An Apache Princess - Charles King (readict books .TXT) 📗

him. There was something he needed to say, yet could not until the agent had retired. Daly saw,—perhaps he had already imbibed something of the situation,—and was not slow to seek his room. Plume took the little kerosene lamp; hospitably led the way; made the customary tender of a "night-cap," and polite regrets he had no ice to offer therewith; left his unwonted guest with courteous good-night and cast an eye aloft as he came through the hall. All there was dark and still, though he doubted much that Graham's sedatives had yet prevailed. He had left the two men opposite the doorway. He found them at the south end of the piazza, their heads together. They straightened up to perfunctory talk about the Medical Director, his drastic methods and inflammable ways; but the mirth was forced, the humor far too dry. Then silence fell. Then Plume invaded it:

"How'd you find Wren—mentally?" he presently asked. He felt that an opening of some kind was necessary.

"Sound," was the colonel's answer, slow and sententious. "Of course he is much—concerned."

"About—his case? Ah, will you smoke, colonel?"

"About Blakely. I believe not, Plume; it's late."

Plume struck a light on the sole of his natty boot. "One would suppose he would feel very natural anxiety as to the predicament in which he has placed himself," he ventured.

"Wren worries much over Blakely's injuries, which accident made far more serious than he would have inflicted, major, even had he had the grounds for violence that he thought he had. Blakely was not the only sufferer, and is not the only cause, of his deep contrition. Wren tells me that he was even harsher to Angela. But that is all a family matter." The colonel was speaking slowly, thoughtfully.

"But—these later affairs—that Wren couldn't explain—or wouldn't." Plume's voice and color both were rising.

"Couldn't is the just word, major, and couldn't especially—to you," was the significant reply.

Plume rose from his chair and stood a moment, trembling not a little and his fingers twitching. "You mean—" he huskily began.

"I mean this, my friend," said Byrne gently, as he, too, arose, "and I have asked Graham, another friend, to be here—that Wren would not defend himself to you by even mentioning—others, and might not have revealed the truth even to me had he been the only one cognizant of it. But, Plume, others saw what he saw, and what is now known to many people on the post. Others than Wren were abroad that night. One other was being carefully, tenderly brought home—led home—to your roof. You did not know—Mrs. Plume was a somnambulist?"

In the dead silence that ensued the colonel put forth a pitying hand as though to stay and support the younger soldier, the post commander. Plume stood, swaying a bit, and staring. Presently he strove to speak, but choked in the effort.

"It's the only proper explanation," said Graham, and between them they led the major within doors.

And this is how it happened that he, instead of Wren, was pacing miserably up and down in the gathering dawn, when the sentry startled all waking Sandy with his cry for the corporal. This is how, far ahead of the corporal, the post commander reached the alarmed soldier, with demand to know the cause; and, even by the time he came, the cause had vanished from sight.

"Apaches, sir, by the dozen,—all along the edge of the mesa," stammered No. 5. He could have convinced the corporal without fear or thought of ridicule, but his voice lacked confidence when he stood challenged by his commanding officer. Plume heard with instant suspicion. He was in no shape for judicial action.

"Apaches!" This in high disdain. "Trash, man! Because one sentry has a scuffle with some night prowler is the next to lose his nerve? You're scared by shadows, Hunt. That's what's the matter with you!"

It "brought to" a veteran trooper with a round turn. Hunt had served his fourth enlistment, had "worn out four blankets" in the regiment, and was not to be accused of scare.

"Let the major see for himself, then," he answered sturdily. "Come in here, you!" he called aloud. "Come, the whole gang of ye. The concert's beginning!" Then, slowly along the eastward edge there began to creep into view black polls bound with dirty white, black crops untrammeled by any binding. Then, swift from the west, came running footfalls, the corporal with a willing comrade or two, wondering was Five in further danger. There, silent and regretful, stood the post commander, counting in surprise the score of scarecrow forms now plainly visible, sitting, standing, or squatting along the mesa edge. Northernmost in view, nearly opposite Blakely's quarters, were two, detached from the general assembly, yet clinging close together—two slender figures, gowned, and it was at these the agent Daly was staring, as he, too, came running to the spot.

"Major Plume," cried he, panting, "I want those girls arrested, at once!"

CHAPTER VIII "APACHE KNIVES DIG DEEP!"