Wells. 

These were holes in rocks, but shallow, as Lolita said. No shallowerthan ordinary, however; he would see on the way back if they gave signsof failing. No wonder if they did, with this spell of drought--but whymix up a plain thing with a lot of nonsense about a black cross down ahole? Genesmere was critically struck with the words of the tune he nownoticed steadily running in his head again, beneath the random surfaceof his thoughts. 

 "Cinco dragones y un cabo, Y un gato de sacristan. "

That made no sense either; but Mexicans found something in it. Liked it. Now American songs had some sense:

 "They bathed his head in vinegar To fetch him up to time, And now he drives a mule team on The Denver City line. "

A man could understand that. A proud stage-driver makes a mistake abouta female passenger. Thinks he has got an heiress, and she turns out topeddle sarsaparilla. "So he's naturally used up, " commented Genesmere. "You estimate a girl as one thing, and she--" Here the undercurrentwelled up, breaking the surface. "Did she mean that? Was that hergenuine reason?" In memory he took a look at his girl's face, andrepeated her words when she besought him to come the longer way andhesitated over why. Was that shame at owning she believed such stuff?True, after asking him once about his religion and hearing what he said, she had never spoken of these things again. That must be a woman's waywhen she loved you first--to hide her notions that differed from yours, and not ruffle happy days. "Return the same road by Tucson!" Heunwrapped a clean, many-crumpled handkerchief, and held Lolita'sphotograph for a while. Then he burst into an unhappy oath, and foldedthe picture up again. What if her priest did tell her? He had heard theminister tell about eternal punishment when he was a boy, and just assoon as he started thinking it over he knew it was a lie. And this quackTinaja was worse foolishness, and had nothing to do with religion. Lolita afraid of his coming to grief in a country he had travelledhundreds, thousands of miles in! Perhaps she had never started thinkingfor herself yet. But she had. She was smarter than any girl of her agehe had ever seen. She did not want him back so soon. That was what itwas. Yet she had looked true; her voice had sounded that way. Again hedwelt upon her words and caresses; and harboring these various thoughts, he killed still more of the long road, until, passing after awhile PosoBlanco, and later Marsh's ranch-well at the forks where the Sonora roadcomes in, he reached Tucson a man divided against himself. Dividedbeyond his will into two selves--one of faith besieged, and one ofbesieging inimical reason--the inextricable error!

Business and pleasure were waiting in Tucson, and friends whose ways andcompany had not been of late for him; but he frequented them this time, tasting no pleasure, yet finding the ways and company better than hisown. After the desert's changeless, unfathomed silence, in which nothingnew came day or night to break the fettering spell his mind was fallingunder, the clink and knocking of bottles was good to hear, and helistened for more, craving any sound that might liven or distract hishaunted spirit. Instead of the sun and stars, here was a roof; insteadof the pitiless clear air, here was tobacco smoke; and beneath hisboot-heels a wooden floor wet with spilled liquids instead of theunwatered crumbling sand. Without drinking, he moved his chair near thenoisiest drinkers, and thus among the tobacco smoke sought to hide fromhis own looming doubt. Later the purring tinkle of guitars reminded himof that promised present, and the next morning he was the owner of thebest instrument that he could buy. Leaving it with a friend to keepuntil he should come through again from Maricopa, he departed that waywith his mules, finding in the new place the same sort of friends andbusiness, and by night looking upon the same untasted pleasures. He wentabout town with some cattlemen--carousing bankrupts, who rememberedtheir ruin in the middle of whiskey, and broke off to curse it and thetimes and climate, and their starved herds that none would buy at anyprice. Genesmere touched nothing, yet still drew his chair among thesedrinkers. 

"Aren't you feeling good to-night, Russ?" asked one at length. 

And Genesmere's eyes roused from seeing visions, and his ears becameaware of the loud company. In Tucson he had been able to sit in thesmoke, and compass a cheerful deceit of appearance even to himself. Choosing and buying the guitar had lent reality to his imitated peace ofmind; he had been careful over its strings, selecting such as Lolitapreferred, wrapt in carrying out this spiritual forgery of anotherGenesmere. But here they had noticed him; appearances had slipped fromhim. He listened to a piece of late Arizona news some one was in themiddle of telling--the trial of several Mormons for robbing a paymasternear Cedar Springs. This was the fourth time he had heard the story, because it was new; but the present narrator dwelt upon the dodgings ofa witness, a negress, who had seen everything and told nothing, outwitting the government, furnishing no proofs. This brought Genesmerequite back. 

"No proofs!" he muttered. "No proofs!" He laughed and became alert. "Shelied to them good, did she?"

They looked at him, because he had not spoken for so long; and he wastold that she had certainly lied good. 

"Fooled them clean through, did she? On oath! Tell about her. "

The flattered narrator, who had been in court, gave all he knew, andGenesmere received each morsel of perjury gravely with a nod. He satstill when the story was done. 

"Yes, " he said, after a time. "Yes. " And again, "Yes. " Then he brieflybade the boys good-night, and went out from the lamps and whiskey intothe dark. 

He walked up and down alone, round the corral where his mules stood, round the stable where his bed-blankets were; and one or two carouserscame by, who suggested further enjoyments to him. He went to the edge ofthe town and walked where passers would not meet him, turning now andthen to look in the direction of Tucson, where the guitar was waiting. When he felt the change of dawn he went to the stable, and by the firstearly gray had his mules packed. He looked once again towards Tucson, and took the road he had promised not to take, leaving the guitar behindhim altogether. His faith protested a little, but the other selfinvented a quibble, the mockery that he had already "come by Tucson, "according to his literal word; and this device answered. It is a comfortto be divided no longer against one's self. Genesmere was at ease in histhraldom to the demon with whom he had wrestled through the dark hours. As the day brightened he wondered how he had come to fool a night awayover a promise such as that. He took out the face in the handkerchief, and gave it a curious, defiant smile. She had said waiting would belong. She should have him quickly. And he was going to know about thatvisitor at the cabin, the steeple-hatted man he saw in his visions. SoMaricopa drew behind him, small, clear-grouped in the unheated morning, and the sun found the united man and his mules moving into the desert. 

By the well in the bottom of the Santa Cruz River he met with cattle andlittle late-born calves trying to trot. Their mothers, the foremanexplained, had not milk enough for them, nor the cursed country food orwater for the mothers. They could not chew cactus. These animals hadbeen driven here to feed and fatten inexpensively, and get quick moneyfor the owner. But, instead, half of them had died, and the men weredriving the rest to new pastures--as many, that is, as could stillwalk. Genesmere knew, the foreman supposed, that this well was the lastfor more than a hundred miles? Funny to call a thing like that SantaCruz a river! Well, it was an Arizona river; all right enough, no doubt, somewhere a thousand feet or so underground. Pity you weren't aprairie-dog that eats sand when he gets a thirst on him. Got anytobacco? Good-bye. 

Think of any valleys that you know between high mountains. Such wassouthern Arizona once--before we came. Then fill up your valleys withsand until the mountains show no feet or shoulders, but become as menburied to the neck. That is what makes separate islands of theirprotruding peaks, and that is why water slinks from the surface wheneverit can and flows useless underneath, entombed in the original valley. This is Arizona now--since the pterodactyls have gone. In such a placethe traveller turns mariner, only, instead of the stars, he studies thewater-wells, shaping his course by these. Not sea-gulls, but ravens, flyover this waste, seeking their meal. Some were in front of Genesmerenow, settled black in the recent trail of the cattle. He did not muchcare that the last well was gone by, for he was broken in by long travelto the water of the 'dobe-holes that people rely upon through thisjourney. These 'dobe-holes are occasional wallows in clayey spots, andmen and cattle know each one. The cattle, of course, roll in them, andthey become worn into circular hollows, their edges tramped into muck, and surrounded by a thicket belt of mesquite. The water is not good, butwill save life. The first one lay two stages from the well, andGenesmere accordingly made an expected dry camp the first night, carrying water from the well in the Santa Cruz, and dribbling all of itbut a cupful among his animals, and the second night reached hiscalculated 'dobe-hole. The animals rolled luxuriously in the brown, dungy mixture, and Genesmere made his coffee strong. He had had no shadeat the first camp, and here it was good under the tangle of themesquite, and he slept sound. He was early awakened by the ravens, whoseloose, dislocated croaking came from where they sat at breakfast on theother side of the wallow. They had not suspected his presence among themesquite, and when he stepped to the mud-hole and dipped its gummy fluidin his coffee-pot they rose hoarse and hovering, and flapped twentyyards away, and sat watching until he was gone into the desert, whenthey clouded back again round their carrion. 

This day was over ground yellow and hard with dearth, until afternoonbrought a footing of sifting sand heavy to travel in. He had plenty oftime for thinking. His ease after the first snapping from his promisehad changed to an eagerness to come unawares and catch the man in thesteeple-hat. Till that there could be no proofs. Genesmere had along theroad nearly emptied his second canteen of its brown-amber drink, wettingthe beasts' tongues more than his own. The neighborhood of the next'dobe-hole might be known by the three miles of cactus you went throughbefore coming on it, a wide-set plantation of the yucca. The postedplants deployed over the plain in strange extended order like legionsand legions of figures, each shock-head of spears bunched bristling atthe top of its lank, scaly stalk, and out of that stuck theblossom-pole, a pigtail on end, with its knot of bell-flowers seeded topods ten feet in the air. Genesmere's horse started and nearly threwhim, but it was only a young calf lying for shade by a yucca. Genesmerecould tell from its unlicked hide that the mother had gone to huntwater, and been away for some time. This unseasonable waif made a try atrunning away, but fell in a heap, and lay as man and mules passed on. Presently he passed a sentinel cow. She stood among the thorns guardingthe calves of her sisters till they should return from getting theirwater. The desert cattle learn this shift, and the sentinel now, at thestranger's approach, lowered her head, and with a feeble but hostilesound made ready to protect her charge, keeping her face to the passingenemy. Farther along gaunt cows stood or lay under the perpetual yuccas, an animal to every plant. They stared at Genesmere passing on; some roseto look after him; some lifted their heads from the ground, and seeing, laid them down again. He came upon a calf watching its mother, who hadfallen in such a position that the calf could not suck. The cow'sforeleg was caught over her own head, and so she held herself fromrising. The sand was rolled and grooved into a wheel by her circlings;her body heaved and fell with breathing, and the sand was wet where herpivot nostrils had ground it. While Genesmere untangled her and gave hertongue the last of his canteen the calf walked round and round. Heplaced the cow upon her feet, and as soon as he moved away to his horsethe calf came to its mother, who began to lick it. He presently markedahead the position of the coming 'dobe-hole by the ravens assembled inthe air, continually rising and lighting. The white horse and mulesquickened their step, and the trail became obliterated by hundreds ofhoof-marks leading to the water. As a spider looks in the centre of anempty web, so did the round wallow sit in the middle of the plain, withthreaded feet conducting from everywhere to it. Mules and white horsescraped through the scratching mesquite, and the ravens flapped up. ToGenesmere their croaking seemed suddenly to fill all space with loudtotal clamor, for no water was left, only mud. He eased the animals oftheir loads and saddles, and they rolled in the stiff mud, squeezingfrom it a faint ooze, and getting a sort of refreshment. Genesmerechewed the mud, and felt sorry for the beasts. He turned both canteensupside down and licked the bungs. A cow had had his last drink. Well, that would keep her alive several hours more. Hardly worth while; butspilled milk decidedly. Milk! That was an idea. He caught animal afteranimal, and got a few sickly drops. There was no gain in camping at thisspot, no water for coffee; so Genesmere moved several hundred yards awayto be rid of the ravens and their all-day-long meal and the smell. Helay thinking what to do. Go back? At the rate he could push the animalsnow that last hole might be used up by the cattle before he gotthere--and then it was two stages more to the Santa Cruz well. And theman would be gaining just so many more days unhindered at the cabin. Outof the question. Forward, it was one shortish drive to the next hole. Ifthat were dry, he could forsake the trail and make a try by a short-cutfor that Tinaja place. And he must start soon, too, as soon as theanimals could stand it, and travel by night and rest when the sun gotbad. What business had October to be hot like this? So in the darknesshe mounted again, and noon found him with eyes shut under a yucca. Itwas here that he held a talk with Lolita. They were married, and sittingin a room with curtains that let you see flowers growing outside by thewindow, as he had always intended. Lolita said to him that there was nofool like an old fool, and he was telling her that love could make a manmore a fool than age, when she threw the door open, letting in brightlight, and said, "No proofs. " The bright light was the real sun cominground the yucca on his face, and he sat up and saw the desert. No cowswere here, but he noticed the roughened hides and sunk eyes of his ownbeasts, and spoke to them. 

"Cheer up, Jeff! Stonewall!" He stopped at the pain. It was in his lipsand mouth. He put up his hand, and the feel of his tongue frightenedhim. He looked round to see what country he was in, and noted the signsthat it was not so very far now. The blue crags of the islands wereshowing, and the blue sterile sky spread over them and the ceaselesssunlight like a plague. Man and horse and mules were the only life inthe naked bottom of this caldron. The mirage had caught the nearestisland, and blunted and dissolved its points and frayed its base away toa transparent fringe. 

"Like a lump of sugar melts in hot tod, " remarked Genesmere, aloud, andremembered his thickened mouth again. "I can stand it off for a whileyet, though--if they can travel. " His mules looked at him when hecame--looked when he tightened their cinches. "I know, Jeff, " he said, and inspected the sky. "No heaven's up there. Nothing's back of thatthing, unless it's hell. "

[Illustration: "'YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK THIS WAY. YOU'RE ALONE'"]

He got the animals going, and the next 'dobe-hole was like thelast, and busy with the black flapping of the birds. "You didn't foolme, " said Genesmere, addressing the mud. "I knew you'd be dry. " Hiseye ran over the cattle, that lay in various conditions. "That foremanwas not too soon getting his live-stock out of your country, " hecontinued to the hole, his tongue clacking as it made his words. "Thislive-stock here's not enjoying itself like its owners in town. Thislive-stock was intended for Eastern folks' dinner. --But you've gotahead of 'em this trip, " he said to the ravens. He laughed loudly, and, hearing himself, stopped, and his face became stern. "You don'twant to talk this way, Russ Genesmere. Shut your head. You'realone. --I wish I'd never known!" he suddenly cried out. 

