Foes in Ambush. Charles King
through here."
"Who was that fellow who rode back here with the note?" asked Pike.
"I don't know his name. 'Dutchy' they call him in 'C' troop. He's on his second enlistment."
"More fool he! The man who re-enlists in this Territory must be either drunk or Dutch." And Pike relapsed into gloomy silence again, his eyes fixed upon the faint flicker of the bar lights at Ceralvo's miles away; but Wing only laughed again, and, still puffing away at his pipe, went on down the winding trail to where in the deep shelter of the rocky walls a pool of water lay gleaming. Here he threw himself flat and, laying aside his precious pipe, drank long and eagerly; then with sudden plunge doused his hot face in the cooling flood and came up dripping.
"Thank the Lord I have no desert march to make to-day—all on a wild-goose chase," was his pious ejaculation. "What on earth could have induced the paymaster to send a detachment over to the Gila?" He took from his pocket a pencilled note and slowly twisted it in his fingers. It was too dark to read, but in its soldierly brevity he almost knew it by heart. "The major sent Donovan with half the escort back to the Gila on an Apache scare this morning. They will probably return your way, empty-handed. Signal if they have passed. Latham knows your code and we have a good glass. Send man to Ceralvo's with orders for them to join at once if they haven't come, and flag or torch when they pass you. It's my belief they've gone there." This was signed by Feeny, and over and again had Wing been speculating as to what it all meant. When the escort with the ambulance and paymaster went through before the dawn, Feeny had roused him to ask if anything had been heard of Indians on the war-path between them and the Sonora line, and the answer was both prompt and positive, "No." As for their being north or north of west of his station, and up towards the Gila, Wing scouted the suggestion. He wished, however, that Jackson were back with such tidings as he had picked up at Ceralvo's. It was always best to be prepared, even though this was some distance away from the customary raiding-ground of the tribe.
Just then there came a hail from aloft. Pikey was shouting.
"All right," answered Wing, cheerily; "be there in a minute," and then went springing up the trail as though the climb of four hundred feet were a mere bagatelle. "What's up?—Jackson here?" he asked, short of breath as he reached the little nook in which their brush-covered tents were pitched. There was no reply.
"Pike. Oh-h, Pike! Where are you?" he called.
And presently, faint and far somewhere down in the dark cañon to the south, a voice replied—
"Down hyar. Something's coming up the road."
Surely enough. Probably a quarter-mile away a dim light as of a swinging lantern could be seen following the winding of the rough and rock-ribbed road. Then came the click of iron-shod hoofs, the crack of the long mule-whip, and a resonant imprecation in Spanish levelled at the invisible draught animals. Bounding lightly down the southward path, Sergeant Wing soon reached the roadside, and there found Pike in converse with a brace of horsemen.
"It's old Harvey's outfit, from Yuma, making for Moreno's," vouchsafed the soldier.
"Oh, is that you, Sergeant Wing? I ought to have known you were here. I'm Ned Harvey." And the taller horseman held out a hand, which Wing grasped and shook with cordial fervor.
"Which way, Mr. Harvey, and who are with you?"
"Home to Tucson. My sisters are in the Concord behind us, going to visit the old folks for a few weeks before their trip to Cuba."
"You don't tell me!" exclaimed Wing. "They're the first ladies to pass through here since I came on duty at the station two months ago. You stay at Moreno's, I suppose?"
"Yes; the governor meets us there with relays and four or five men. We knew there would be no danger west of the Santa Maria."
"W-e-ll—did you stop at Ceralvo's or see any of their people?"
"No, I never put in there. Father's very suspicious of that gang. Why do you ask, though?"
Wing hesitated. "There was some story afloat about Apaches," he finally said. "The paymaster's escort threw off a detachment towards the Gila this morning, and I sent one of my two men back to Ceralvo's to inquire. You must have met him."
"No, we made a circuit—came by the old trail around the head of the slough. We haven't passed anybody, have we, Tony?" he asked of the silent horseman by his side.
"None, señor; but there were many hoof-trails leading to Ceralvo's," was the answer, in the Spanish tongue.
"Then you'll need water here, Mr. Harvey. It's a ten-mile pull across to Moreno's," said Wing, as the four-mule team came laboring up to the spot and willingly halted, the lantern at the forward axle slowly settling into inertia from its pendulum-like swing.
"Where are we, Ned?" hailed a blithe young voice. Sweet and silvery it sounded to the trooper's unaccustomed ears. "Surely not at Moreno's yet?"
"Not yet, Paquita mia. Is Ruth awake? Tell her to poke that curly pate of hers out of the door. I want you to know Mr. Wing, Sergeant Wing, who has charge of the signal-station here."
Almost instantly a slender hand, holding a little brass hurricane lantern, appeared at the opening, followed by a sweet, smiling face, while just behind it peered another, only a trifle older and more serious, yet every whit as pretty. Wing raised his old felt hat and mentally cursed the luck that had sent him down there in his ragged shirt-sleeves. Pike, the cynic, busied himself in getting the buckets from underneath the stout spring wagon, and bumped his head savagely against the trunk-laden boot as he emerged.
"I never dreamed of seeing ladies to-night," laughed the sergeant. "It's the rarest sight in all the world here; but I remember you well when you came to Yuma last year. That was when you were going to school at San Francisco, I believe."
"That was when I was in short dresses and a long face, sergeant," merrily answered the younger girl. "I hated the idea of going there to school. Fan, here, was willing enough, but I had never known anything but Arizona and Mexico. All I could think of was that I was leaving home."
"She was soon reconciled, Mr. Wing," said Miss Harvey; "there were some very pleasant people on the steamer."
"Oh, very pleasant for you, Fan, but what did they care for a chit of fourteen? You had lovely times, of course."
"So did you, Ruth, from the very day Mr. Drummond helped you to catch your dolphin."
"Ah! we were more than half-way to San Francisco then," protested Miss Ruth, promptly, "and nobody had taken any notice of me whatever up to that minute."
"Well, Mr. Drummond made up for lost time from that on," laughed the elder sister. "I never told of her, Ned—wasn't I good?—but Ruth lost her young heart to a cavalry cadet not a year out of the Point."
"Is it our Lieutenant Drummond who was with you?" queried Wing.
"Oh, yes; why, to be sure, he is of your regiment. He was going back to testify before some court at the Presidio, and—wasn't madame mean?—she wouldn't allow him to call on Ruth at the school, even when I promised to play chaperon and insure strict propriety and no flirting."
Ruth Harvey had, with quick movement, uplifted a little hand to silence her sister, but the hand dropped, startled, and the color rushed to her face at Wing's next words.
"Then you're almost sure to meet the lieutenant to-night or to-morrow. He's been scouting the Santa Maria and the Christobal and is due along here at this very moment."
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