An Apache Princess - Charles King (readict books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Charles King
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He had sprung from saddle and leveled his old field glass at the distant promontory, so absorbed in his search he did not note the coming of the little column. The litter bearing Blakely foremost of the four had halted close beside him, and Blakely's voice, weak and strained, yet commanding, suddenly startled him with demand to be told what he saw, and Arnold merely handed him the glass and pointed. The last of the faint smoke puffs was just soaring into space, making four still in sight. Blakely never even took the binocular. He had seen enough by the unaided eye.
With uplifted hand the sergeant had checked the coming of the next litter, Wren's, and those that followed it. One of the wounded men, the poor lad crazed by the perils of the siege, was alert and begging for more water, but Wren was happily lost to the world in swoon or slumber. To the soldier bending over him he seemed scarcely breathing. Presently they were joined by two of Arnold's party who had been searching out on the left flank. They, too, had seen, and the three were now in low-toned conference. Blakely for the moment was unnoted, forgotten.
"That tank—where we found the ribbon—was just about two miles yonder," said Arnold, pointing well down the rugged slope toward the southwest, where other rocky, pine-fringed heights barred the view to the distant Sandy. "Surely the colonel or some of his fellows must be along here. Ride ahead a hundred yards or so and fire a couple of shots," this to one of his men, who silently reined his tired bronco into the rude trail among the pine cones and disappeared. The others waited. Presently came the half-smothered sound of a shot and a half-stifled cry from the rearmost litter. Every such shock meant new terror to that poor lad, but Wren never stirred. Half a minute passed without another sound than faint and distant echo; then faint, and not so distant, came another sound, a prolonged shout, and presently another, and then a horseman hove in sight among the trees across a nearly mile-wide dip. Arnold and his friends rode on to meet him, leaving the litters at the crest. In five minutes one of the riders reappeared and called: "It's Horn, of the orderlies. He reports Colonel Byrne just ahead. Come on!" and turning, dove back down the twisted trail.
The colonel might have been just ahead when last seen, but when they reached the tank he was far aloft again, scouting from another height to the northward, and while the orderly went on to find and tell him, Arnold and his grave-faced comrade dismounted there to await the coming of the litters. Graver were the faces even than before. The news that had met them was most ominous. Two of those who searched with Colonel Byrne had found pony tracks leading northward—leading in the very direction in which they had seen the smoke. There was no other pony shoe in the Sandy valley. It could be none other than Angela's little friend and comrade—Punch.
And this news they told to Blakely as the foremost litter came. He listened with hardly a word of comment; then asked for his scouting notebook. He was sitting up now. They helped him from his springy couch to a seat on the rocks, and gave him a cup of the cold water. One by one the other litters were led into the little amphitheater and unlashed. Everyone seemed to know that here must be the bivouac for the night, their abiding place for another day, perhaps, unless they should find the captain's daughter. They spoke, when they spoke at all, in muffled tones, these rough, war-worn men of the desert and the mountain. They bent over the wounded with sorrowing eyes, and wondered why no surgeon had come out to meet them. Heartburn, of course, had done his best, dressing and rebandaging the wounds at dawn, but then he had to go on with Stout and the company, while one of the Apache Yumas was ordered to dodge his way in to Sandy, with a letter urging that Graham be sent out to follow the trail and meet the returning party.
Meanwhile the sun had dropped behind the westward heights; the night would soon be coming down, chill and overcast. Byrne was still away, but he couldn't miss the tank, said one of the troopers who had ridden with him. Twice during the morning they had all met there and then gone forth again, searching—searching. Punch's little hoof-tracks, cutting through a sandy bit in the northward ravine, had drawn them all that way, but nothing further had been found. His horse, too, said the orderly, was lame and failing, so he had been bidden to wait by the water and watch for couriers either from the front or out from the post. Byrne was one of those never-give-up men, and they all knew him.
Barley was served out to the animals, a little fire lighted, lookouts were stationed, and presently their soldier supper was ready, and still Blakely said nothing. He had written three notes or letters, one of which seemed to give him no little trouble, for one after another he thrust two leaves into the fire and started afresh. At length they were ready, and he signaled to Arnold. "You can count, I think, on Graham's getting here within a few hours," said he. "Meantime you're as good a surgeon as I need. Help me on with this sling." And still they did not fathom his purpose. He was deathly pale, and his eyes were eloquent of dread unspeakable, but he seemed to have forgotten pain, fever, and prostration. Arnold, in the silent admiration of the frontier, untied the support, unloosed the bandages, and together they redressed the ugly wound. Then presently the Bugologist stood feebly upon his feet and looked about him. It was growing darker, and not another sound had come from Byrne.
