A Stranger Going

: An Apache Princess

At the first faint flush of dawn the little train of pack mules, with

the rations for the beleaguered command at Sunset Pass, was started on

its stony path. Once out of the valley of the Beaver it must clamber

over range after range and stumble through deep and tortuous canons. A

road there was--the old trail by Snow Lake, thence through the famous

Pass and the Sunset crossing of the Colorado Chiquito to old Fort

Winga e. It wormed its way out of the valley of the broader stream

some miles further to the north and in face of the Red Rock country to

the northeast, but it had not been traveled in safety for a year. Both

Byrne and Plume believed it beset with peril, watched from ambush by

invisible foes who could be relied upon to lurk in hiding until the

train was within easy range, then, with sudden volley, to pick off the

officers and prominent sergeants and, in the inevitable confusion,

aided by their goatlike agility, to make good their escape. Thirty

sturdy soldiers of the infantry under a veteran captain marched as

escort, with Plume's orders to push through to the relief of Sergeant

Brewster's command, and to send back Indian runners with full account

of the situation. The relief of Wren's company accomplished, the next

thing was to be a search for Wren himself, then a determined effort to

find Blakely, and all the time to keep a lookout for Sanders's troop

that must be somewhere north of Chevlon's Fork, as well as for the two

or three little columns that should be breaking their way through the

unblazed wilderness, under the personal direction of the general

himself. Captain Stout and his party were out of sight up the Beaver

before the red eye of the morning came peering over the jagged heights

to the east, and looking in upon a garrison whose eyes were equally

red and bleary through lack of sleep--a garrison worn and haggard

through anxiety and distress gravely augmented by the events of the

night. All Sandy had been up and astir within five minutes after Norah

Shaughnessy's startling cry, and all Sandy asked with bated breath the

same question: How on earth happened it that this wounded waif of the

Apaches, this unknown Indian girl, dropped senseless at their doorway

in the dead hours of the night, should have in her possession the very

scarf worn by Mrs. Plume's nurse-companion, the Frenchwoman Elise, as

she came forth with her mistress to drive away from Sandy, as was her

hope, forever.



Prominent among those who had hastened down to Sudsville, after the

news of this discovery had gone buzzing through the line of officers'

quarters, was Janet Wren. Kate Sanders was staying with Angela, for

the girls seemed to find comfort in each other's presence and society.

Both had roused at sound of the clamor and were up and half dressed

when a passing hospital attendant hurriedly shouted to Miss Wren the

tidings. The girls, too, would have gone, but Aunt Janet sternly bade

them remain indoors. She would investigate, she said, and bring them

all information.



Dozens of the men were still hovering about old Shaughnessy's quarters

as the tall, gaunt form of the captain's sister came stalking through

the crowd, making straight for the doorway. The two senior officers,

Byrne and Plume, were, in low tones, interrogating Norah. Plume had

been shown the scarf and promptly seconded Norah. He knew it at

once--knew that, as Elise came forth that dismal morning and passed

under the light in the hall, she had this very scarf round her

throat--this that had been found upon the person of a wounded and

senseless girl. He remembered now that as the sun climbed higher and

the air grew warmer the day of their swift flight to Prescott, Elise

had thrown open her traveling sack, and he noticed that the scarf had

been discarded. He did not see it anywhere about the Concord, but that

proved nothing. She might easily have slipped it into her bag or under

the cushions of the seat. Both he and Byrne, therefore, watched with

no little interest when, after a brief glance at the feverish and

wounded Indian girl, moaning in the cot in Mrs. Shaughnessy's room,

Miss Wren returned to the open air, bearing the scarf with her. One

moment she studied it, under the dull gleam of the lantern of the

sergeant of the guard, and then slowly spoke:



"Gentlemen, I have seen this worn by Elise and I believe I know how

it came to find its way back here--and it does not brighten the

situation. From our piazza, the morning of Major Plume's start for

Prescott, I could plainly see Downs hanging about the wagon. It

started suddenly, as perhaps you remember, and as it rolled away

something went fluttering to the ground behind. Everybody was looking

after the Concord at the moment--everybody but Downs, who quickly

stooped, picked up the thing, and turned hurriedly away. I believe he

had this scarf when he deserted and that he has fallen into the hands

of the Apaches."



Byrne looked at the post commander without speaking. The color had

mounted one moment to the major's face, then left him pallid as

before. The hunted, haggard, weary look about his eyes had deepened.