He went to his animals and sat down by them, clasping and unclasping hishands. The mules were lying down on the baked mud of the wallow withtheir loads on, and he loosed them. He stroked his white horse for somelittle while, thinking; and it was in his heart that he had broughtthese beasts into this scrape. It was sunset and cool. Against thedivine fires of the west the peaks towered clear in splendor impassive, and forever aloof, and the universe seemed to fill with infinitesadness. "If she'll tell me it's not so, " he said, "I'll believe her. Iwill believe her now. I'll make myself. She'll help me to. " He took whatrest he dared, and started up from it much later than he had intended, having had the talk with Lolita again in the room with the curtains. Itwas nine when he set out for the short-cut under the moon, dazed by hisincreasing torture. The brilliant disk, blurring to the eye, showed themountains unearthly plain, beautiful, and tall in the night. By-and-by amule fell and could not rise, and Genesmere decided it was as well forall to rest again. The next he knew it was blazing sunshine, and the skyat the same time bedded invisible in black clouds. And when his handreached for a cloud that came bellying down to him, it changed into apretzel, and salt burned in his mouth at the sight of it. He turned awayand saw the hot, unshaded mountains wrinkled in the sun, glazed andshrunk, gullied like the parchment of an old man's throat; and then hesaw a man in a steeple-hat. He could no more lay the spectre that wastedhis mind than the thirst-demon which raged in his body. He shut hiseyes, and then his arm was beating at something to keep it away. Pillowed on his saddle, he beat until he forgot. A blow at the corner ofhis eye brought him up sitting, and a raven jumped from his chest. 

"You're not experienced, " said Genesmere. "I'm not dead yet. But I'mobliged to you for being so enterprising. You've cleared my head. Quitthat talk, Russ Genesmere. " He went to the mule that had given outduring the night. "Poor Jeff! We must lighten your pack. Now if thathunchback had died here, the birds would have done his business for himwithout help from any of your cats. Am I saying that, now, or onlythinking it? I know I'm alone. I've travelled that way in this world. Why?" He turned his face, expecting some one to answer, and the answercame in a fierce voice: "Because you're a man, and can stand this worldoff by yourself. You look to no one. " He suddenly took out thehandkerchief and tore the photograph to scraps. "That's lightened mypack all it needs. Now for these boys, or they'll never make camp. " Hetook what the mules carried, his merchandise, and hid it carefullybetween stones--for they had come near the mountain country--and, looking at the plain he was leaving, he saw a river. "Ha, ha!" he said, slyly; "you're not there, though. And I'll prove it to you. " He choseanother direction, and saw another flowing river. "I was expecting you, "he stated, quietly. "Don't bother me. I'm thirsty. "

But presently as he journeyed he saw lying to his right a wide, fertileplace, with fruit-trees and water everywhere. "Peaches too!" he sangout, and sprang off to run, but checked himself in five steps. "I don'tseem able to stop your foolish talking, " he said, "but you shall notchase around like that. You'll stay with me. I tell you that's a sham. Look at it. " Obedient, he looked hard at it, and the cactus and rocksthrust through the watery image of the lake like two photographs on thesame plate. He shouted with strangling triumph, and continued shoutinguntil brier-roses along a brook and a farm-house unrolled to his left, and he ran half-way there, calling his mother's name. "Why, you fool, she's dead!" He looked slowly at his cut hands, for he had fallen amongstones. "Dead, back in Kentucky, ever so long ago, " he murmured, softly. "Didn't stay to see you get wicked. " Then he grew stern again. "You'veshowed yourself up, and you can't tell land from water. You're going tolet the boys take you straight. I don't trust you. "

He started the mules, and caught hold of his horse's tail, and they setout in single file, held steady by their instinct, stumbling ahead forthe water they knew among the mountains. Mules led, and the shouting manbrought up the rear, clutching the white tail like a rudder, his feetsliding along through the stones. The country grew higher and rougher, and the peaks blazed in the hot sky; slate and sand and cactus below, gaping cracks and funnelled erosions above, rocks like monumentsslanting up to the top pinnacles; supreme Arizona, stark and dead inspace, like an extinct planet, flooded blind with eternal brightness. The perpetual dominating peaks caught Genesmere's attention. "Toll on!"he cried to them. "Toll on, you tall mountains. What do you care? Summerand winter, night and day, I've known you, and I've heard you all along. A man can't look but he sees you walling God's country from him, ringingaway with your knell. "

He must have been lying down during some time, for now he saw the fullmoon again, and his animals near him, and a fire blazing that himselfhad evidently built. The coffee-pot sat on it, red-hot and split open. He felt almost no suffering at all, but stronger than ever in his life, and he heard something somewhere screaming "Water! water! water!" fastand unceasing, like an alarm-clock. A rattling of stones made him turn, and there stood a few staring cattle. Instantly he sprang to his feet, and the screaming stopped. "Round 'em up, Russ Genesmere! It's gettinglate!" he yelled, and ran among the cattle, whirling his rope. Theydodged weakly this way and that, and next he was on the white horseurging him after the cows, who ran in a circle. One struck the end of alog that stuck out from the fire, splintering the flames and embers, andGenesmere followed on the tottering horse through the sparks, swinginghis rope and yelling in the full moon: "Round 'em up! round 'em up!Don't you want to make camp? All the rest of the herd's bedded downalong with the ravens. "

The white horse fell and threw him by the edge of a round hole, but hedid not know it till he opened his eyes and it was light again, and themountains still tolling. Then like a crash of cymbals the Tinaja beatinto his recognition. He knew the slate rock; he saw the broken naturalstairs. He plunged down them arms forward like a diver's, and ground hisforehead against the bottom. It was dry. His bloodshot eyes rolled onceup round the sheer walls. Yes, it was the Tinaja, and his hands began totear at the gravel. He flung himself to fresh places, fiercely grubbingwith his heels, biting into the sand with his teeth; while above him inthe cañon his placid animals lay round the real Tinaja Bonita, havingslaked their thirst last night, in time, some thirty yards from where henow lay bleeding and fighting the dust in the dry twin hole. 

He heard voices, and put his hands up to something round his head. Hewas now lying out in the light, with a cold bandage round his forehead, and a moist rag on his lips. 

"Water!" He could just make the whisper. 

But Lolita made a sign of silence. 

"Water!" he gasped. 

She shook her head, smiling, and moistened the rag. That must be alljust now. 

His eye sought and travelled, and stopped short, dilating; and Lolitascreamed at his leap for the living well. 

"Not yet! Not yet!" she said in terror, grappling with him. "Help!Luis!"

So this was their plot, the demon told him--to keep him from water! In afrenzy of strength he seized Lolita. "Proved! Proved!" he shouted, andstruck his knife into her. She fell at once to the earth and lay calm, eyes wide open, breathing in the bright sun. He rushed to the water andplunged, swallowing and rolling. 

Luis ran up from the cows he was gathering, and when he saw what wasdone, sank by Lolita to support her. She pointed to the pool. 

"He is killing himself!" she managed to say, and her head went lower. 

"And I'll help you die, caberon! I'll tear your tongue. I'll--"

But Lolita, hearing Luis's terrible words, had raised a forbidding hand. She signed to leave her and bring Genesmere to her. 

The distracted Luis went down the stone stairs to kill the American inspite of her, but the man's appearance stopped him. You could not raisea hand against one come to this. The water-drinking was done, andGenesmere lay fainting, head and helpless arms on the lowest stone, bodyin the water. The Black Cross stood dry above. Luis heard Lolita'svoice, and dragged Genesmere to the top as quickly as he could. She, seeing her lover, cried his name once and died; and Luis cast himself onthe earth. 

"Fool! fool!" he repeated, catching at the ground, where he lay for somewhile until a hand touched him. It was Genesmere. 

"I'm seeing things pretty near straight now, " the man said. "Come close. I can't talk well. Was--was that talk of yours, and singing--was thatbluff?"

"God forgive me!" said poor Luis. 

"You mean forgive me, " said Genesmere. He lay looking at Lolita. "Closeher eyes, " he said. And Luis did so. Genesmere was plucking at hisclothes, and the Mexican helped him draw out a handkerchief, which thelover unfolded like a treasure. "She used to look like this, " he began. He felt and stopped. "Why, it's gone!" he said. He lay evidently seekingto remember where the picture had gone, and his eyes went to the hillswhence no help came. Presently Luis heard him speaking, and, leaning tohear, made out that he was murmuring his own name, Russ, in the wayLolita had been used to say it. The boy sat speechless, and no thoughtstirred in his despair as he watched. The American moved over, and puthis arms round Lolita, Luis knowing that he must not offer to help himdo this. He remained so long that the boy, who would never be a boyagain, bent over to see. But it was only another fainting-fit. Luiswaited; now and then the animals moved among the rocks. The sun crossedthe sky, bringing the many-colored evening, and Arizona was no longerterrible, but once more infinitely sad. Luis started, for the Americanwas looking at him and beckoning. 

"She's not here, " Genesmere said, distinctly. 

Luis could not follow. 

"Not here, I tell you. " The lover touched his sweetheart. "This is nother. My punishment is nothing, " he went on, his face growing beautiful. "See there!"

Luis looked where he pointed. 

"Don't you see her? Don't you see her fixing that camp for me? We'regoing to camp together now. "

But these were visions alien to Luis, and he stared helpless, anxious todo anything that the man might desire. Genesmere's face darkenedwistfully. 

"Am I not making camp?" he said. 

Luis nodded to please him, without at all comprehending. 

"You don't see her. " Reason was warring with the departing spirit untilthe end. "Well, maybe you're right. I never was sure. But I'm mortaltired of travelling alone. I hope--"

That was the end, and Russ Genesmere lay still beside his sweetheart. Itwas a black evening at the cabin, and a black day when Luis and oldRamon raised and fenced the wooden head-stone, with its two forlornnames. 

A PILGRIM ON THE GILA

Midway from Grant to Thomas comes Paymaster's Hill, not much after CedarSprings and not long before you sight the valley where the Gila flows. This lonely piece of road must lie three thousand miles from Washington;but in the holiday journey that I made they are near together among theadventures of mind and body that overtook me. For as I turned southwardour capital was my first stopping-place, and it was here I gathered theexpectations of Arizona with which I continued on my way. 

Arizona was the unknown country I had chosen for my holiday, and I foundthem describing it in our National House of Representatives, where I hadstrolled for sight-seeing but stayed to listen. The Democrats were hotto make the Territory a State, while the Republicans objected that theplace had about it still too much of the raw frontier. The talk andreplies of each party were not long in shaking off restraint, and in thesharp exchange of satire the Republicans were reminded that they had notthought Idaho and Wyoming unripe at a season when those Territories wererumored to be Republican. Arizona might be Democratic, but neithercattle wars nor mine revolutions flourished there. Good order andprosperity prevailed. A member from Pennsylvania presently lost histemper, declaring that gigantic generalities about milk and honey andenlightenment would not avail to change his opinion. Arizona was well onto three times the size of New York--had a hundred and thirteen thousandsquare miles. Square miles of what? The desert of Sahara was twice asbig as Arizona, and one of the largest misfortunes on the face of theearth. Arizona had sixty thousand inhabitants, not quite so many as thetown of Troy. And what sort of people? He understood that cactus wasArizona's chief crop, stage-robbing her most active industry, and theApache her leading citizen. 

And then the Boy Orator of the Rio Grande took his good chance. I forgothis sallow face and black, unpleasant hair, and even his singlegesture--that straining lift of one hand above the shoulder during thesuspense of a sentence and that cracking it down into the other at thefull stop, endless as a pile-driver. His facts wiped any trick of mannerfrom my notice. Indians? Stage-robbers? Cactus? Yes. He would addfamine, drought, impotent law, daily murder; he could add much more, butit was all told in Mr. Pumpelly's book, true as life, thirty yearsago--doubtless the latest news in Pennsylvania! Had this reportdiscouraged the gentleman from visiting Arizona? Why, he could go thereto-day in a Pullman car by two great roads and eat his three meals insecurity. But Eastern statesmen were too often content with knowingtheir particular corner of our map while a continent of ignorance lay intheir minds. 

At this stroke applause sounded beside me, and, turning, I had my firstsight of the yellow duster. The bulky man that wore it shrewdly andsmilingly watched the orator, who now dwelt upon the rapid benefits ofthe railways, the excellent men and things they brought to Arizona, theleap into civilization that the Territory had taken. "Let Pennsylvaniasee those blossoming fields for herself, " said he, "those boundlesscontiguities of shade. " And a sort of cluck went off down inside myneighbor's throat, while the speaker with rising heat gave us thetonnage of plums exported from the Territory during the past fiscalyear. Wool followed. 

"Sock it to 'em, Limber Jim!" murmured the man in the duster, andexecuted a sort of step. He was plainly a personal acquaintance of thespeaker's. 

Figures never stick by me, nor can I quote accurately the catalogue ofstatistic abundance now recited in the House of Representatives; but aswheat, corn, peaches, apricots, oranges, raisins, spices, the rose andthe jasmine flowered in the Boy Orator's eloquence, the genial antics ofmy neighbor increased until he broke into delighted mutterings, such as"He's a stud-horse, " and "Put the kybosh on 'em, " and many more thathave escaped my memory. But the Boy Orator's peroration I am glad toremember, for his fervid convictions lifted him into the domain ofmetaphor and cadence; and though to be sure I made due allowance forenthusiasm, his picture of Arizona remained vivid with me, and I shouldhave voted to make the Territory a State that very day. 

"With her snow-clad summits, with the balm of her Southern vineyards, she loudly calls for a sister's rights. Not the isles of Greece, nor anycycle of Cathay, can compete with her horticultural resources, her SaltRiver, her Colorado, her San Pedro, her Gila, her hundred irrigatedvalleys, each one surpassing the shaded Paradise of the Nile, wherethousands of noble men and elegantly educated ladies have alreadylocated, and to which thousands more, like patient monuments, arewaiting breathless to throng when the franchise is proclaimed. And if mydeath could buy that franchise, I would joyfully boast such martyrdom. "

The orator cracked his hands together in this supreme moment, and thebulky gentleman in the duster drove an elbow against my side, whisperingto me at the same time behind his hand, in a hoarse confidence:"Deserted Jericho! California only holds the record on stoves now. "

"I'm afraid I do not catch your allusion, " I began. But at my voice heturned sharply, and, giving me one short, ugly stare, was looking abouthim, evidently at some loss, when a man at his farther side pulled athis duster, and I then saw that he had all along been taking me for ayounger companion he had come in with, and with whom he now went away. In the jostle we had shifted places while his eyes were upon the variousspeakers, and to him I seemed an eavesdropper. Both he and his friendhad a curious appearance, and they looked behind them, meeting my gazeas I watched them going; and then they made to each other some laughingcomment, of which I felt myself to be the inspiration. I was standingabsently on the same spot, still in a mild puzzle over California andthe record on stoves. Certainly I had overheard none of their secrets, if they had any; I could not even guess what might be their true opinionabout admitting Arizona to our Union. 

