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

The earth was again magically smitten to crystal. Again the sharp cactus and 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 judicious mixture of whiskey and water down the boy's throat, and wrapped the awful foot in his own flannel shirt. "They'll fix y'u over to Grant. It's maybe twelve miles through the canon. It ain't a town any more than Carlos is, but the soldiers'll be good to us. As soon as night comes you and me must somehow git out of this."

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



THE SERENADE AT SISKIYOU

Unskilled at murder and without training in running away, one of the two Healy boys had been caught with ease soon after their crime. What they had done may be best learned in the following extract from a certain official 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 was brought into town, and the wretch's life had come near a violent end at the hands of the mob, for Buck Montgomery had many friends. But the steadier citizens preserved the peace, and the murderer was in the prison awaiting his trial by formal law. It was now some weeks since the tragedy, 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 big nose.

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

Mrs. Campbell dallied over her eggs, shaking her head. Presently she sighed. But as Amanda often did this, her husband finished his own eggs and took some more. "Poor boy!" said the lady, pensively. "Only twenty-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 was thirty-five."

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

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

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

"Well, my dear?"

"You ask me that. You pretend ignorance of that disgraceful scene. Who was it said to me right in the street that he disapproved of lynching? I ask 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 of Siskiyou, who was it got that trembling boy safe inside from those yelling 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 the other one, and he'll be up with the sheriff on to-night's train, and I suppose they'll lynch him now!"

"There's not the slightest danger," said the judge. "The town wants them to have a fair trial. It was natural that immediately after such an atrocious 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 his back. You needn't tell me all that again. If he'd thrown out the express box quicker they wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head. Wells and Fargo's messengers know that perfectly. It was his own fault. Those boys had no employment, and they only wanted money. They did not seek human blood, and you needn't tell me they did."

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

"Yes, you keep going back to that as if they'd all been murdered instead of only one, and you don't care about those two poor boys locked in a dungeon, and their gray-haired father down in Fresno County who never did anything wrong at all, and he sixty-one in December."

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

"That will do, Judge Campbell," said his lady, rising. "I shall say no more. 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 no means silver. Not even life with you for twenty-five years this coming 10th of July has inured me to insult. I am capable of understanding whom they think of hanging, and your speaking to me as if I did not does you little credit; for it was a mere refuge from a woman's just accusation of 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 the street to the Ladies' Lyceum where I shall find companions with some spark of humanity in their bosoms and milk of human kindness for those whose hasty youth has plunged them in misery and delivered them to the hands of those who treat them as if they were stones and sticks full of nothing but monstrosity instead of breathing men like themselves to be shielded by brotherhood and hope and not dashed down by cruelty and despair."

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

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

"To think of it!" they exclaimed, at her news of the capture, for none had 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 they instantly forgot the wide spiritual issues raised by this inquiry, and plunged into the fascinations of crime, reciting once more to each other the details of the recent tragedy. The room hired for the Lyceum was in a second story above the apothecary and book shop—a combined enterprise in Siskiyou—and was furnished with fourteen rocking-chairs. Pictures of Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott ornamented the wall, with a photograph from an old master representing Leda and the Swan. This typified the Lyceum's approval of Art, and had been presented by one of the husbands upon returning from a three days' business trip to San Francisco.

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

"Melody has its sphere, Gertrude," said Mrs. Campbell, in a wholesome voice. "We must not be morbid. But this I say to you, one and all: Since the men of Siskiyou refuse, it is for the women to vindicate the town's humanity, 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 do I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and the 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 him in his hour of need," Mrs. Campbell continued.

"We'll go and meet the train!" Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, eagerly. "I've never seen a real murderer."

"A bunch of flowers for him," said Mrs. Parsons, closing her mournful eyes. "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 sat a little apart from the close-drawn clump of talkers, "that we might send the widow some flowers too, some time?" Miss Sissons was a pretty girl, with neat hair. She was engaged to the captain of Siskiyou's baseball nine.

"The widow?" Mrs. Campbell looked vague.

"Mrs. Montgomery, I mean—the murdered man's wife. I—I went to see if I could 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 to her. Yes, dear, we'll attend to her after a while. We'll have her with us right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may—may be—may soon meet a cruel death on the scaffold." Mrs. Campbell evaded the phrase "may be hanged" rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical sense it 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. "I thought 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 lynch the first one? They'll be on the jury!"

The clump returned to their discussion of the flowers, and Miss Sissons presently 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 the influence of a man. Well, as I was saying, roses and lilies are too big."

"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 be walked to the jail between strong men. We must have some small bokay to pin on his coat, for his hands will be shackled."