That was all. The longer he lived, the longer he served about this

woebegone spot in mid Arizona, the more he realized the influence for

evil that handmaid of Shaitan seemed to exert over his vain, shallow,

yet beautiful and beloved wife. Against it he had wrought and pleaded

in vain. Elise had been with them since her babyhood, was his wife's

almost indignant reply. Elise had been faithful to her--devoted to her

all her life. Elise was indispensable; the only being that kept her

from going mad with home-sickness and misery in that God-forsaken

clime. Sobs and tears wound up each interview and, like many a

stronger man, Plume had succumbed. It might, indeed, be cruel to rob

her of Elise, the last living link that bound her to the blessed

memories of her childhood, and he only mildly strove to point out to

her how oddly, yet persistently, her good name had suffered through

the words and deeds of this flighty, melodramatic Frenchwoman.

Something of her baleful influence he had seen and suspected before

ever they came to their exile, but here at Sandy, with full force he

realized the extent of her machinations. Clarice was not the woman to

go prowling about the quarters in the dead hours of the night, no

matter how nervous and sleepless at home. Clarice was not the woman to

be having back-door conferences with the servants of other households,

much less the "striker" of an officer with whose name hers, as a

maiden, had once been linked. He recalled with a shudder the events of

the night that sent the soldier Mullins to hospital, robbed of his

wits, if not of his life. He recalled with dread the reluctant

admissions of the doctor and of Captain Wren. Sleep-walking, indeed!

Clarice never elsewhere at any time had shown somnambulistic symptoms.

It was Elise beyond doubt who had lured her forth for some purpose he

could neither foil nor fathom. It was Elise who kept up this

discreditable and mysterious commerce with Downs,--something that had

culminated in the burning of Blakely's home, with who knows what

evidence,--something that had terminated only with Downs's mad

desertion and probable death. All this and more went flashing through

his mind as Miss Wren finished her brief and significant story, and it

dawned upon him that, whatever it might be to others, the death of

Downs--to him, and to her whom he loved and whose honor he

cherished--was anything but a calamity, a thing to mourn. Too

generous to say the words, he yet turned with lightened heart and met

Byrne's searching eyes, then those of Miss Wren now fixed upon him

with austere challenge, as though she would say the flight and fate of

this friendless soldier were crimes to be laid only at his door.



Byrne saw the instant distress in his comrade's face, and, glancing

from him to her, almost in the same instant saw the inciting cause.

Byrne had one article of faith if he lacked the needful thirty-nine.

Women had no place in official affairs, no right to meddle in official

matters, and what he said on the spur of his rising resentment was

intended for her, though spoken to him. "So Downs skipped eastward,

did he, and the Apaches got him! Well, Plume, that saves us a

hanging." And Miss Wren turned away in wrath unspeakable.



That Downs had "skipped eastward" received further confirmation with

the coming day, when Wales Arnold rode into the fort from a personally

conducted scout up the Beaver. Riding out with Captain Stout's party,

he had paid a brief visit to his, for the time, abandoned ranch, and

was surprised to find there, unmolested, the two persons and all the

property he had left the day he hurried wife and household to the

shelter of the garrison. The two persons were half-breed Jose and his

Hualpai squaw. They had been with the Arnolds five long years, were

known to all the Apaches, and had ever been in highest favor with them

because of the liberality with which they dispensed the largesse of

their employer. Never went an Indian empty-stomached from their door.

All the stock Wales had time to gather he had driven in to Sandy. All

that was left Jose had found and corraled. Just one quadruped was

missing--Arnold's old mustang saddler, Dobbin. Jose said he had been

gone from the first and with him an old bridle and saddle. No Indian

took him, said he. It was a soldier. He had found "government boot

tracks" in the sand. Then Downs and Dobbin had gone together, but only

Dobbin might they ever look to see again.



It had been arranged between Byrne and Captain Stout that the little

relief column should rest in a deep canon beyond the springs from

which the Beaver took its source, and, later in the afternoon, push on

again on the long, stony climb toward the plateau of the upper

Mogollon. There stood, about twenty-five miles out from the post on a

bee line to the northeast, a sharp, rocky peak just high enough above

the fringing pines and cedars to be distinctly visible by day from the

crest of the nearest foothills west of the flagstaff. Along the sunset

face of this gleaming picacho there was a shelf or ledge that had

often been used by the Apaches for signaling purposes; the renegades

communicating with their kindred about the agency up the valley.