With this last memory of our Capitol and the statesmen we havecollected there to govern us, I entered upon my holiday, glad that itwas to be passed in such a region of enchantment. For peaches it wouldbe too early, and with roses and jasmine I did not importantly concernmyself, thinking of them only as a pleasant sight by the way. But on mygradual journey through Lexington, Bowling Green, Little Rock, and ForthWorth I dwelt upon the shade of the valleys, and the pasture hillsdotted with the sheep of whose wool the Boy Orator had spoken; and Iwished that our cold Northwest could have been given such a bountifulclimate. Upon the final morning of railroad I looked out of the windowat an earth which during the night had collapsed into a vacuum, as I hadso often seen happen before upon more Northern parallels. The evennessof this huge nothing was cut by our track's interminable scar, andbroken to the eye by the towns which now and again rose and littered thehorizon like boxes dumped by emigrants. We were still in Texas, notdistant from the Rio Grande, and I looked at the boxes drifting by, andwondered from which of them the Boy Orator had been let loose. Twice orthree times upon this day of sand I saw green spots shining sudden andbright and Biblical in the wilderness. Their isolated loveliness washerald of the valley land I was nearing each hour. The wanderingMexicans, too, bright in rags and swarthy in nakedness, put me somehowin mind of the Old Testament. 

In the evening I sat at whiskey with my first acquaintance, a Mr. Mowry, one of several Arizona citizens whom my military friend at San Carloshad written me to look out for on my way to visit him. My train hadtrundled on to the Pacific, and I sat in a house once more--a saloon onthe platform, with an open door through which the night air camepleasantly. This was now the long-expected Territory, and time for rosesand jasmine to begin. Early in our talk I naturally spoke to Mr. Mowryof Arizona's resources and her chance of becoming a State. 

"We'd have got there by now, " said he, "only Luke Jenks ain't half thatinterested in Arizona as he is in Luke Jenks. "

I reminded Mr. Mowry that I was a stranger here and unacquainted withthe prominent people. 

"Well, Luke's as near a hog as you kin be and wear pants. Be with you ina minute, " added Mr. Mowry, and shambled from the room. This was becausea shot had been fired in a house across the railroad tracks. "I run twoplaces, " he explained, returning quite soon from the house and taking upthe thread of his whiskey where he had dropped it. "Two outfits. Thisside for toorists. Th' other pays better. I come here in 'sixty-two. "

"I trust no one has been--hurt?" said I, inclining my head towards thefarther side of the railroad. 

"Hurt?" My question for the moment conveyed nothing to him, and herepeated the word, blinking with red eyes at me over the rim of hislifted glass. "No, nobody's hurt. I've been here a long while, and seenthem as was hurt, though. " Here he nodded at me depreciatingly, and Ifelt how short was the time that I had been here. "Th' other side paysbetter, " he resumed, "as toorists mostly go to bed early. Six bits isabout the figger you can reckon they'll spend, if you know anything. " Henodded again, more solemn over his whiskey. "That kind's no help tobusiness. I've been in this Territory from the start, and Arizona ain'twhat it was. Them mountains are named from me. " And he pointed out ofthe door. "Mowry's Peak. On the map. " With this last august statementhis mind seemed to fade from the conversation, and he struck asuccession of matches along the table and various parts of his person. 

"Has Mr. Jenks been in the Territory long?" I suggested, feeling thesilence weigh upon me. 

"Luke? He's a hog. Him the people's choice! But the people of Arizonaain't what they was. Are you interested in silver?"

"Yes, " I answered, meaning the political question. But before I couldsay what I meant he had revived into a vigor of attitude and awakefulness of eye of which I had not hitherto supposed him capable. 

"You come here, " said he; and, catching my arm, he took me out of thedoor and along the track in the night, and round the corner of therailroad hotel into view of more mountains that lay to the south. "Youstay here to-morrow, " he pursued, swiftly, "and I'll hitch up and driveyou over there. I'll show you some rock behind Helen's Dome that'll beatany you've struck in the whole course of your life. It's on the woodreservation, and when the government abandons the Post, as they're goingto do--"

There is no need for my entering at length into his urgence, or theplans he put to me for our becoming partners, or for my buying him outand employing him on a salary, or buying him out and employing someother, or no one, according as I chose--the whole bright array ofcostumes in which he presented to me the chance of making my fortune ata stroke. I think that from my answers he gathered presently adiscouraging but perfectly false impression. My Eastern hat andinexperienced face (I was certainly young enough to have been hisgrandchild) had a little misled him; and although he did not in theleast believe the simple truth I told him, that I had come to Arizona onno sort of business, but for the pleasure of seeing the country, he nowoverrated my brains as greatly as he had in the beginning despised them, quite persuaded I was playing some game deeper than common, and eitherowned already or had my eye upon other silver mines. 

"Pleasure of seeing the country, ye say?" His small wet eyes blinked ashe stood on the railroad track bareheaded, considering me from head tofoot. "All right. Did ye say ye're going to Globe?"

"No. To San Carlos to visit an army officer. "

"Carlos is on the straight road to Globe, " said Mr. Mowry, vindictively. "But ye might as well drop any idea of Globe, if ye should get one. Ifit's copper ye're after, there's parties in ahead of you. "

Desiring, if possible, to shift his mind from its present unfavorableturn, I asked him if Mr. Adams did not live between here andSolomonsville, my route to Carlos. Mr. Adams was another character ofwhom my host had written me, and at my mention of his name the face ofMr. Mowry immediately soured into the same expression it had taken whenhe spoke of the degraded Jenks. 

"So you're acquainted with him! He's got mines. I've seen 'em. If yourepresent any Eastern parties, tell 'em not to drop their dollars downold Adams's hole in the ground. He ain't the inexperienced juniper helooks. Him and me's been acquainted these thirty years. People claim itwas Cyclone Bill held up the Ehrenberg stage. Well, I guess I'll beseeing how the boys are getting along. "

With that he moved away. A loud disturbance of chairs and broken glasshad set up in the house across the railroad, and I watched theproprietor shamble from me with his deliberate gait towards theestablishment that paid him best. He had left me possessor of muchincomplete knowledge, and I waited for him, pacing the platform; but hedid not return, and as I judged it inexpedient to follow him, I went tomy bed on the tourist side of the track. 

In the morning the stage went early, and as our road seemed to promisebut little variety--I could see nothing but an empty plain--I was gladto find my single fellow-passenger a man inclined to talk. I did notlike his mustache, which was too large for his face, nor his too carefulcivility and arrangement of words; but he was genial to excess, andthoughtful of my comfort. 

"I beg you will not allow my valise to incommode you, " was one of hisfirst remarks; and I liked this consideration better than any Mr. Mowryhad shown me. "I fear you will detect much initial primitiveness in ourmethods of transportation, " he said. 

This again called for gracious assurances on my part, and for a whileour polite phrases balanced to corners until I was mentally windedkeeping up such a pace of manners. The train had just brought him fromTucson, he told me, and would I indulge? On this we shared andcomplimented each other's whiskey. 

"From your flask I take it that you are a Gentile, " said he, smiling. 

"If you mean tenderfoot, " said I, "let me confess at once that flask andowner are from the East, and brand-new in Arizona. "

"I mean you're not a Mormon. Most strangers to me up this way are. Butthey carry their liquor in a plain flat bottle like this. "

"Are you a--a--" Embarrassment took me as it would were I to checkmyself on the verge of asking a courteously disposed stranger if he hadever embezzled. 

"Oh, I'm no Mormon, " my new friend said, with a chuckle, and I was gladto hear him come down to reasonable English. "But Gentiles are in theminority in this valley. "

"I didn't know we'd got to the valleys yet, " said I, eagerly, connectingMormons with fertility and jasmine. And I lifted the flaps of the stage, first one side and then the other, and saw the desert everywhere flat, treeless, and staring like an eye without a lid. 

"This is the San Simon Valley we've been in all the time, " he replied. "It goes from Mexico to the Gila, about a hundred and fifty miles. "

"Like this?"

"South it's rockier. Better put the flap down. "

"I don't see where people live, " I said, as two smoky spouts of sandjetted from the tires and strewed over our shoes and pervaded ournostrils. "There's nothing--yes, there's one bush coming. " I fastenedthe flaps. 

"That's Seven-Mile Mesquite. They held up the stage at this point lastOctober. But they made a mistake in the day. The money had gone down theafternoon before, and they only got about a hundred. "

"I suppose it was Mormons who robbed the stage?"

"Don't talk quite so loud, " the stranger said, laughing. "The driver'sone of them. "

"A Mormon or a robber?"

"Well, we only know he's a Mormon. "

"He doesn't look twenty. Has he many wives yet?"

"Oh, they keep that thing very quiet in these days, if they do it atall. The government made things too hot altogether. The Bishop hereknows what hiding for polygamy means. "

"Bishop who?"

"Meakum, " I thought he answered me, but was not sure in the rattle ofthe stage, and twice made him repeat it, putting my hand to my ear atlast. "Meakum! Meakum!" he shouted. 

"Yes, sir, " said the driver. 

"Have some whiskey?" said my friend, promptly; and when that was overand the flat bottle passed back, he explained in a lower voice, "A sonof the Bishop's. "

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. 

"So was the young fellow who put in the mail-bags, and thatyellow-headed duck in the store this morning. " My companion, in thepleasure of teaching new things to a stranger, stretched his legs on thefront seat, lifted my coat out of his way, and left all formality ofspeech and deportment. "And so's the driver you'll have to-morrow ifyou're going beyond Thomas, and the stock-tender at the sub-agency whereyou'll breakfast. He's a yellow-head too. The old man's postmaster, andowns this stage-line. One of his boys has the mail contract. The old manruns the hotel at Solomonsville and two stores at Bowie and Globe, andthe store and mill at Thacher. He supplies the military posts in thisdistrict with hay and wood, and a lot of things on and off through theyear. Can't write his own name. Signs government contracts with hismark. He's sixty-four, and he's had eight wives. Last summer he marriednumber nine--rest all dead, he says, and I guess that's so. He hasfifty-seven recorded children, not counting the twins born last week. Any yellow-heads you'll see in the valley'll answer to the name ofMeakum as a rule, and the other type's curly black like this littledriver specimen. "

"How interesting there should be only two varieties of Meakum!" said I. 

"Yes, it's interesting. Of course the whole fifty-seven don't class upyellow or black curly, but if you could take account of stock you'd findthe big half of 'em do. Mothers don't seem to have influenced the typeappreciably. His eight families, successive and simultaneous, cover aperiod of forty-three years, and yellow and black keeps turning up rightalong. Scientifically, the suppression of Mormonism is a loss to thestudent of heredity. Some of the children are dead. Get killed now andthen, and die too--die from sickness. But you'll easily notice Meakumsas you go up the valley. Old man sees all get good jobs as soon asthey're old enough. Places 'em on the railroad, places 'em in town, allover the lot. Some don't stay; you couldn't expect the whole fifty-sevento be steady; but he starts 'em all fair. We have six in Tucson now, orfive, maybe. Old man's a good father. "

"They're not all boys?"

"Certainly not; but more than half are. "

"And you say he can't write?"

"Or read, except print, and he has to spell out that. "

"But, my goodness, he's postmaster!"

"What's that got to do with it? Young Meakums all read like anything. Hedon't do any drudgery. "

"Well, you wouldn't catch me signing any contracts I couldn't read. "

"Do you think you'd catch anybody reading a contract wrong to oldMeakum? Oh, momma! Why, he's king round here. Fixes the county electionsand the price of tomatoes. Do you suppose any Tucson jury'll convict anyof his Mormons if he says nay? No, sir! It's been tried. Why, that manought to be in Congress. "

"If he's like that I don't consider him desirable, " said I. 

"Yes, he is desirable, " said my friend, roughly. "Smart, can't befooled, and looks after his people's interests. I'd like to know if thatdon't fill the bill?"

"If he defeats justice--"

"Oh, rats!" This interruption made me regret his earlier manner, and Iwas sorry the polish had rubbed through so quickly and brought us to atoo precipitate familiarity. "We're Western out here, " he continued, "and we're practical. When we want a thing, we go after it. BishopMeakum worked his way down here from Utah through desert and starvation, mostly afoot, for a thousand miles, and his flock to-day is about theonly class in the Territory that knows what prosperity feels like, andhis laws are about the only laws folks don't care to break. He's got abrain. If he weren't against Arizona's being admitted--"

"He should know better than that, " said I, wishing to be friendly. "Withyour fruit exports and high grade of citizens you'll soon be anotherCalifornia. "

He gave me an odd look. 

"I am surprised, " I proceeded, amiably, "to hear you speak of Mormonsonly as prosperous. They think better of you in Washington. "

"Now, see here, " said he, "I've been pleasant to you and I've enjoyedthis ride. But I like plain talk. "

"What's the matter?" I asked. 

"And I don't care for Eastern sarcasm. "

"There was no intention--"

"I don't take offence where offence is not intended. As for high-gradecitizens, we don't claim to know as much as--I suppose it's New York youcome from? Gold-bugs and mugwumps--"

"If you can spare the time, " said I, "and kindly explain what hasdisturbed you in my remarks, we'll each be likely to find the rest ofthese forty miles more supportable. "

"I guess I can stand it, " said he, swallowing a drink. He folded hisarms and resettled his legs; and the noisome hatefulness of his laughfilled me with regret for the wet-eyed Mowry. I would now gladly havetaken any amount of Mowry in exchange for this; and it struck me afreshhow uncertainly one always reckons with those who suspect their ownstanding. 

"Till Solomonsville, " said I, "let us veil our estimation of each other. Once out of this stage and the world will be large enough for both ofus. " I was wrong there; but presentiments do not come to me often. So I, too, drank some of my own whiskey, lighted a cigar, and observed withpleasure that my words had enraged him. 

Before either of us had devised our next remark, the stage pulled up tochange horses at the first and last water in forty miles. This stationwas kept by Mr. Adams, and I jumped out to see the man Mr. Mowry hadwarned me was not an inexperienced juniper. His appearance would havedrawn few but missionaries to him, and I should think would have beenwarning enough to any but an over-trustful child of six. 

"Are you the geologist?" he said at once, coughing heavily; and when Itold him I was simply enjoying a holiday, he looked at me sharply andspat against the corner of the stable. "There's one of them fellersexpected, " he continued, in a tone as if I need not attempt to denythat, and I felt his eye watching for signs of geology about me. I toldhim that I imagined the geologist must do an active business in Arizona. 

"I don't hire 'em!" he exclaimed. "They can't tell me nothing aboutmineral. "

"I suppose you have been here a long while, Mr. Adams?"

"There's just three living that come in ahead of--" The cough split hislast word in pieces. 

"Mr. Mowry was saying last night--"

"You've seen that old scamp, have you? Buy his mine behind Helen'sDome?"

My mirth at this turned him instantly confidential, and rooted hisconviction that I was a geologist. "That's right!" said he, tapping myarm. "Don't you let 'em fool you. I guess you know your business. Now, if you want to look at good paying rock, thousands in sight, in sight, mind you--"

"Are you coming along with us?" called the little Meakum driver, and Iturned and saw the new team was harnessed and he ready on his box, withthe reins in his hands. So I was obliged to hasten from the disappointedAdams and climb back in my seat. The last I saw of him he was standingquite still in the welter of stable muck, stooping to his cough, thedesert sun beating on his old body, and the desert wind slowly turningthe windmill above the shadeless mud hovel in which he lived alone. 