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

So violets were selected; Mrs. Campbell brought some in the afternoon from her own borders, and Mrs. Parsons furnished a large pin. She claimed also the right to affix the decoration upon the prisoner's breast because she had suggested the idea of flowers; but the other ladies protested, and the president seemed to think that they all should draw lots. It fell to Mrs. Day.

"Now I declare!" twittered the little matron. "I do believe I'll never dare."

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

"Oh dear no, Mrs. Campbell. Why, I never—my gracious! Why, if I'd known I 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 the shackles and everything."

She flew down-stairs, and immediately the town of Siskiyou saw twelve members of the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum follow her in a hasty phalanx across the square to the station. The train approached slowly up the grade, and by the time the wide smoke-stack of the locomotive was puffing its wood smoke in clouds along the platform, Amanda had marshalled her company there.

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

"Nowheres, I guess, Abe," the agent replied. "Leastways, they 'ain't bought any tickets off me."

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

The mail and baggage cars had passed, and the women watched the smoking-car that drew up opposite them. Mrs. Campbell had informed her friends that the sheriff always went in the smoker; but on this occasion, for some reason, he had brought his prisoner in the Pullman sleeper at the rear, some way down the track, and Amanda's vigilant eye suddenly caught the group, already descended and walking away. The platoon of sympathy set off, and rapidly came up with the sheriff, while Bill, Abe, the train conductor, the Pullman conductor, the engineer, and the fireman abandoned their duty, and stared, in company with the brakemen and many passengers. There was perfect silence but for the pumping of the air-brake on the engine. The sheriff, not understanding what was coming, had half drawn his pistol; but now, surrounded by universal petticoats, he pulled off his hat and grinned doubtfully. The friend with him also stood bareheaded and grinning. He was young Jim Hornbrook, the muscular betrothed of Miss Sissons. The prisoner could not remove his hat, or he would have done so. Miss Sissons, who had come to the train to meet her lover, was laughing extremely in the middle of the road.

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

"Nonsense," said Amanda, stepping forward and grasping the flowers. "The women of Siskiyou are with you," she said, "as we are with all the afflicted." Then she pinned the violets firmly to the prisoner's flannel shirt. 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," said the 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' fool thing I ever did see."

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

The platoon, well content, dispersed homeward to supper, and Jim Hornbrook 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's just 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 really didn't seem to feel sorry—except just for a minute—about that poor woman."

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

"Resign from the Lyceum? That's so silly of you, Jim. We're not all crazy there; and that," said Miss Sissons, demurely, "is what makes a girl 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 see here, Louise," he called after her, "when I say they're playing with fire I mean it. That woman will make trouble in this town."

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

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

Mrs. Campbell sat opposite the judge at supper, and he saw at once from her complacent reticence that she had achieved some triumph against his principles. She chatted about topics of the day in terms that were ingeniously trite. Then a letter came from their son in Denver, and she forgot her role somewhat, and read the letter aloud to the judge, and wondered wistfully who in Denver attended to the boy's buttons and socks; but she made no reference whatever to Siskiyou jail or those inside 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, more incisively, "it don't look well that I should represent the law while my wife figures" (he shook the morning paper) "as a public nuisance. And one thing more: Look out! For if I know this community, and I think I do, you may raise something you don't bargain for."

"I can take care of myself, judge," said Amanda, always smiling. These two never were angry both at once, and to-day it was the judge that sailed out of the house. Amanda pounced instantly upon the paper. The article was headed "Sweet Violets." But the editorial satire only spurred the lady to higher efforts. She proceeded to the Lyceum, and found that "Sweet Violets" had been there before her. Every woman held a copy, and the fourteen rocking-chairs were swooping up and down like things in a factory. In the presence of this blizzard, Mount Shasta, Lucretia Mott, and even Leda and the Swan looked singularly serene on their wall, although on the other side of the wall the "Fatinitza" march was booming brilliantly. But Amanda quieted the storm. It was her gift to be calm when others were not, and soon the rocking-chairs were merely rippling.

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

"For men I care not," said Mrs. Parsons. "But when my own sister upbraids me in a public place—" The lady's voice ceased, and she raised her mournful eyes. It seemed she had encountered her unnatural relative at the post-office. Everybody had a tale similar. Siskiyou had denounced their 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 the treasure; and they huddled to hear it. It was very affecting. It mentioned the violets blooming beside the hard couch, and spoke of prayer.

"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. We must act. Our course is chosen, and well chosen. The prison fare is a sin, 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 an ecstasy, and fell to planning a series of lunches in spite of what Siskiyou might say or do. Siskiyou did not say very much; but it looked; and the ladies waxed more enthusiastic, luxuriating in a sense of martyrdom because now the prisoners were stopped writing any more letters to them. This was doubtless a high-handed step, and it set certain pulpits preaching about love. The day set for the trial was approaching; Amanda and her flock were going. Prayer-meetings were held, food and flowers for the two in jail increased in volume, and every day saw some of the Lyceum waiting below the prisoners' barred windows till the men inside would thrust a hand through and wave to them; then they would shake a handkerchief in reply, and go away thrilled to talk it over at the Lyceum. And Siskiyou looked on all the while, darker and darker.