Invisible from the level of Camp Sandy, these fires by night, or smoke

and flashes by day, reached only those for whom they were

intended--the Apaches at the reservation; but Stout, who had known the

neighborhood since '65, had suggested that lookouts equipped with

binoculars be placed on the high ground back of the post. Inferior to

the savage in the craft, we had no code of smoke, fire, or, at that

time, even sun-flash signal, but it was arranged that one blaze was to

mean "Unmolested thus far." Two blazes, a few yards apart, would mean

"Important news by runner." In the latter event Plume was to push out

forty or fifty men in dispersed order to meet and protect the runner

in case he should be followed, or possibly headed off, by hostile

tribesmen. Only six Indian allies had gone with Stout and he had eyed

them with marked suspicion and disfavor. They, too, were Apache Yumas.

The day wore on slowly, somberly. All sound of life, melody, or

merriment had died out at Camp Sandy. Even the hounds seemed to feel

that a cloud of disaster hung over the garrison. Only at rare

intervals some feminine shape flitted along the line of deserted

verandas--some woman on a mission of mercy to some mourning,

sore-troubled sister among the scattered households. For several hours

before high noon the wires from Prescott had been hot with demand for

news, and with messages from Byrne or Plume to department

headquarters. At meridian, however, there came a lull, and at 2 P. M.

a break. Somewhere to the west the line was snapped and down. At 2.15

two linesmen galloped forth to find and repair damages, half a dozen

"doughboys" on a buckboard going as guard. Otherwise, all day long, no

soldier left the post, and when darkness settled down, the anxious

operator, seated at his keyboard, was still unable to wake the spirit

of the gleaming copper thread that spanned the westward wilderness.



All Sandy was wakeful, out on the broad parade, or the officers'

verandas, and gazing as one man or woman at the bold, black upheaval a

mile behind the post, at whose summit twinkled a tiny star, a single

lantern, telling of the vigil of Plume's watchers. If Stout made even

fair time he should have reached the picacho at dusk, and now it was

nearly nine and not a glimmer of fire had been seen at the appointed

rendezvous. Nine passed and 9.15, and at 9.30 the fifes and drums of

the Eighth turned out and began the long, weird complaint of the

tattoo. Nobody wished to go to bed. Why not sound reveille and let

them sit up all night, if they chose? It was far better than tossing

sleepless through the long hours to the dawn. It was nearly time for

"taps"--lights out--when a yell went up from the parade and all Sandy

started to its feet. All on a sudden the spark at the lookout bluff

began violently to dance, and a dozen men tore out of garrison, eager

to hear the news. They were met halfway by a sprinting corporal, whom

they halted with eager demand for his news. "Two blazes!" he panted,

"two! I must get in to the major at once!" Five minutes more the

Assembly, not Taps, was sounding. Plume was sending forth his fifty

rescuers, and with them, impatient for tidings from the far front,

went Byrne, the major himself following as soon as he could change to

riding dress. The last seen of the little command was the glinting of

the starlight on the gun barrels as they forded the rippling stream

and took the trail up the narrow, winding valley of the Beaver.



It was then a little after ten o'clock. The wire to Prescott was still

unresponsive. Nothing had been heard from the linesmen and their

escort, indicating that the break was probably far over as the Agua

Fria. Not a sign, except Stout's signal blazes at the picacho, had

been gathered from the front. Camp Sandy was cut off from the world,

and the actual garrison left to guard the post and protect the women,

children and the sick as eleven o'clock drew nigh, was exactly forty

men of the fighting force. It was believed that Stout's couriers would

make the homeward run, very nearly, by the route the pack-train took

throughout the day, and if they succeeded in evading hostile scouts or

parties, would soon appear about some of the breaks of the upper

Beaver. Thither, therefore, with all possible speed Plume had directed

his men, promising Mrs. Sanders, as he rode away, that the moment a

runner was encountered he would send a light rider at the gallop, on

his own good horse--that not a moment should be lost in bearing them

the news.



But midnight came without a sign. Long before that hour, as though by

common impulse, almost all the women of the garrison had gathered

about Truman's quarters, now the northernmost of the row and in plain

view of the confluence of the Sandy and the Beaver. Dr. Graham, who

had been swinging to and fro between the limits of the Shaughnessys'

and the hospital, stopped to speak with them a moment and gently drew

Angela to one side. His grave and rugged face was sweet in its

tenderness as he looked down into her brimming eyes. "Can you not be

content at home, my child?" he murmured. "You seem like one of my own

bairns, Angela, now that your brave father is afield, and I want to

have his bonnie daughter looking her best against the home-coming.

Surely Aunt Janet will bring you the news the moment any comes, and

I'll bid Kate Sanders bide with you!"