"Poor old devil!" said I to my enemy, half forgetting our terms in mycontemplation of Adams. "Is he a Mormon?"

My enemy's temper seemed a little improved. "He's tried most everythingexcept jail, " he answered, his voice still harsh. "You needn't investyour sentiment there. He used to hang out at Twenty Mile in Old CampGrant days, and he'd slit your throat for fifty cents. "

But my sentiment was invested somehow. The years of the old-timers wereending so gray. Their heyday, and carousals, and happy-go-luckiness allgone, and in the remaining hours--what? Empty youth is such a grand easything, and empty age so grim!

"Has Mowry tried everything, too?" I asked. 

"Including jail, " said my companion; and gave me many entertainingincidents of Mowry's career with an ill-smelling saloon cleverness thatput him once more into favorable humor with me, while I retained myopinion of him. "And that uneducated sot, " he concluded, "that hobo withhis record of cattle-stealing and claim-jumping, and his acquittal fromjail through railroad influence, actually undertook to run against melast elections. My name is Jenks; Luke Jenks, Territorial Delegate fromArizona. " He handed me his card. 

"I'm just from Washington, " said I. 

"Well, I've not been there this session. Important law business hasdetained me here. Yes, they backed Mowry in that election. The oldspittoon had quite a following, but he hadn't the cash. That gives yousome idea of the low standards I have to combat. But I hadn't to spendmuch. This Territory's so poor they come cheap. Seventy-five cents ahead for all the votes I wanted in Bisbee, Nogales, and Yuma; and uphere the Bishop was my good friend. Holding office booms my businesssome, and that's why I took it, of course. But I've had low standards tofight. "

The Territorial Delegate now talked freely of Arizona's frontier life. "It's all dead, " he said, forgetting in his fluency what he had told meabout Seven-Mile Mesquite and last October. "We have a community as hightoned as any in the land. Our monumental activity--" And here he wentoff like a cuckoo clock, or the Boy Orator, reciting the glories ofPhoenix and Salt River, and the future of silver, in that specialdialect of platitudes which is spoken by our more talkative statesmen, and is not quite Latin, quite grammar, or quite falsehood. "We're notall Mowrys and Adamses, " said he, landing from his flight. 

"In a population of fifty-nine thousand, " said I, heartily, "a strangeris bound to meet decent people if he keeps on. "

Again he misinterpreted me, but this time the other way, bowing like onewho acknowledges a compliment; and we came to Solomonsville in suchpeace that he would have been astonished at my private thoughts. For Ihad met no undisguised vagabond nor out-and-out tramp whom I did notprefer to Luke Jenks, vote-buyer and politician. With his catch-pennyplausibility, his thin-spread good-fellowship, and his New York clothes, he mistook himself for a respectable man, and I was glad to be done withhim. 

I could have reached Thomas that evening, but after our noon dinner letthe stage go on, and delayed a night for the sake of seeing the Bishophold service next day, which was Sunday, some few miles down thevalley. I was curious to learn the Mormon ritual and what might be thedoctrines that such a man as the Bishop would expound. It dashed me alittle to find this would cost me forty-eight hours of Solomonsville, noSunday stage running. But one friendly English-speaking family--the townwas chiefly Mexican--made some of my hours pleasant, and others I spentin walking. Though I went early to bed I slept so late that the ritualwas well advanced when I reached the Mormon gathering. From where I wasobliged to stand I could only hear the preacher, already in the middleof his discourse. 

"Don't empty your swill in the door-yard, but feed it to your hogs, " hewas saying; and any one who knows how plainly a man is revealed in hisvoice could have felt instantly, as I did, that here was undoubtedly aleader of men. "Rotten meat, rotten corn, spoiled milk, the truck thatthoughtless folks throw away, should be used. Their usefulness has notceased because they're rotten. That's the error of the ignorant, whoknow not that nothing is meant to be wasted in this world. The ignorantstay poor because they break the law of the Lord. Waste not, want not. The children of the Gentiles play in the door-yard and grow sickly anddie. The mother working in the house has a pale face and poison in herblood. She cannot be a strong wife. She cannot bear strong sons to theman. He stays healthy because he toils in the field. He does not breathethe tainted air rising from the swill in the door-yard. Swill is bad forus, but it is good for swine. Waste it by the threshold it becomesdeadly, and a curse falls upon the house. The mother and children aresick because she has broken a law of the Lord. Do not let me see thissin when I come among you in the valley. Fifty yards behind each house, with clean air between, let me see the well-fed swine receiving eachday, as was intended, the garbage left by man. And let me see flowers inthe door-yard, and stout, blooming children. We will sing thetwenty-ninth hymn. "

The scales had many hours ago dropped from my eyes, and I saw Arizonaclear, and felt no repining for roses and jasmine. They had been apolitician's way of foisting one more silver State upon our Senate, andI willingly renounced them for the real thing I was getting; for myholiday already far outspangled the motliest dream that ever visited me, and I settled down to it as we settle down in our theatre chairs, wellpleased with the flying pantomime. And when, after the hymn and ablessing--the hymn was poor stuff about wanting to be a Mormon and withthe Mormons stand--I saw the Bishop get into a wagon, put on a yellowduster, and drive quickly away, no surprise struck me at all. I merelysaid to myself: Certainly. How dull not to have foreseen that! And Iknew that we should speak together soon, and he would tell me whyCalifornia only held the record on stoves. 

But oh, my friends, what a country we live in, and what an age, that thesame stars and stripes should simultaneously wave over this and overDelmonico's! This too I kept thinking as I killed more hours in walkingthe neighborhood of Solomonsville, an object of more false hope tonatives whom I did not then observe. I avoided Jenks, who had businessclients in the town. I went among the ditches and the fields thus turnedgreen by the channelled Gila; and though it was scarce a paradisesurpassing the Nile, it was grassy and full of sweet smells until aftera few miles each way, when the desert suddenly met the pleasant verdurefull in the face and corroded it to death like vitriol. The sermon cameback to me as I passed the little Mormon homes, and the bishop rose androse in my esteem, though not as one of the children of light. Thatsagacious patriarch told his flock the things of week-day wisdom down totheir level, the cleanly things next to godliness, to keep them from themillion squalors that stain our Gentile poor; and if he did not soundmuch like the Gospel, he and Deuteronomy were alike as two peas. Withhim and Moses thus in my thoughts, I came back after sunset, and wasgratified to be late for supper. Jenks had left the dining-room, and Iate in my own company, which had become lively and full of intelligentimpressions. These I sat recording later in my journal, when ahesitating knock came at my bedroom, and two young men in cowboy costumeentered like shy children, endeavoring to step without creaking. 

"Meakums!" my delighted mind exclaimed, inwardly; but the yellow oneintroduced the black curly one as Mr. Follet, who, in turn, made hisfriend Mr. Cunningham known to me, and at my cordial suggestion they satdown with increasing awkwardness, first leaving their hats outside thedoor. 

"We seen you walking around, " said one. 

"Lookin' the country over, " said the other. 

"Fine weather for travelling, " said the first. 

"Dusty though, " said the second. 

Perceiving them to need my help in coming to their point, I said, "Andnow about your silver mine. "

"You've called the turn on us!" exclaimed yellow, and black curlyslapped his knee. Both of them sat looking at me, laughingenthusiastically, and I gathered they had been having whiskey thisSunday night. I confess that I offered them some more, and when theyrealized my mildness they told me with length and confidence about theclaims they had staked out on Mount Turnbull. "And there's lots of lead, too, " said yellow. 

"I do not smelt, " said I, "or deal in any way with ore. I have come herewithout the intention of buying anything. "

"You ain't the paymaster?" burst out black curly, wrinkling his foreheadlike a pleasant dog. 

Yellow touched his foot. 

"Course he ain't!" said curly, with a swerve of his eye. "He ain't due. What a while it always is waitin'!"

Now the paymaster was nothing to me, nor whom he paid. For all I knew, my visitors were on his roll; and why yellow should shy at the mentionof him and closely watch his tipsy mate I did not try to guess. Likeevery one I had met so far in Arizona, these two evidently doubted I washere for my pleasure merely; but it was with entire good-humor that theyremarked a man had the right to mind his own business; and so, with alittle more whiskey, we made a friendly parting. They recommended me totravel with a pistol in this country, and I explained that I should domyself more harm than good with a weapon that any one handled morerapidly than I, with my inexperience. 

"Good-night, Mr. Meakum, " I said. 

"Follet, " corrected black curly. 

"Cunningham, " said yellow, and they picked up their hats in the hall andwithdrew. 

I think now those were their names--the time was coming when I shouldhear them take oath on it--yet I do not know. I heard many curious oathstaken. 

I was glad to see black curly in the stage next day, not alone for hiscompany, but to give him a right notion of what ready money I had aboutme. Thinking him over, and his absence of visible means of support, andhis interest in me, I took opportunity to mention, quite by the way, that five or six dollars was all that I ever carried on my person, therest being in New York drafts, worthless in any hands but mine. And Ilooked at the time once or twice for him to perceive the cheapness of mynickel watch. That the Bishop was not his father I had indirect evidencewhen we stopped at Thacher to change horses and drop a mail-sack, andthe Mormon divine suddenly lifted the flap and inspected us. He noddedto me and gave Follet a message. 

"Tell your brother" (wouldn't a father have said Tom or Dick?) "thatI've given him chances enough and he don't take 'em. He don't feed myhorses, and my passengers complain he don't feed them--though that's notso serious!" said he to me, with a jovial wink. "But I won't have mystock starved. You'll skip the station and go through to Thomas withthis pair, " he added to the driver in his voice of lusty command. "You'll get supper at Thomas. Everything's moved on there from to-day. That's the rule now. " Then he returned to black curly, who, like thedriver, had remained cowed and respectful throughout the short harangue. "Your brother could have treated me square and made money by thatstation. Tell him that, and to see me by Thursday. If he's thinking ofpeddling vegetables this season I'll let him sell to Fort Bowie. Safford takes Carlos, and I won't have two compete in the same market, or we'll be sinking low as Eastern prices, " said he to me, with anotherwink. "Drive on now. You're late. "

He shut the flap, and we were off quickly--too quickly. In the next fewmoments I could feel that something all wrong went on; there was ajingle and snapping of harness, and such a voice from the Bishop behindus that I looked out to see him. We had stopped, and he was runningafter us at a wonderful pace for a man of sixty-four. 

"If you don't drive better than that, " said the grizzled athlete, arriving cool and competent, "you'll saw wood for another year. Look howyou've got them trembling. "

It was a young pair, and they stood and steamed while the broken gearwas mended. 

"What did California hold the record in before the Boy Orator broke it?"said I, getting out. 

He shot at me the same sinister look I had seen in the Capitol, the lookhe must always wear, I suppose, when taken aback. Then he laughedbroadly and heartily, a strong pleasant laugh that nearly made me likehim. "So you're that fellow! Ho, ho! Away down here now. Oh, ho, ho!What's your business?"

"You wouldn't believe if I told you, " said I, to his sudden sharpquestion. 

"Me? Why, I believe everything I'm told. What's your name?"

"Will you believe I haven't come to buy anybody's silver mine?"

"Silver! I don't keep it. Unloaded ten years ago before the rabbitdied. "

"Then you're the first anti-silver man I've met. "

"I'm anti anything I can't sell, young man. Here's all there is tosilver: Once upon a time it was hard to get, and we had to have it. Nowit's easy. When it gets as common as dirt it'll be as cheap as dirt. Same as watermelons when it's a big crop. D'you follow me? That's silverfor you, and I don't want it. So you've come away down here. Well, well!What did you say your name was?"

I told him. 

"Politician?"

"God forbid!"

"Oh, ho, ho! Well, yes. I took a look at those buzzards there inWashington. Our Senate and Representatives. They were screeching a heap. All about ratios. You'll be sawing wood yet!" he shouted to the driver, and strode up to help him back a horse. "Now ratio is a good-soundingword too, and I guess that's why they chew on it so constant. Betterline of language that they get at home. I'll tell you about Congress. Here's all there is to it: You can divide them birds in two lots. Thosewho know better and those who don't. D'you follow me?"

"And which kind is the Boy Orator?"

"Limber Jim? Oh, he knows better. I know Jim. You see, we used to have asaying in Salt Lake that California had the smallest stoves and thebiggest liars in the world. Now Jim--well, there's an old saying busted. But you'll see Arizona'll go back on the Democrats. If they put wool onthe free list she'll stay Republican, and they won't want her admitted, which suits me first-rate. My people here are better off as they stand. "

"But your friend Mr. Jenks favors admission!" I exclaimed. 

"Luke? He's been talking to you, has he? Well now, Luke. Here's allthere is to him: Natural gas. That's why I support him, you see. If wesent a real smart man to Washington he might get us made a State. Ho, ho! But Luke stays here most of the time, and he's no good anyway. Oh, ho, ho! So you're buying no mines this season?"

Once more I found myself narrating the insignificance of my visit toArizona--the Bishop must have been a hard inquisitor for even the deeplyskilful to elude--and for the first time my word was believed. Hequickly took my measure, saw that I had nothing to hide, and aftertelling me I could find good hunting and scenery in the mountains north, paid me no further attention, but masterfully laid some final commandson the intimidated driver. Then I bade good-bye to the Bishop, andwatched that old locomotive moving vigorously back along the road to hismanifold business. 

The driver was ill pleased to go hungry for his supper until Thomas, buthe did not dare complain much over the new rule, even to black curly andme. This and one other thing impressed me. Some miles farther on we hadpassed out of the dust for a while, and rolled up the flaps. 

"She's waiting for you, " said the driver to black curly, and thatmany-sided youth instantly dived to the bottom of the stage, his bootsand pistol among my legs. 

"Throw your coat over me, " he urged. 

I concealed him with that and a mail-sack, and stretched my head out tosee what lioness stood in his path. But it was only a homelike littlecabin, and at the door a woman, comely and mature, eying the stageexpectantly. Possibly wife, I thought, more likely mother, and I asked, "Is Mrs. Follet strict?" choosing a name to fit either. 

The driver choked and chirruped, but no sound came from under themail-sack until we had passed the good-day to the momentous female, whose response was harsh with displeasure as she wheeled into her door. A sulky voice then said, "Tell me when she's gone, Bill. " But we were asafe two hundred yards on the road before he would lift his head, andhis spirits were darkened during the remainder of the journey. 

"Come and live East, " said I, inviting him to some whiskey at the sametime. "Back there they don't begin sitting up for you so early in theevening. "

This did not enliven him, although upon our driver it seemed to bringanother fit as much beyond the proportion of my joke as his first hadbeen. "She tires a man's spirit, " said black curly, and with this ruefulutterance he abandoned the subject; so that when we reached Thomas inthe dim night my curiosity was strong, and I paid little heed to thisnew place where I had come or to my supper. Black curly had takenhimself off, and the driver sat at the table with me, still occasionallysnickering in his plate. He would explain nothing that I asked him untilthe gaunt woman who waited on us left us for the kitchen, when he said, with a nervous, hasty relish, "The Widow Sproud is slick, " and departed. 