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

"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 soon bewildered, and at last gave a dubious consent, "since it would blease de ladies."

The president of the Lyceum arranged the coming event after her own heart. The voice of Woman should speak in Siskiyou. The helpless victims of male prejudice and the law of the land were to be flanked with consolation and encouragement upon the eve of their ordeal in court. In their lonely cell they were to feel that there were those outside whose hearts beat with theirs. The floral tribute was to be sumptuous, and Amanda had sent to San Francisco for pound-cake. The special quality she desired could not be achieved by the Siskiyou confectioner.

Miss Sissons was not a party to this enterprise, and she told its various details to Jim Hornbrook, half in anger, half in derision. He listened 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 fatal promise of obedience—" But she stopped, perceiving her joke was not a good one. "Of course, Jim, if you feel that way," she finished. "Only I'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 swear everything won't be nice and all right and what a woman could be mixed up in, but—well, how should you know what men are, anyway, when they've been a good long time getting mad, and are mad all through? That's what this 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, "that the 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, bearing the box of confectionery, addressed to the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum. Bill, the ticket-agent, held his lantern over it on the platform.

"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 the jail. "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 how unwholesome a harmless thing can be if administered at the wrong time. The gaunt, savage-looking Californian went up to the box slowly. Then he kicked it lightly with his big boot, seeming to listen to its reverberation. Then he read the address. Then he sat down on the box to take a think. After a time he began speaking aloud. "They hold up a stage," he said, slowly. "They lay up a passenger fer a month. And they lame Bob Griffiths fer life. And then they do up Buck. Shoot a hole through his spine. And I helped bury him; fer I liked Buck." The speaker paused, and looked at the box. Then he got up. "I hain't attended their prayer-meetin's," said he, "and I hain't smelt their flowers. Such perfume's liable to make me throw up. But I guess I'll hev a look at their cake."

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

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

Herr Schwartz entered. "It's all right, madam," said he. "My trombone haf 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 and shawl, and marshalled down-stairs with the band.

"Ready," said Amanda.

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

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

"So!" exclaimed Herr Schwartz. "Dot was dose Healy boys we haf come to gif 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 very leedle attention to our Allegro."

So "Fatinitza" trumpeted on while the two on the ropes twisted, and grew still by-and-by. Then the masked men let the band go home. The Lyceum had scattered and fled long since, and many days passed before it revived again to civic usefulness, nor did its members find comfort from their men. Herr Schwartz gave a parting look at the bodies of the lynched murderers. "My!" said he, "das Ewigweibliche haf draw them apove sure enough."

Miss Sissons next day was walking and talking off her shock and excitement with her lover. "And oh, Jim," she concluded, after they had said 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 his face, she hastily exclaimed: "Never mind! I don't want to know—ever!"

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



THE GENERAL'S BLUFF

The troops this day had gone into winter-quarters, and sat down to kill the idle time with pleasure until spring. After two hundred and forty days it is a good thing to sit down. The season had been spent in trailing, and sometimes catching, small bands of Indians. These had taken the habit of relieving settlers of their cattle and the tops of their heads. The weather-beaten troops had scouted over some two thousand aimless, veering miles, for the savages were fleet and mostly invisible, and knew the desert well. So, while the year turned, and the heat came, held sway, and went, the ragged troopers on the frontier were led an endless chase by the hostiles, who took them back and forth over flats of lime and ridges of slate, occasionally picking off a packer or a couple of privates, until now the sun was setting at 4.28 and it froze at any time of day. Therefore the rest of the packers and privates were glad to march into Boise Barracks this morning by eleven, and see a stove.

They rolled for a moment on their bunks to get the feel of a bunk again after two hundred and forty days; they ate their dinner at a table; those who owned any further baggage than that which partially covered their nakedness unpacked it, perhaps nailed up a photograph or two, and found it grateful to sit and do nothing under a roof and listen to the grated snow whip the windows of the gray sandstone quarters. Such comfort, and the prospect of more ahead, of weeks of nothing but post duty and staying in the same place, obliterated Dry Camp, Cow Creek Lake, the blizzard on Meacham's Hill, the horse-killing in the John Day Valley, Saw-Tooth stampede, and all the recent evils of the past; the quarters hummed with cheerfulness. The nearest railroad was some four hundred miles to the southeast, slowly constructing to meet the next nearest, which was some nine hundred to the southeast; but Boise City was only three-quarters of a mile away, the largest town in the Territory, the capital, not a temperance town, a winter resort; and several hundred people lived in it, men and women, few of whom ever died in 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' Merrickin flag," observed a civilian. His name was Jack Long, and he was pack-master.