No, she would not--she could not go home. Like every other soul in all

Camp Sandy she seemed to long to be just there. Some few had even gone

out further, beyond the sentries, to the point of the low bluff, and

there, chatting only in whispers, huddled together, listening in

anxiety inexpressible for the muffled sound of galloping hoofs on soft

and sandy shore. No, she dare not, for within the four walls of that

little white room what dreams and visions had the girl not seen? and,

wakening shuddering, had clung to faithful Kate and sobbed her heart

out in those clasping, tender, loyal arms. No beauty, indeed, was

Kate, as even her fond mother ruefully admitted, but there was that in

her great, gentle, unselfish heart that made her beloved by one and

all. Yet Kate had pleaded with Angela in vain. Some strange, forceful

mood had seized the girl and steeled and strengthened her against even

Janet Wren's authority. She would not leave the little band of

watchers. She was there when, toward half-past twelve, at last the

message came. Plume's own horse came tearing through the flood, and

panting, reeking, trembling into their midst, and his rider, little

Fifer Lanigan, of Company "C," sprang from saddle and thrust his

dispatch into Truman's outstretched hand.



With women and children crowding about him, and men running to the

scene from every side, by the light of a lantern held in a soldier's

shaking hand, he read aloud the contents:



"BIVOUAC AT PICACHO, 9 P. M.



"C. O. CAMP SANDY:



"Reached this point after hard march, but no active

opposition, at 8 P. M. First party sent to build fire on

ledge driven in by hostiles. Corporal Welch shot through

left side--serious. Threw out skirmishers and drove them off

after some firing, and about 9.20 came suddenly upon Indian

boy crouching among rocks, who held up folded paper which I

have read and forward herewith. We shall, of course, turn

toward Snow Lake, taking boy as guide. March at 3 A. M. Will

do everything possible to reach Wren on time.



(Signed) "STOUT, Commanding."



Within was another slip, grimy and with dark stains. And Truman's

voice well-nigh failed him as he read:



"November --th.



"C. O. CAMP SANDY:



"Through a friendly Apache who was with me at the

reservation I learned that Captain Wren was lying wounded,

cut off from his troop and with only four of his men, in a

canon southwest of Snow Lake. With Indian for guide we

succeeded reaching him second night, but are now surrounded,

nearly out of ammunition and rations. Three more of our

party are wounded and one, Trooper Kent, killed. If not

rushed can hold out perhaps three days more, but Wren sorely

needs surgical aid.



(Signed) "BLAKELY."



That was all. The Bugologist with his one orderly, and apparently

without the Apache Yuma scouts, had gone straightway to the rescue of

Wren. Now all were cut off and surrounded by a wily foe that counted

on, sooner or later, overcoming and annihilating them, and even by the

time the Indian runner slipped out (some faithful spirit won by

Blakely's kindness and humanity when acting agent), the defense had

been reduced just one-half. Thank God that Stout with his supplies and

stalwart followers was not more than two days' march away, and was

going straightway to the rescue!



It was nearly two when Plume and his half-hundred came drifting back

to the garrison, and even then some few of the watchers were along the

bluff. Janet Wren, having at last seen pale-faced, silent Angela to

her room and bed, with Kate Sanders on guard, had again gone forth to

extract such further information as Major Plume might have. Even at

that hour men were at work in the corrals, fitting saddles to half a

dozen spare horses,--about all that were left at the post,--and Miss

Wren learned that Colonel Byrne, with an orderly or two, had remained

at Arnold's ranch,--that Arnold himself, with six horsemen from the

post, was to set forth at four, join the colonel at dawn, and together

all were to push forward on the trail of Stout's command, hoping to

overtake them by nightfall. She whispered this to sleepless Kate on

her return to the house, for Angela, exhausted with grief and long

suspense, had fallen, apparently, into deep and dreamless slumber.



But the end of that eventful night was not yet. Arnold and his

sextette slipped away soon after four o'clock, and about 4.50 there

came a banging at the major's door. It was the telegraph operator. The

wire was patched at last, and the first message was to the effect that

the guard had been fired on in Cherry Creek canon--that Private



Forrest was sorely wounded and lying at Dick's deserted ranch, with

two of their number to care for him. Could they possibly send a

surgeon at once?



There was no one to go but Graham. His patients at the post were doing

fairly well, but there wasn't a horse for him to ride. "No matter,"

said he, "I'll borrow Punch. He's needing exercise these days." So

Punch was ordered man-saddled and brought forthwith. The orderly came

back in ten minutes. "Punch aint there, sir," said he. "He's been gone

over half an hour."



"Gone? Gone where? Gone how?" asked Graham in amaze.



"Gone with Miss Angela, sir. She saddled him herself and rode away not

twenty minutes after Arnold's party left. The sentries say she

followed up the Beaver."