Consoled by no better clew than this I went to bed in a down-stairsroom, and in my strange rising next day I did not see the driver again. Callings in the air awaked me, and a wandering sound of wheels. Thegaunt woman stood with a lamp in my room saying the stage was ready, and disappeared. I sprang up blindly, and again the callings passed inthe blackness outside--long cries, inarticulate to me. Wheels heavilyrolled to my door, and a whip was struck against it, and there loomedthe stage, and I made out the calling. It was the three drivers, aboutto separate before the dawn on their three diverging ways, and they werewailing their departure through the town that travellers might hear, inwhatever place they lay sleeping. "Boo-wie! All aboa-rd!" came fromsomewhere, dreary and wavering, met at farther distance by the floatingantiphonal, "Aboa-rd, aboa-rd for Grant!" and in the chill black air mydriver lifted his portion of the strain, chanting, "Car-los! Car-los!"One last time he circled in the nearer darkness with his stage to let medress. Mostly unbuttoned, and with not even a half minute to splash coldwater in my eyes, I clambered solitary into the vehicle and sat amongthe leather mail-bags, some boxes, and a sack of grain, having fourhours yet till breakfast for my contemplation. I heard the faintreveille at Camp Thomas, but to me it was a call for more bed, and Ipushed and pulled the grain-sack until I was able to distribute myselfand in a manner doze, shivering in my overcoat. Not the rising of thesun upon this blight of sand, nor the appearance of a cattle herd, andboth black curly and yellow driving it among its dust clouds, warmed myfrozen attention as I lay in a sort of spell. I saw with apathy themountains, extraordinary in the crystal prism of the air, and soon afterthe strangest scene I have ever looked on by the light of day. For as wewent along the driver would give a cry, and when an answering cry camefrom the thorn-bush we stopped, and a naked Indian would appear, running, to receive a little parcel of salt or sugar or tobacco he hadyesterday given the driver some humble coin to buy for him in Thomas. With changeless pagan eyes staring a moment at me on my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haireddesert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copperbody, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in thethorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our widecontinent holds in fee under the single title United States, untilbreakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding thedriver and the breakfast man were both genuine Meakums, as Jenks hadtold me they would be. 

It surprised me to discover now that I was looked for along the Gila, and my name approximately known, and when I asked if my friend CaptainStirling had spoken of my coming, it was evidently not he, but the newswas in the air. This was a prominence I had never attained in anyprevious part of the world, and I said to the driver that I supposed myhaving no business made me a curiosity. That might have something to dowith it, he answered (he seemed to have a literal mind), but some hadthought I was the paymaster. 

"Folks up here, " he explained, "are liable to know who's coming. "

"If I lived here, " said I, "I should be anxious for the paymaster tocome early and often. "

"Well, it does the country good. The soldiers spend it all right here, and us civilians profit some by it. "

[Illustration: "EACH BLACK-HAIRED DESERT FIGURE"]

Having got him into conversation, I began to introduce the subjectof black curly, hoping to lead up to the Widow Sproud; but before Ihad compassed this we reached San Carlos, where a blow awaited me. Stirling, my host, had been detailed on a scout this morning! I wasstranded here, a stranger, where I had come thousands of miles to seean old friend. His regret and messages to make myself at home, and thequartermaster's hearty will to help me to do so could not cure myblankness. He might be absent two weeks or more. I looked round atCarlos and its staring sand. Then I resolved to go at once to my otherfriends now stationed at Fort Grant. For I had begun to feel myself atan immense distance from any who would care what happened to me forgood or ill, and I longed to see some face I had known before. So ingloom I retraced some unattractive steps. This same afternoon I stagedback along the sordid, incompetent Gila River, and to kill time pushedmy Sproud inquiry, at length with success. To check the inevitablyslipshod morals of a frontier commonwealth, Arizona has a statute thatin reality only sets in writing a presumption of the common law, theancient presumption of marriage, which is that when a man and woman goto house-keeping for a certain length of time, they shall be deemedlegally married. In Arizona this period is set at twelve months, andten had run against Mrs. Sproud and young Follet. He was showing signsof leaving her. The driver did not think her much entitled tosympathy, and certainly she showed later that she could deviserevenge. As I thought over these things we came again to the cattleherd, where my reappearance astonished yellow and black curly. Nor didthe variance between my movements and my reported plans seem whollyexplained to them by Stirling's absence, and at the station where Ihad breakfasted I saw them question the driver about me. This interestin my affairs heightened my desire to reach Fort Grant; and when nextday I came to it after another waking to the chanted antiphonals andanother faint reveille from Camp Thomas in the waning dark, extremecomfort spread through me. I sat in the club with the officers, andthey taught me a new game of cards called Solo, and filled my glass. Here were lieutenants, captains, a major, and a colonel, Americancitizens with a love of their country and a standard of honor; herefloated our bright flag serene against the lofty blue, and the mellowhorns sounded at guard-mounting, bringing moisture to the eyes. Theday was punctuated with the bright trumpet, people went and came inthe simple dignity of duty, and once again I talked with good men andwomen. God bless our soldier people! I said it often. 

They somewhat derided my uneasiness in the Gila Valley, and found mysurmisings sensational. Yet still they agreed much ready money was anunwise thing on a stage journey, although their profession (I suppose)led them to take being "held up" less seriously than I with my peacefultraditions of elevators and the down-town lunch. In the wide SulphurSprings valley where I rode at large, but never so long or so far thatFort Grant lay not in sight across that miracle of air, it displeased meto come one morning upon yellow and black curly jogging along beneaththe government telegraph line. 

"You cover a wide range, " said I. 

"Cowboys have to, " they answered. "So you've not quit us yet?"

"I'm thinking of taking a hunt and fish towards Fort Apache. "

"We're your men, then. You'll find us at Thomas any time. We'regathering stock up these draws, but that'll be through this week. "

They spurred their horses and vanished among the steep little hills thatrun up to Mount Graham. But indeed they should be no men of mine!Stirling had written me his scout was ended, and San Carlos worth alonger visit than I had made there, promising me an escort should Idesire to camp in the mountains. An escort it should be, and no yellowor black curly, over-curious about my private matters! This fell inexcellently with the coming paymaster's movements. Major Pidcock waseven now on his way to Fort Grant from Fort Bowie; and when he went toThomas and Carlos I would go, too, in his ambulance; and I sighed withpleasure at escaping that stage again. 

Major Pidcock arrived in a yellow duster, but in other respects differedfrom the Bishop, though in his body a bulky man. We were introduced toeach other at the club. 

"I am glad, sir, to meet you at last, " I said to him. "The whole GilaValley has been taking me for you. "

"Oh--ah!" said Pidcock, vaguely, and pulling at some fat papers in hiscoat; "indeed. I understand that is a very ignorant population. ColonelVincent, a word with you. The Department Commander requests me--" Andhere he went off into some official talk with the Colonel. 

I turned among the other officers, who were standing by an open lockerhaving whiskey, and Major Evlie put his hand on my shoulder. "He doesn'tmean anything, " he whispered, while the rest looked knowingly at me. Presently the Colonel explained to Pidcock that he would have me to keephim company to Carlos. 

"Oh--ah, Colonel. Of course we don't take civilians not employed by thegovernment, as a rule. But exceptions--ah--can be made, " he said to me. "I will ask you to be ready immediately after breakfast to-morrow. " Andwith that he bowed to us all and sailed forth across the parade-ground. 

The Colonel's face was red, and he swore in his quiet voice; but thelips of the lieutenants by the open locker quivered fitfully in thesilence. 

"Don't mind Pidcock, " Evlie remarked. "He's a paymaster. " And at thisthe line officers became disorderly, and two lieutenants dancedtogether; so that, without catching Evlie's evidently military joke, Ifelt pacified. 

"And I've got to have him to dinner, " sighed the Colonel, and wanderedaway. 

"You'll get on with him, man--you'll get on with him in the ambulance, "said my friend Paisley. "Flatter him, man. Just ask him about his greatstrategic stroke at Cayuse Station that got him his promotion to the paydepartment. "

Well, we made our start after breakfast, Major Pidcock and I, andanother passenger too, who sat with the driver--a black cook going tothe commanding officer's at Thomas. She was an old plantation mammy, with a kind but bewildered face, and I am sorry that the noise of ourdriving lost me much of her conversation; for whenever we slowed, andonce when I walked up a hill, I found her remarks to be steeped in aflighty charm. 

"Fo' Lawd's sake!" said she. "W'at's dat?" And when the driver told herthat it was a jack-rabbit, "You go 'long!" she cried, outraged. "I'seseed rabbits earlier 'n de mawnin' dan yo'self. " She watched the animalwith all her might, muttering, "Law, see him squot, " and "Hole on, holeon!" and "Yasser, he done gone fo' sho. My grashus, you lemme have ascatter shoot-gun an' a spike-tail smell dog, an' I'll git one of deynarrah-gauge mules. "

"I shall not notice it, " said Major Pidcock to me, with dignity. "Butthey should have sent such a creature by the stage. It's unsuitable, wholly. "

"Unquestionably, " said I, straining to catch the old lady's song on thebox:

 "'Don't you fo'git I's a-comin' behind you-- Lam slam de lunch ham. '"

"This is insufferable, " said Pidcock. "I shall put her off at CedarSprings. "

I suppose the drive was long to him, but to me it was not. Noon andCedar Springs prematurely ended the first half of this day mostmemorable in the whole medley of my excursion, and we got down to dine. Two travellers bound for Thomas by our same road were just setting out, but they firmly declined to transport our cook, and Pidcock moodily sawthem depart in their wagon, leaving him burdened still; for this was theday the stage made its down trip from Thomas. Never before had I seenwater paid for. When the Major, with windy importance, came to settlehis bill, our dozen or fourteen escort horses and mules made an item, the price of watering two head being two bits, quite separate from thefeed; and I learned that water was thus precious over most of theTerritory. 

Our cook remounted the box in high feather, and began at once to commentupon Arizona. "Dere ain't no winter, nor no spring, nor no rain de holeyear roun'. My! what a country fo' to gib de chick'ns courage! Dey hensmust jus' sit an' lay an' lay. But de po' ducks done have a mean time. 

 "'O--Lawd! Sinner is in my way, Daniel. '"

"I would not permit a cook like that inside my house, " said MajorPidcock. 

"She may not be dangerous, " I suggested. 

"Land! is dey folks gwineter shoot me?" Naturally I looked, and so didthe Major; but it was two of our own mounted escort that she saw out tothe right of us among the hills. "Tell dem nigger jockeys I got nomoney. Why do dey triflin' chillun ride in de kerridge?" She did notmean ourselves, but the men with their carbines in the escort wagon infront of us. I looked out at them, and their mouths were wide open forjoy at her. It was not a stately progress for twenty-eight thousanddollars in gold and a paymaster to be making. Major Pidcock unbuttonedhis duster and reclined to sleep, and presently I also felt theafter-dinner sloth shutting my eyes pleasantly to this black road. 

"Heave it, chillun! can't you heave?" I heard our cook say, and felt usstop. 

"What's that?" I asked, drowsily. 

"Seems to be a rock fallen down, " the Major answered. "Start it, men;roll it!"

I roused myself. We were between rocks and banks on the brow of a hill, down which the narrow road descended with a slight turn. I could see theescort wagon halted ahead of us, and beyond it the men stooping at alarge stone, around which there was no possible room to drive. Thisstone had fallen, I reflected, since those travellers for Thomas--

There was a shot, and a mule rolled over. 

I shall never forget that. It was like the theatre for one paralyzedsecond! The black soldiers, the mule, the hill, all a clear picture seenthrough an opera-glass, stock-still, and nothing to do with me--for acongealed second. And, dear me, what a time we had then!

Crackings volleyed around us, puffs of smoke jetted blue from rockramparts which I had looked at and thought natural--or, rather, notthought of at all--earth and gravel spattered up from the ground, thebawling negress spilled off her box and ran in spirals, screaming, "Oh, bless my soul, bless my soul!" and I saw a yellow duster flap out of theambulance. "Lawd grashus, he's a-leavin' us!" screeched the cook, andshe changed her spirals for a bee-line after him. I should never haverun but for this example, for I have not naturally the presence of mind, and in other accidents through which I have passed there has never beenpromptness about me; the reasoning and all has come when it was over, unless it went on pretty long, when I have been sometimes able to leapto a conclusion. But yes, I ran now, straight under a screen of rocks, over the top of which rose the heads of yellow and black curly. Thesight of them sent rushing over me the first agreeable sensation I hadfelt--shapeless rage--and I found myself shouting at them, "Scoundrels!scoundrels!" while shooting continued briskly around me. I think myperformance would have sincerely entertained them could they have sparedthe time for it; and as it was, they were regarding me with obviousbenevolence, when Mr. Adams looked evilly at me across the stones, andblack curly seized the old devil's rifle in time to do me a good turn. Mr. Adams's bullet struck short of me ten feet, throwing the earth in myface. Since then I have felt no sympathy for that tobacco-runningpioneer. He listened, coughing, to what black curly said as he pointedto me, and I see now that I have never done a wiser thing than to gounarmed in that country. Curly was telling Mr. Adams that I washarmless. Indeed, that was true! In the bottom of this cup, target for acircled rim of rifles, separated from the widely scattered Major and hismen, aware of nothing in particular, and seeing nothing in particularbut smoke and rocks and faces peering everywhere, I walked to a stoneand sat upon it, hypnotized again into a spectator. From thisundisturbed vantage I saw shape itself the theft of the gold--the firsttheft, that is; for it befell me later to witness a ceremony by whichthese eagles of Uncle Sam again changed hands in a manner that stealingis as good a name for as any. 