"Start one of your men into Sandy at once," said Blakely, to the sergeant, and handed him a letter addressed to Major Plume. "He will probably meet the doctor before reaching the Beaver. These other two I'll tell you what to do with later. Now, who has the best horse?"
Arnold stared. Sergeant Stone quickly turned and saluted. "The lieutenant is not thinking of mounting, I hope," said he.
Blakely did not even answer. He was studying the orderly's bay. Stiff and a little lame he might be, but, refreshed and strengthened by abundant barley, he was a better weight-carrier than the other, and Blakely had weight. "Saddle your horse, Horn," said he, "and fasten on those saddle-bags of mine."
"But, lieutenant," ventured Arnold, "you are in no shape to ride anything but that litter. Whatever you think of doing, let me do."
"What I am thinking of doing nobody else can do," said Blakely. "What you can do is, keep these two letters till I call for them. If at the end of a week I fail to call, deliver them as addressed and to nobody else. Now, before dark I must reach that point younder," and he indicated the spot where in the blaze of the westering sun a mass of rock towered high above the fringing pine and mournful shadows at its base, a glistening landmark above the general gloom at the lower level and at that hour of the afternoon. "Now," he added quietly, "you can help me into saddle."
"But for God's sake, lieutenant, let some of us ride with you," pleaded Arnold. "If Colonel Byrne was here he'd never let you go."
"Colonel Byrne is not here, and I command, I believe," was the brief, uncompromising answer. "And no man rides with me because, with another man, I'd never find what I'm in search of." For a moment he bent over Wren, a world of wordless care, dread, and yet determination in his pale face. Arnold saw his wearied eyes close a moment, his lips move as though in petition, then he suddenly turned. "Let me have that ribbon," said he bluntly, and without a word Arnold surrendered it. Stone held the reluctant horse, Arnold helped the wounded soldier into the saddle. "Don't worry about me—any of you," said Blakely, in brief farewell. "Good-night," and with that he rode away.
Arnold and the men stood gazing after him. "Grit clean through," said the ranchman, through his set teeth, for a light was dawning on him, as he pondered over Blakely's words. "May the Lord grant I don't have to deliver these!" Then he looked at the superscriptions. One letter was addressed to Captain, or Miss Janet, Wren—the other to Mrs. Plume.
CHAPTER XXII SUSPENSEandy again. Four of the days stipulated by Lieutenant Blakely had run their course. The fifth was ushered in, and from the moment he rode away from the bivouac at the tanks no word had come from the Bugologist, no further trace of Angela. In all its history the garrison had known no gloom like this. The hospital was filled with wounded. An extra surgeon and attendants had come down from Prescott, but Graham was sturdily in charge. Of his several patients Wren probably was now causing him the sorest anxiety, for the captain had been grievously wounded and was pitiably weak. Now, when aroused at times from the lassitude and despond in which he lay, Wren would persist in asking for Angela, and, not daring to tell him the truth, Janet, Calvinist that she was to the very core, had to do fearful violence to her feelings and lie. By the advice of bluff old Byrne and the active connivance of the post commander, they had actually, these stern Scotch Presbyterians, settled on this as the deception to be practiced—that Angela had been drooping so sadly from anxiety and dread she had been taken quite ill, and Dr. Graham had declared she must be sent up to Prescott, or some equally high mountain resort, there to rest and recuperate. She was in good hands, said these arch-conspirators. She might be coming home any day. As for the troop and the campaign, he mustn't talk or worry or think about them. The general, with his big field columns, had had no personal contact with the Indians. They had scattered before him into the wild country toward the great Colorado, where Stout, with his hickory-built footmen, and Brewster, with most of Wren's troop, were stirring up Apaches night and day, while Sanders and others were steadily driving on toward the old Wingate road. Stout had found Brewster beleaguered, but safe and sound, with no more men killed and few seriously wounded. They had communicated with Sanders's side scouts, and were finding and following fresh trails with every day, when Stout was surprised to receive orders to drop pursuit and start with Brewster's fellows and to scout the west face of the mountains from the Beaver to the heights opposite the old Indian reservation. There was a stirring scene at bivouac when that order came, and with it the explanation that Angela Wren had vanished and was probably captured; that Blakely had followed and was probably killed. "They might shoot Blakely in fair fight," said Stout, who knew him, and knew the veneration that lived for him in the hearts of the Indian leaders, "but they at least would never butcher him in cold blood. Their unrestrained young men might do it." Stout's awful dread, like that of every man and woman at Sandy, and every soldier in the field, was for Angela. The news, too, had been rushed to the general, and his orders were instant. "Find the chiefs in
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