They had got two mules killed, so that there could be no driving away ina hurry, and I saw that killing men was not a part of their war, unlessrequired as a means to their end. Major Pidcock had spared them thisnecessity; I could see him nowhere; and with him to imitate I need notpause to account for the members of our dismounted escort. Two soldiers, indeed, lay on the ground, the sergeant and another, who had evidentlyfired a few resisting shots; but let me say at once that these poorfellows recovered, and I saw them often again through this adventurethat bound us together, else I could not find so much hilarity in myretrospect. Escort wagon and ambulance stood empty and foolish on theroad, and there lay the ingenious stone all by itself, and the carbinesall by themselves foolish in the wagon, where the innocent soldiers hadleft them on getting out to move the stone. Smoke loitered thin and blueover this now exceedingly quiet scene, and I smelt it where I sat. Howsecure the robbers had felt themselves, and how reckless ofidentification! Mid-day, a public road within hearing of a ranch, anescort of a dozen regulars, no masks, and the stroke perpetrated at thetop of a descent, contrary to all laws of road agency. They swarmed intosight from their ramparts. I cannot tell what number, but several I hadnever seen before and never saw again; and Mr. Adams and yellow andblack curly looked so natural that I wondered if Jenks and the Bishopwould come climbing down too. But no more old friends turned up thatday. Some went to the ambulance swift and silent, while others mostneedlessly stood guard. Nothing was in sight but my seated inoffensiveform, and the only sound was, somewhere among the rocks, the voice ofthe incessant negress speeding through her prayers. I saw them at theambulance, surrounding, passing, lifting, stepping in and out, ferreting, then moving slowly up with their booty round the hill's brow. Then silence; then hoofs; then silence again, except the outpouringnegress, scriptural, melodious, symbolic:

 "'Oh--Lawd! Sinner is in my way, Daniel. '"

All this while I sat on the stone. "They have done us brown, " I saidaloud, and hearing my voice waked me from whatever state I had been in. My senses bounded, and I ran to the hurt soldiers. One was very sick. Ishould not have known what to do for them, but people began to arrive, brought from several quarters by the fusillade--two in a wagon fromCedar Springs, two or three on horses from the herds they were with inthe hills, and a very old man from somewhere, who offered no assistanceto any one, but immediately seated himself and began explaining what weall should have done. The negress came out of her rocks, exclamatorywith pity over the wounded, and, I am bound to say, of more help to themthan any of us, kind and motherly in the midst of her ceaselessdiscourse. Next arrived Major Pidcock in his duster, and took charge ofeverything. 

"Let yer men quit the'r guns, did ye, general?" piped the very old man. "Escort oughtn't never to quit the'r guns. I seen that at Molino delRey. And ye should have knowed that there stone didn't crawl out in theroad like a turtus to git the sunshine. "

"Where were you?" thundered the Major to the mounted escort, who nowappeared, half an hour after the event, from our flanks, which they hadbeen protecting at an immense distance. "Don't you know your duty's tobe on hand when you hear firing?"

"Law, honey!" said the cook, with a guffaw, "lemme git my han's over mymouf. "

"See them walls they fooled yer with!" continued the old man, pointingwith his stick. "I could have told yer them wasn't natural. Them doesn'tshow like country rock;" by which I found that he meant their faces werenew-exposed and not weather-beaten. 

"No doubt you could have saved us, my friend, " said the Major, puffingblandly. 

But one cannot readily impress ninety summers. "Yes, I could have toldyer that, " assented the sage, with senile complacence. "My wife couldhave told yer that. Any smart girl could have told yer that. "

"I shall send a despatch for re-enforcements, " announced Pidcock. "Tapthe telegraph wire, " he ordered. 

"I have to repawt to the Major, " said a soldier, saluting, "dat de lineis cut. "

At this I was taken with indecent laughter, and turned away, whileninety summers observed, "Of course them boys would cut the wire if theyknew their business. "

Swearing capably, the Major now accounted clearly to us for the wholeoccurrence, striding up and down, while we lifted the hurt men into theranch wagon, and arranged for their care at Cedar Springs. The escortwagon hurried on to Thomas for a doctor. The ambulance was, of course, crippled of half its team, and the dead mules were cleared from theirharness and got to the road-side. Having satisfactorily deliveredhimself of his explanation, the Major now organized a party forfollowing the trail of the robbers, to learn into what region they hadbetaken themselves. Incredible as it may seem, after my lateunenterprising conduct, I asked one of the riders to lend me his horse, which he did, remarking that he should not need it for an hour, and thathe was willing to risk my staying absent longer than that. 

So we rode away. The trail was clear, and we had but little trouble tofollow it. It took us off to the right through a mounded labyrinth ofhillocks, puny and gray like ash-heaps, where we rose and fell in thetrough of the sullen landscape. I told Pidcock of my certainty aboutthree of the robbers, but he seemed to care nothing for this, and wassomething less than civil at what he called my suggestions. 

"When I have ascertained their route, " he said, "it will be time enoughto talk of their identity. "

In this way we went for a mile or so, the trail leading us onward, frankand straight, to the top of a somewhat higher hill, where it suddenlyexpired off the earth. No breath vanishes cleaner from glass, and itbrought us to a dead halt. We retraced the tracks to make sure we hadnot lost them before, but there was no mistake, and again we halted deadat the vanishing-point. Here were signs that something out of the commonhad happened. Men's feet and horseshoe prints, aimless and superimposed, marked a trodden frame of ground, inside which was nothing, and beyondwhich nothing lay but those faint tracks of wandering cattle and horsesthat scatter everywhere in this country. Not one defined series, noteven a single shod horse, had gone over this hill, and we spent someminutes vainly scouring in circles wider and wider. Often I returned tostare at the trodden, imperturbable frame of ground, and caught myselfinspecting first the upper air, and next the earth, and speculating ifthe hill were hollow; and mystery began to film over the hitherto sharpfigures of black curly and yellow, while the lonely country around grewso unpleasant to my nerves that I was glad when Pidcock decided that hemust give up for to-day. We found the little group of people beginningto disperse at the ambulance. 

"Fooled yer ag'in, did they?" said the old man. "Played the blankettrick on yer, I expect. Guess yer gold's got pretty far by now. " Withthis parting, and propped upon his stick, he went as he had come. Noteven at any time of his youth, I think, could he have beencompanionable, and old age had certainly filled him with the impartialmalevolence of the devil. I rejoice to say that he presided at none ofour further misadventures. 

Short twenty-eight thousand dollars and two mules, we set out anew, theMajor, the cook, and I, along the Thomas road, with the sun drawingcloser down upon the long steel saw that the peaks to our westward made. The site of my shock lay behind me--I knew now well enough that it hadbeen a shock, and that for a long while to come I should be able to feelthe earth spatter from Mr. Adams's bullet against my ear and sleevewhenever I might choose to conjure that moment up again--and the presentcomfort in feeling my distance from that stone in the road increasecontinually put me in more cheerful spirits. With the quick rolling ofthe wheels many subjects for talk came into my mind, and had I beenseated on the box beside the cook we should have found much in common. Ever since her real tenderness to those wounded men I had wished to askthe poor old creature how she came in this weary country, so far fromthe pleasant fields of cotton and home. Her hair was gray, and she hadseen much, else she had never been so kind and skilful at bandaging. AndI am quite sure that somewhere in the chambers of her incoherent mindand simple heart abided the sweet ancient fear of God and love of herfellow-men--virtues I had met but little in Arizona. 

"De hole family, scusin' two, " she was saying, "dey bust loose and tuckto de woods. " And then she moralized upon the two who stayed behind andwere shot. "But de Gennul he 'low dat wuz mighty pore reasonin'. "

I should have been glad to exchange views with her, for Major Pidcockwas dull company. This prudent officer was not growing distant from hisdisaster, and as night began to come, and we neared Thomas, I supposethe thought that our ambulance was driving him perhaps to acourt-martial was enough to submerge the man in gloom. To me and my newsabout the robbers he was a little more considerate, although he stillmade nothing of the fact that some of them lived in the Gila Valley, andwere of the patriarchal tribe of Meakum. 

"Scoundrels like that, " he muttered, lugubriously, "know every trail inthe country, and belong nowhere. Mexico is not a long ride from here. They can get a steamer at Guaymas and take their choice of ports down toValparaiso. Yes, they'll probably spend that money in South America. Oh, confound that woman!"

For the now entirely cheerful negress was singing:

 "'Dar's de gal, dar's my Susanna. How by gum you know? Know her by de red bandanna, An' de shoestring hangin' on de flo'-- Dad blam her!-- An' de shoestring hangin'--'

"Goodness grashus! what _you_ gwineter do?"

At this sudden cry and the stopping of the ambulance I thought morepeople were come for our gold, and my spirit resigned itself. Sit stillwas all I should do now, and look for the bright day when I shouldleave Arizona forever. But it was only Mrs. Sproud. I had cleanforgotten her, and did not at once take in to what an important turn theaffairs of some of us had come. She stepped out of the darkness, and puther hand on the door of the ambulance. 

"I suppose you're the Paymaster?" Her voice was soft and easy, but hadan ample volume. As Pidcock was replying with some dignity that she wascorrect, she caught sight of me. "Who is this man?" she interrupted him. 

"My clerk, " said Pidcock; and this is the promptest thing I can rememberof the Major, always excepting his conduct when the firing began on thehill. "You're asking a good many questions, madam, " he added. 

"I want to know who I'm talking to, " said she, quietly. "I think I'veseen property of yours this evening. "

"You had better get in, madam; better get in. "

"This is the Paymaster's team from Fort Grant?" said Mrs. Sproud to thedriver. 

"Yes, yes, madam. Major Pidcock--I am Major Pidcock, Paymaster to theUnited States army in the Department of Colorado. I suppose I understandyou. "

"Seven canvas sacks, " said Mrs. Sproud, standing in the road. 

"Get in, madam. You can't tell who may be within hearing. You will findit to your advantage to keep nothing--"

Mrs. Sproud laughed luxuriously, and I began to discern why black curlymight at times have been loath to face her. 

"I merely meant, madam--I desired to make it clear that--a--"

"I think I know what you meant. But I have no call to fear the law. Itwill save you trouble to believe that before we go any further. "

"Certainly, madam. Quite right. " The man was sweating. What withcourt-martial and Mrs. Sproud, his withers were wrung. "You are entirelysure, of course, madam--"

"I am entirely sure I know what I am about. That seems to be more thansome do that are interested in this gold--the folks, for instance, thathave hid it in my hay-stack. "

"Hay-stack! Then they're not gone to Mexico!"

"Mexico, sir? They live right here in this valley. Now I'll get in, andwhen I ask you, you will please to set me down. " She seated herselfopposite us and struck a match. "Now we know what we all look like, "said she, holding the light up, massive and handsome. "This young man isthe clerk, and we needn't mind him. I have done nothing to fear the law, but what I am doing now will make me a traveller again. I have nofriends here. I was acquainted with a young man. " She spoke in theserenest tone, but let fall the match more quickly than its burning madeneedful. "He was welcome in my home. He let them cook this up in myhouse and never told me. I live a good ways out on the road, and it wasa safe place, but I didn't think why so many met him, and why they sataround my stable. Once in a while this week they've been joking aboutwinning the soldiers' pay--they often win that--but I thought it wasjust cowboy games, till I heard horses coming quick at sundown thisafternoon, and I hid. Will hunted around and said--and said I was onthe stage coming from Solomonsville, and so they had half an hour yet. He thought so. And, you see, nobody lives in the cabin but--but me. "Mrs. Sproud paused a moment here, and I noticed her breathing. Then sheresumed: "So I heard them talk some; and when they all left, prettysoon, I went to the hay-stack, and it was so. Then the stage came alongand I rode to Thomas. "

"You left the gold there!" groaned the wretched Major, and leaned out ofthe ambulance. 

"I'm not caring to touch what's none of mine. Wait, sir, please; I getout here. Here are the names I'm sure of. Stop the driver, or I'lljump. " She put a paper in the Major's hand. "It is Mrs. Sproud'shay-stack, " she added. 

"Will you--this will never--can I find you to-morrow?" he said, helplessly, holding the paper out at her. 

"I have told you all I know, " said Mrs. Sproud, and was gone at once. 

Major Pidcock leaned back for some moments as we drove. Then he beganfolding his paper with care. "I have not done with that person, " saidhe, attempting to restore his crippled importance. "She will find thatshe must explain herself. "

Our wheels whirled in the sand and we came quickly to Thomas, to a crowdof waiting officers and ladies; and each of us had an audience thatnight--the cook, I feel sure, while I myself was of an importance secondonly to the Major's. But he was at once closeted with the commandingofficer, and I did not learn their counsels, hearing only at breakfastthat the first step was taken. The detail sent out had returned fromthe hay-stack, bringing gold indeed--one-half sackful. The other sixwere gone, and so was Mrs. Sproud. It was useless to surmise, as we, however, did that whole forenoon, what any of this might mean; but inthe afternoon came a sign. A citizen of the Gila Valley had been payinghis many debts at the saloon and through the neighborhood in gold. Inone well known for the past two years to be without a penny it was thewrong moment to choose for honest affluence, and this citizen was thefirst arrest. This further instance of how secure the robbers feltthemselves to be outdid anything that had happened yet, and I marvelleduntil following events took from me the power of astonishment. The mennamed on Mrs. Sproud's paper were fewer than I think fired upon us inthe attack, but every one of them was here in the valley, going abouthis business. Most were with the same herd of cattle that I had seendriven by yellow and black curly near the sub-agency, and they two werethere. The solvent debtor, I should say, was not arrested this morning. Plans that I, of course, had no part in delayed matters, I suppose forthe sake of certainty. Black curly and his friends were watched, andfound to be spending no gold yet; and since they did not show sign ofleaving the region, but continued with their cattle, I imagine everyeffort was being made to light upon their hidden treasure. But theirtime came, and soon after it mine. Stirling, my friend, to whom I hadfinally gone at Carlos, opened the wire door of his quarters where I satone morning, and with a heartless smile introduced me to a gentlemanfrom Tucson. 

"You'll have a chance to serve your country, " said Stirling. 

I was subpoenaed!

"Certainly not!" I said, with indignation. "I'm going East. I don't livehere. You have witnesses enough without me. We all saw the same thing. "

"Witnesses never see the same thing, " observed the man from Tucson. "It's the government that's after you. But you'll not have to wait. Ourcase is first on the list. "

"You can take my deposition, " I began; but what need to dwell upon thisinterview? "When I come to visit you again, " I said to Stirling, "let meknow. " And that pink-faced, gray-haired captain still shoutedheartlessly. 

"You're an egotist, " said he. "Think of the scrape poor old Pidcock hasgot himself into. "

"The government needs all the witnesses it can get, " said the man fromTucson. "Luke Jenks is smart in some ways. "

"Luke Jenks?" I sat up in my canvas extension-chair. 

"Territorial Delegate; firm of Parley and Jenks, Tucson. He's in it. "

"By heavens!" I cried, in unmixed delight. "But I didn't see him whenthey were shooting at us. "

The man from Tucson stared at me curiously. "He is counsel for theprisoners, " he explained. 

"The Delegate to Washington defends these thieves who robbed the UnitedStates?" I repeated. 

"Says he'll get them off. He's going to stay home from Washington andput it through in shape. "

It was here that my powers of astonishment went into their last decline, and I withheld my opinion upon the character of Mr. Jenks as a publicman. I settled comfortably in my canvas chair. 

"The prisoners are citizens of small means, I judge, " said I. "What feecan they pay for such a service?"

"Ah!" said Stirling, "That's about it, I guess, " said the man from Tucson. "Luke is mightysmart in his law business. Well, gents, good-day to you. I must begetting after the rest of my witnesses. "

"Have you seen Mrs. Sproud?" I asked him. 

"She's quit the country. We can't trace her. Guess she was scared. "

"But that gold!" I exclaimed, when Sterling and I were alone. "What inthe world have they done with those six other bags?"

"Ah!" said he, as before. "Do you want to bet on that point? Dollars todoughnuts Uncle Sam never sees a cent of that money again. I'll stake mynext quarter's pay--"

"Pooh!" said I. "That's poor odds against doughnuts if Pidcock has thepaying of it. " And I took my turn at laughing at the humorous Stirling. 

"That Mrs. Sproud is a sensible woman to have gone, " said he, reflectively. "They would know she had betrayed them, and she wouldn'tbe safe in the valley. Witnesses who know too much sometimes are founddead in this country--but you'll have government protection. "

"Thank you kindly, " said I. "That's what I had on the hill. "

But Stirling took his turn at me again with freshened mirth. 

Well, I think that we witnesses were worth government protection. At seasons of especial brightness and holiday, such as Christmasand Easter, the theatres of the variety order have a phrase whichthey sometimes print in capitals upon their bills--CombinationExtraordinary; and when you consider Major Pidcock and his pride, andthe old plantation cook, and my reserved Eastern self, and ourcoal-black escort of the hill, more than a dozen, including SergeantBrown and the private, both now happily recovered of their wounds, youcan see what appearance we made descending together from the meanSouthern Pacific train at Tucson, under the gaze of what I take to havebeen the town's whole population, numbering five thousand. 

Stirling, who had come to see us through, began at his persiflageimmediately, and congratulated me upon the house I should play to, speaking of box-office receipts and a benefit night. Tucson is more thanhalf a Mexican town, and in its crowd upon the platform I saw the gaudyshawls, the ear-rings, the steeple straw hats, the old shrivelledcigarette-rolling apes, and the dark-eyed girls, and sifted with thesethe loungers of our own race, boots, overalls, pistols, hotel clerks, express agents, freight hands, waitresses, red-shirts, soldiers fromLowell Barracks, and officers, and in this mass and mess of color anddust and staring, Bishop Meakum, in his yellow duster, by the door ofthe Hotel San Xavier. But his stare was not, I think now, quite of thesame idleness with the rest. He gave me a short nod, yet not unfriendly, as I passed by him to register my name. By the counter I found thewet-eyed Mowry standing. 

"How's business on the other side of the track?" I said to him. 

"Fair to middlin'. Get them mines ye was after at Globe?"

"You've forgotten I told you they're a property I don't care for, Mr. Mowry. I suppose it's interest in this recent gold discovery that bringsyou to Tucson. " He had no answer for me but a shrewd shirking glancethat flattered my sense of acumen, and adding, pleasantly, "So many ofyour Arizona citizens have forsaken silver for gold just now, " I wrotemy name in the hotel book, while he looked to remind himself what itwas. 

"Why, you're not to stay here, " said Stirling, coming up. "You'reexpected at the Barracks. "

He presented me at once to a knot of officers, each of whom in turn mademe known to some additional by-stander, until it seemed to me that Ishook a new hand sixty times in this disordered minute by the hotelbook, and out of the sixty caught one name, which was my own. 

These many meetings could not be made perfect without help from thesaloon-keeper, who ran his thriving trade conveniently at hand in theoffice of the San Xavier. Our group remained near him, and I silentlyresolved to sleep here at the hotel, away from the tempting confusion ofarmy hospitality upon this eve of our trial. We were expected, however, to dine at the post, and that I was ready to do. Indeed, I couldscarcely have got myself out of it without rudeness, for the ambulancewas waiting us guests at the gate. We went to it along a latticedpassage at the edge of a tropical garden, only a few square yards inall, but how pretty! and what an oasis of calm in the midst of thisteeming desolation of unrest! It had upon one side the railway station, wooden, sordid, congesting with malodorous packed humanity; on the nextthe rails themselves and the platform, with steam and bells and baggagetrucks rolling and bumping; the hotel stood on the third, a confusionof tongues and trampings; while a wide space of dust, knee-deep, andlittered with manoeuvring vehicles, hemmed in this silent garden onthe fourth side. A slender slow little fountain dropped inaudibly amongsome palms, a giant cactus, and the broad-spread shade of trees I didnot know. This was the whole garden, and a tame young antelope was itsinhabitant. He lay in the unchanging shade, his large eyes fixedremotely upon the turmoil of this world, and a sleepy charm touched mysenses as I looked at his domain. Instead of going to dinner, or goinganywhere, I should have liked to recline indefinitely beneath thosepalms and trail my fingers in the cool fountain. Such enlightenedlanguor, however, could by no happy chance be the lot of an importantwitness in a Western robbery trial, and I dined and wined with thejovial officers, at least talking no business. 

With business I was sated. Pidcock and the attorney for the UnitedStates--I can remember neither his name nor the proper title of hisoffice, for he was a nobody, and I had forgotten his features each newtime that we met--had mapped out the trial to me, preparing andrehearsing me in my testimony until they had pestered me into a hatredof them both. And when word was brought me here, dining at LowellBarracks, where I had imagined myself safe from justice, that this sameattorney was waiting to see me, I rose and I played him a trick. Possibly I should not have done it but for the saloon-keeper in theafternoon and this sustained dining now; but I sent him word I should bewith him directly--and I wandered into Tucson by myself!

Faithful to my last strong impression there, I went straight to the tinyhotel garden, and in that darkness lay down in a delicious and torpidtriumph. The attorney was most likely waiting still. No one on earthknew where I was. Pidcock could not trace me now. I could see the starsthrough the palms and the strange trees, the fountain made a littlesound, somewhere now and then I could hear the antelope, and, cloaked inthis black serenity, I lay smiling. Once an engine passed heavily, leaving the station utterly quiet again, and the next I knew it was theantelope's rough tongue that waked me, and I found him nibbling andlicking my hand. People were sitting in the latticed passage, and fromthe light in the office came Mr. Mowry, untying a canvas sack that heheld. At this sight my truancy to discretion was over, and no head couldbe more wakeful or clear than mine instantly became. 

"How much d'yer want this time, Mr. Jenks?" inquired Mowry. 

I could not hear the statesman's reply, but thought, while the sound ofclinking came to me, how a common cause will often serve to reconcilethe most bitter opponents. I did not dare go nearer to catch all theirtalk, and I debated a little upon my security even as it was, until myown name suddenly reached me. 

"Him?" said Mowry; "that there tailor-made boy? They've got him sleepin'at the Barracks. "

"Nobody but our crowd's boarding here, " said some one. 

"They think we're laying for their witnesses, " said the voice of Jenks. And among the various mingled laughs rose distinct a big one that Iknew. 

"Oh, ho, ho! Well, yes. Tell you about witnesses. Here's all there isto them: spot cash to their figure, and kissing the Book. You've done nowork but what I told you?" he added, sharply. 

"We haven't needed to worry about witnesses in any shape, Bishop. "

"That's good. That's economy. That little Eastern toorist is harmless. "

"Leave him talk, Bishop. Leave 'em all tell their story. "

"It's going to cost the whole stake, though, " said Jenks. 

"Deserted Jericho!" remarked old Meakum. 

"I don't try cases for nothing, Bishop. The deal's covered. My clientshave publicly made over to me their horses and saddles. "

"Oh, ho, ho!" went the Bishop. But this last word about the horses wasthe only part of the talk I could not put a plain meaning upon. 

Mr. Mowry I now saw re-enter the lighted door of the office, with hiscanvas sack in his hand. "This'll be right here in the safe, " said he. 

"All right, " answered Jenks. "I'll not be likely to call on you any morefor a day or so. "

"Hello!" said the office clerk, appearing in his shirt-sleeves. "Youfellows have made me forget the antelope. " He took down a lantern, and Irose to my feet. 

"Give us a drink before you feed him, " said Jenks. Then I saw the wholeof them crowd into the door for their nightcap, and that was all Iwaited for. 

I climbed the garden fence. My thoughts led me at random throughquantities of soft dust, and over the rails, I think, several times, until I stood between empty and silent freight trains, and there satdown. Harmless! It seemed to me they would rate me differently in themorning. So for a while my mind was adrift in the turbulentcross-currents of my discovery; but it was with a smooth, innocentsurface that I entered the hotel office and enjoyed the look of theclerk when he roused and heard me, who, according to their calculations, should have been in slumber at the Barracks, asking to be shown my roomhere. I was tempted to inquire if he had fed the antelope--such was thepride of my elation--and I think he must have been running overquestions to put me; but the two of us marched up the stairs with a lampand a key, speaking amiably of the weather for this time of year, and heunlocked my door with a politeness and hoped I would sleep well with aconsideration that I have rarely met in the hotel clerk. I did not sleepwell. Yet it seemed not to matter. By eight I had breakfast, and foundthe attorney--Rocklin I shall name him, and that will have toanswer--and told him how we had become masters of the situation. 

He made me repeat it all over, jotting memoranda this second time; andwhen my story was done, he sat frowning at his notes, with a cigarbetween his teeth. 

"This ain't much, " he said. "Luckily I don't need anything more. I'vegot a dead open-and-shut case without it. "

"Why don't you make it deader, then?" said I. "Don't you see what it allmeans?"

"Well, what does it all mean?"

Either the man was still nettled at my treatment of him last evening, orhad no liking for amateur opinions and help; otherwise I see no reasonfor the disparagement with which he regarded me while I interpretedwhat I had overheard, piece by piece, except the horse and saddleremark. 

"Since that don't seem clear, I'll explain it to you, " he said, "andthen you'll know it all. Except their horses and saddles, the accusedhaven't a red cent to their names--not an honest one, that is. So itlooks well for them to be spending all they've apparently got in theworld to pay counsel fees. Now I have this case worked up, " he pursued, complacently, "so that any such ambiguous stuff as yours is no good tome at all--would be harmful, in fact. It's not good policy, my friend, to assail the character of opposing counsel. And Bishop Meakum! Are youaware of his power and standing in this section? Do you think you'regoing to ring him in?"

"Great goodness!" I cried. "Let me testify, and then let the safe beopened. "

Rocklin looked at me a moment, the cigar wagging between his teeth, andthen he lightly tossed his notes in the waste-paper basket. 

"Open your safe, " said he, "and what then? Up steps old Mowry and says, 'I'll thank you to let my property alone. ' Where's your proof? What worddid any of them drop that won't bear other constructions? Mowry's wellknown to have money, and he has a right to give it to Jenks. "

"If the gold could be identified?" I suggested. 

"That's been all attended to, " he answered, with increasing complacence. "I'm obliged to you for your information, and in a less sure case Imight risk using it, but--why, see here; we've got 'em hands down!" Andhe clapped me on the knee. "If I had met you last evening I was going totell you our campaign. Pidcock'll come first, of course, and histestimony'll cover pretty much the whole ground. Then, you see, therest of you I'll use mainly in support. Sergeant Brown--he's verystrong, and the black woman, and you--I'll probably call you third orfourth. So you'll be on hand sure now?"

Certainly I had no thought of being anywhere else. The imminence of ourtrial was now heralded by the cook's coming to Rocklin's office punctualto his direction, and after her Pidcock almost immediately. It was notmany minutes before the more important ones of us had gathered, and weproceeded to court, once again a Combination Extraordinary--a spectaclefor Tucson. So much stir and prosperity had not blossomed in the townfor many years, its chief source of life being the money that LowellBarracks brought to it. But now its lodgings were crowded and itssaloons and Mexican dens of entertainment waked to activity. From adozing sunburnt village of adobe walls and almond-trees it was becomesomething like those places built in a single Western day of riotextravagance, where corner lots are clamored for and men pay a dollar tobe shaved. 

Jenks was before us in the room with his clients. He was practising whatI always think of as his celluloid smile, whispering, and all-hail witheverybody. One of the prisoners had just such another mustache as hisown, too large for his face; and this had led me since to notice a typeof too large mustaches through our country in all ranks, but of similarmen, who generally have either stolen something or lacked theopportunity. Catching sight of me, Jenks came at once, friendly as youplease, shaking my passive hand, and laughing that we should meet againunder such circumstances. 

"When we're through this nuisance, " said he, "you must take dinner withme. Just now, you understand, it wouldn't look well to see me hobnobbingwith a government witness. See you again!" And he was off to some oneelse. 

I am confident this man could not see himself as others--some others, atleast--saw him. To him his whole performance was natural andprofessional, and my view that he was more infamous by far than thethieves would have sincerely amazed him. Indeed, for one prisoner I feltvery sorry. Young black curly was sitting there, and, in contrast to Mr. Adams, down whose beard the tobacco forever ran, he seemed downcast andunhardened, I thought. He was getting his deserts through base means. Itwas not for the sake of justice but from private revenge that Mrs. Sproud had moved; and, after all, had the boy injured her so much asthis? Yet how could I help him? They were his deserts. My mood wasabruptly changed to diversion when I saw among our jury specimens ofboth types of Meakum, and prominent among the spectator throng theirsire, that canny polygamist, surveying the case with the same forcefulattention I had noticed first in the House of Representatives, and eversince that day. But I had a true shock of surprise now. Mrs. Sproud wasin court. There could be no mistake. No one seemed to notice her, and Iwondered if many in the town knew her face, and with what intent she hadreturned to this dangerous neighborhood. I was so taken up with watchingher and her furtive appearance in the almost concealed position she hadchosen that I paid little heed to the government's opening of its case. She had her eyes upon black curly, but he could not see her. Pidcockwas in the midst of his pompous recital when the court took its noonintermission. Then I was drawn to seek out black curly as he wasconducted to his dinner. 

"Good-day, " said he, as I came beside him. 

"I wish I didn't have to go on oath about this, " I said. 

"Oath away, " he answered, doggedly. "What's that got to do with me?"

"Oh, come!" I exclaimed. 

"Come where?" He looked at me defiantly. 

"When people don't wish to be trailed, " I went on, "do I understand theysometimes spread a blanket and lead their horses on it and take offtheir shoes? I'm merely asking out of a traveller's curiosity. "

"I guess you'll have to ask them that's up on such tricks, " he answered, grinning. 

I met him in the eyes, and a strong liking for him came over me. "Iprobably owe you my life, " I said, huskily. "I know I do. And Ihate--you must consider me a poor sort of bird. "

"Blamed if I know what you're drivin' at, " said black curly. But hewrinkled his forehead in the pleasant way I remembered. "Yer whiskey wasgood all right, " he added, and gave me his hand. 

"Look here, " said I. "She's come back. "

This took the boy unguarded, and he swore with surprise. Then his facegrew sombre. "Let her, " he remarked; and that was all we said. 

At the afternoon sitting I began to notice how popular sympathy was notonly quite against the United States, but a sentiment amounting tohatred was shown against all soldiers. The voice of respectabilityseemed entirely silent; decent citizens were there, but not enough ofthem. The mildest opinion was that Uncle Sam could afford to lose moneybetter than poor people, and the strongest was that it was a pity thesoldiers had not been killed. This seemed inappropriate in a Territorydesiring admission to our Union. I supposed it something local then, buthave since observed it to be a prevailing Western antipathy. Theunthinking sons of the sage-brush ill tolerate a thing which stands fordiscipline, good order, and obedience, and the man who lets anothercommand him they despise. I can think of no threat more evil for ourdemocracy, for it is a fine thing diseased and perverted--namely, independence gone drunk. 

Pidcock's examination went forward, and the half-sack of gold from thehay-stack brought a great silence in court. The Major's identificationof the gold was conducted by Rocklin with stage effect, for it was anundoubted climax; but I caught a most singular smile on the face ofBishop Meakum, and there sat Mrs. Sproud, still solitary and engulfed inthe throng, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. And here ended thefirst day. 

In the morning came the Major's cross-examination, with the room morecrowded than before, but I could not find Mrs. Sproud. Rocklin did notbelieve I had seen her, and I feared something had happened to her. TheBishop had walked to the court with Jenks, talking and laughing upongeneral subjects, so far as I could hear. The counsel for the prisonerspassed lightly over the first part of the evidence, only causing anoccasional laugh on the score of the Major's military prowess, until hecame to the gold. 

"You said this sack was one of yours, Major?" he now inquired. 

"It is mine, sir. "

A large bundle of sacks was brought. "And how about these? Here are ten, fifteen--about forty. I'll get some more if you say so. Are they allyours?"

"Your question strikes me as idle, sir. " The court rapped, and Jenkssmiled. "They resemble mine, " said Pidcock. "But they are not used. "

"No; not used. " Jenks held up the original, shaking the gold. "Now I'mgoing to empty your sack for a moment. "

"I object, " said Rocklin, springing up. 

"Oh, it's all counted, " laughed Jenks; and the objection was notsustained. Then Jenks poured the gold into a new sack and shook thataloft. "It makes them look confusingly similar, Major. I'll just put mycard in your sack. "

"I object, " said Rocklin, with anger, but with futility. Jenks nowpoured the gold back into the first, then into a third, and thus intoseveral, tossing them each time on the table, and the clinking piecessounded clear in the room. Bishop Meakum was watching the operation likea wolf. "Now, Major, " said Jenks, "is your gold in the original sack, orwhich sack is my card in?"

This was the first time that the room broke out loudly; and Pidcock, when the people were rapped to order, said, "The sack's not the thing. "

"Of course not. The gold is our point. And of course you had a privatemark on it. Tell the jury, please, what the private mark was. "

He had none. He spoke about dates, and new coins, he backed and filled, swelled importantly, and ended like a pricked bladder by recanting hisidentification. 

"That is all I have to say for the present, " said Jenks. 

"Don't complicate the issue by attempting to prove too much, Mr. Rocklin, " said the judge. 

Rocklin flushed, and called the next witness, whispering sulkily to me, "What can you expect if the court starts out against you?" But the courtwas by no means against him. The judge was merely disgusted overRocklin's cardinal folly of identifying coin under such looseconditions. 

And now came the testimony of Sergeant Brown. He told so clear a storyas to chill the enthusiasm of the room. He pointed to the man with themustache, black curly, and yellow. "I saw them shooting from the rightof the road, " he said. Jenks tried but little to shake him, and left himunshaken. He was followed by the other wounded soldier, whose story wasnearly the same, except that he identified different prisoners. 

"Who did you say shot you?" inquired Jenks. "Which of these two?"

"I didn't say. I don't know. "

"Don't know a man when he shoots you in broad daylight?"

"Plenty was shooting at me, " said the soldier. And his testimony alsoremained unshaken. 

Then came my own examination, and Jenks did not trouble me at all, but, when I had likewise identified the men I knew, simply bowed smilingly, and had no questions to ask his friend from the East. 

Our third morning began with the negress, who said she was married, tolda scattered tale, and soon stated that she was single, explaining laterthat she had two husbands, and one was dead, while the other haddisappeared from her ten years ago. Gradually her alarm subsided andshe achieved coherence. 

"What did this gentleman do at the occurrence?" inquired Jenks, indicating me. 

"Dat gemman? He jes flew, sir, an' I don' blame him fo' bein' no wusserskeer'd dan de hole party. Yesser, we all flew scusin' dey two porechillun; an' we stayed till de 'currence was ceased. "

"But the gentleman says he sat on a stone, and saw those men firing. "

"Land! I seed him goin' like he was gwineter Fo't Grant. He run up dehill, an' de Gennul he run down like de day of judgment. "

"The General ran?"

"Lawd grashus, honey, yo' could have played checkers on dey coat tailsof his. "

The court rapped gently. 

"But the gold must have been heavy to carry away to the horses. Did notthe General exert his influence to rally his men?"

"No, sah. De Gennul went down de hill, an' he took his inflooence withhim. "

"I have no further questions, " said Jenks. "When we come to our alibis, gentlemen, I expect to satisfy you that this lady saw more correctly, and when she is unable to recognize my clients it is for a good reason. "

"We've not got quite so far yet, " Rocklin observed. "We've reached thehay-stack at present. "

"Aren't you going to make her describe her own confusion more?" I began, but stopped, for I saw that the next witness was at hand, and that itwas Mrs. Sproud. 

"How's this?" I whispered to Rocklin. "How did you get her?"

"She volunteered this morning, just before trial. We're in big luck. "

The woman was simply dressed in something dark. Her handsome face waspale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and withdeliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainlyunprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discernuneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept herinvisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which noneof us were ready. 

"What do I know?" she repeated after the counsel. "I suppose you havebeen told what I said I knew. "

"We'd like to hear it directly from you, Mrs. Sproud, " Rocklinexplained. 

"Where shall I start?"

"Well, there was a young man who boarded with you, was there not?"

"I object to the witness being led, " said Jenks. And Bishop Meakum movedup beside the prisoners' counsel and began talking with him earnestly. 

"Nobody is leading me, " said Mrs. Sproud, imperiously, and raising hervoice a little. She looked about her. "There was a young man who boardedwith me. Of course that is so. "

Meakum broke off in his confidences with Jenks, and looked sharply ather. 

"Do you see your boarder anywhere here?" inquired Rocklin; and from histone I perceived that he was puzzled by the manner of his witness. 

She turned slowly, and slowly scrutinized the prisoners one by one. Thehead of black curly was bent down, and I saw her eyes rest upon it whileshe stood in silence. It was as if he felt the summons of her glance, for he raised his head. His face was scarlet, but her paleness did notchange. 

"He is the one sitting at the end, " she said, looking back at the jury. She then told some useless particulars, and brought her narrative to theafternoon when she had heard the galloping. "Then I hid. I hid becausethis is a rough country. "

"When did you recognize that young man's voice?"

"I did not recognize it. "

Black curly's feet scraped as he shifted his position. 

"Collect yourself, Mrs. Sproud. We'll give you all the time you want. Weknow ladies are not used to talking in court. Did you not hear thisyoung man talking to his friends?"

"I heard talking, " replied the witness, quite collected. "But I couldnot make out who they were. If I could have been sure it was him andfriends, I wouldn't have stayed hid. I'd have had no call to be scared. "

Rocklin was dazed, and his next question came in a voice still morechanged and irritable. 

"Did you see any one?"

"No one. "

"What did you hear them say?"

"They were all talking at once. I couldn't be sure. "

"Why did you go to the hay-stack?"

"Because they said something about my hay-stack, and I wanted to findout, if I could. "

"Did you not write their names on a paper and give it to this gentleman?Remember you are on oath, Mrs. Sproud. "

By this time a smile was playing on the features of Jenks, and he andBishop Meakum talked no longer together, but sat back to watch thewoman's extraordinary attempt to undo her work. It was shrewd, veryshrewd, in her to volunteer as our witness instead of as theirs. She wasready for the paper question, evidently. 

"I wrote--" she began, but Rocklin interrupted. 

"On oath, remember!" he repeated, finding himself cross-examining hisown witness. "The names you wrote are the names of these prisoners herebefore the court. They were traced as the direct result of yourinformation. They have been identified by three or four persons. Do youmean to say you did not know who they were?"

"I did not know, " said Mrs. Sproud, firmly. "As for the paper, I actedhasty. I was a woman, alone, and none to consult or advise me. I thoughtI would get in trouble if I did not tell about such goings on, and Ijust wrote the names of Will--of the boys that came round there all thetime, thinking it was most likely them. I didn't see him, and I didn'tmake out surely it was his voice. I wasn't sure enough to come out andask what they were up to. I didn't stop to think of the harm I was doingon guess-work. "

For the first time the note of remorse conquered in her voice. I saw howdesperation at what she had done when she thought her love was cured wasnow bracing the woman to this audacity. 

"Remember, " said Rocklin, "the gold was also found as the direct resultof your information. It was you who told Major Pidcock in the ambulanceabout the seven sacks. "

"I never said anything about seven sacks. "

This falsehood was a master-stroke, for only half a sack had been found. She had not written this down. There was only the word of Pidcock and meto vouch for it, while against us stood her denial, and the actualquantity of gold. 

"I have no further questions, " said Rocklin. 

"But I have, " said Jenks. And then he made the most of Mrs. Sproud, although many in the room were laughing, and she herself, I think, feltshe had done little but sacrifice her own character without repairingthe injury she had done black curly. Jenks made her repeat that she wasfrightened; not calm enough to be sure of voices, especially manyspeaking together; that she had seen no one throughout. He evenattempted to show that the talk about the hay-stack might have beenpurely about hay, and that the half-sack of gold might have been putthere at another time--might belong to some honest man this very moment. 

"Did you ever know the young man who boarded with you to do adishonorable thing?" inquired Jenks. "Did you not have the highestopinion of him?"

She had not expected a question like this. It nearly broke the womandown. She put her hand to her breast, and seemed afraid to trust hervoice. "I have the highest opinion of him, " she said, word painfullyfollowing word. "He--he used to know that. "

"I have finished, " said Jenks. 

"Can I go?" asked the witness, and the attorneys bowed. She stood onehesitating moment in the witness-stand, and she looked at the jury andthe court; then, as if almost in dread, she let her eyes travel to blackcurly. But his eyes were sullenly averted. Then Mrs. Sproud slowly madeher way through the room, with one of the saddest faces I have everseen, and the door closed behind her. 

We finished our case with all the prisoners identified, and some of themdoubly. The defence was scarcely more than a sham. The flimsy alibiswere destroyed even by the incompetent, unready Rocklin, and when thecharge came blackness fell upon the citizens of Tucson. The judge's coldstatements struck them as partisan, and they murmured and looked darklyat him. But the jury, with its Meakums, wore no expression at all duringany of his remarks. Their eyes were upon him, but entirely fishlike. Hedismissed the cumbersome futilities one by one. "Now three witnesseshave between them recognized all the prisoners but one, " he continued. "That one, a reputed pauper, paid several hundred dollars of debts ingold the morning after the robbery. The money is said to be the proceedsof a cattle sale. No cattle have ever been known to belong to this man, and the purchaser had never been known to have any income until thistrial began. The prisoner's name was on Mrs. Sproud's paper. Thestatement of one witness that he sat on a stone and saw three other ofthe prisoners firing has been contradicted by a woman who describedherself as having run away at once; it is supported by two men who areadmitted by all to have remained, and in consequence been shot. Theirstatements have been assailed by no one. Their testimony stands on therecord unimpeached. They have identified five prisoners. If you believethem--and remember that not a word they said has been questioned--" herethe judge emphasized more and more clearly. He concluded with thevarious alternatives of fact according to which the jury must find itsseveral possible verdicts. When he had finished, the room sat sullen andstill, and the twelve went out. I am told that they remained ten minutesaway. It seemed one to me. 

When they had resumed their seats I noticed the same fishlike oraculareye in most of them unchanged. "Not guilty, " said the foreman. 

"What!" shouted the judge, startled out of all judicial propriety. "Noneof 'em?"

"Not guilty, " monotonously repeated the foreman. 

We were silent amid the din of triumph now raised by Tucson. In thelaughter, the hand-shaking, the shouting, and the jubilant pistol-shotsthat some particularly free spirit fired in the old Cathedral Square, wewent to our dinner; and not even Stirling could joke. "There's a certainnatural justice done here in spite of them, " he said. "They are not onecent richer for all their looted twenty-eight thousand. They come outfree, but penniless. "

"How about Jenks and that jury?" said I. And Stirling shrugged hisshoulders. 

But we had yet some crowning impudence to learn. Later, in the street, the officers and I met the prisoners, their witnesses, and their counselemerging from a photographer's studio. The Territorial Delegate had beentaken in a group with his acquitted thieves. The Bishop had declined tobe in this souvenir. 

"That's a picture I want, " said I. "Only I'll be sorry to see your facethere, " I added to black curly. 

"Indeed!" put in Jenks. 

"Yes, " said I. "You and he do not belong in the same class. By-the-way, Mr. Jenks, I suppose you'll return their horses and saddles now?"

Too many were listening for him to lose his temper, and he did a sharpthing. He took this public opportunity for breaking some news to hisclients. "I had hoped to, " he said; "that is, as many as were not neededto defray necessary costs. But it's been an expensive suit, and I'vefound myself obliged to sell them all. It's little enough to pay forclearing your character, boys. "

They saw through his perfidy to them, and that he had them checkmated. Any protest from them would be a confession of their theft. Yet itseemed an unsafe piece of villany in Jenks. 

"They look disappointed, " I remarked. "I shall value the picture veryhighly. "

"If that's Eastern sarcasm, " said Jenks, "it's beyond me. "

"No, Mr. Jenks, " I answered. "In your presence sarcasm drops dead. Ithink you'll prosper in politics. "

But there I was wrong. There is some natural justice in these events, though I wish there were more. The jury, it is true, soon seemed oddlyprosperous, as Stirling wrote me afterwards. They painted their houses;two of them, who had generally walked before, now had wagons; and in somany of their gardens and small ranches did the plants and fruitsincrease that, as Stirling put it, they had evidently sowed theirdollars. But upon Jenks Territorial displeasure did descend. He hadstayed away too much from Washington. A pamphlet appeared with thetitle, "What Luke Jenks Has Done for Arizona. " Inside were twenty blankpages, and he failed of re-election. 

Furthermore, the government retaliated upon this district by abandoningCamp Thomas and Lowell Barracks, those important sources of revenue forthe neighborhood. The brief boom did not help Tucson very long, and leftit poorer than ever. 

At the station I saw Mrs. Sproud and black curly, neither speaking tothe other. It was plain that he had utterly done with her, and that shewas too proud even to look at him. She went West, and he as far east asWillcox. Neither one have I ever seen again. 

But I have the photograph, and I sometimes wonder what has happened toblack curly. Arizona is still a Territory; and when I think of the GilaValley and of the Boy Orator, I recall Bishop Meakum's remark about ourstatesmen at Washington: "You can divide them birds in two lots--thosewho know better, and those who don't. D'you follow me?"

 THE END

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words andintent.