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

Jones continued to pick his banjo, while a boyish trooper with tough black hair sat near him and kept time with his heels. "It's a cottonwood-tree I was speakin' of," observed Jones. There was one—a little, shivering white stalk. It stood above the flat where the barracks were, on a bench twenty or thirty feet higher, on which were built the officers' quarters. The air was getting dim with the fine, hard snow that slanted through it. The thermometer was ten above out there. At the mere sight and thought Mr. Long produced a flat bottle, warm from proximity to his flesh. Jones swallowed some drink, and looked at the little tree. "Snakes! but it feels good," said he, "to get something inside y'u and be inside yerself. What's the tax at Mike's dance-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, the black-haired boy. "'Sigh no more, ladies,'" he continued, singing. "The blamed banjo won't accompany that," he remarked, and looked out again at the 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 through the storm. "Th' ole man!" he said.

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

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

The General had reached Boise City that morning by the stage, quietly and unknown, as was his way. He had come to hunt Indians in the district of the Owyhee. Jack Long had discovered this, but only a few had been told the news, for the General wished to ask questions and receive answers, and to find out about all things; and he had noticed that this is not easy when too many people know who you are. He had called upon a friend or two in Boise, walked about unnoticed, learned a number of facts, and now, true to his habit, entered the post wearing no uniform, none being necessary under the circumstances, and unattended by a single orderly. Jones and the black-haired Cumnor hoped he was a peddler, and innocently sat looking out of the window at him riding along the bench in front of the quarters, and occasionally slouching his wide, dark hat-brim against the stinging of the hard flakes. Jack Long, old and much experienced with the army, had scouted with Crook before, and knew him and his ways well. He also looked out of the window, standing behind Jones and Cumnor, with a huge hairy hand on a shoulder of each, and a huge wink again at Keyser.

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

"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, the missis she'll fly right on to 'em. Sh' 'ain't been merried out yere only haff'n year, 'n' when she spies feathers 'n' bead truck 'n' buckskin fer sale 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 their grooming. Jack Long stood at the door and watched them file through the snow.

Very few enlisted men of the small command that had come in this morning from its campaign had ever seen General Crook. Jones, though not new to the frontier, had not been long in the army. He and Cumnor had enlisted in a happy-go-lucky manner together at Grant, in Arizona, when the General was elsewhere. Discipline was galling to his vagrant spirit, and after each pay-day he had generally slept off the effects in the guard-house, going there for other offences between-whiles; but he was not of the stuff that deserts; also, he was excellent tempered, and his captain liked him for the way in which he could shoot Indians. Jack Long liked him too; and getting always a harmless pleasure from the mistakes of 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 the squaw interpreter who had approached him so noiselessly. "Hy-as kloshe o-coke sun" (It is a beautiful day).

The interpreter laughed—she had a broad, sweet, coarse face, and laughed 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 up here—"

"Anybody killed?" Long interrupted.

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

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

"Not burn. Just make heap mess. Cut up feather-bed hy-as ten-as (very small) and eat big dinner, hu-hu! Sugar, onions, meat, eat all. Then they 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—in molasses; put 'em in feather-bed; all same bird. Then they hunt for whiskey, break everything, hunt all over, ha-lo whiskey!" Sarah shook her 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 Meester Dailey 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 more run. But two Injuns heap sick; can't run. Meester Dailey he come round the corner; see awful mess everywhere; see two litt' cats sittin' in door 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 catch him. All same jack rabbit."

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

"Gen'l Crook!" said the squaw. "He come! Ho! He heap savvy." She stopped, and laughed again, like a pleased child. "Maybe no catch E-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 remembered that long time, when she slept in a tent and had not been captured and put to school. And she remembered the tall young boys whom she used to watch shoot arrows, and the tallest, who shot most truly—at least, he certainly did now in her imagination. He had never spoken to her or looked at her. He was a boy of fourteen and she a girl of eight. Now she was twenty-five. Also she was tame and domesticated, with a white husband 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 own tongue 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 being an Indian, and she liked to think that her race could outwit the soldier now and then. She laughed again when she thought of old Mrs. Dailey running from E-egante.

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

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

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

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

"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 too damn bad," he concluded, plaintively.

Mr. Long, in the background, was whining to himself with joy, and he now urgently 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 was moving away, "decks, and tobacco better than what they keep at the commissary. Me and my friend'll take some off your hands. And if you're comin' with new stock to-morrow, uncle" (Jones was now shouting after him), "why, we're single men, and y'u might fetch along a couple of squaws!"

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

"What's up with you, y'u ape?" inquired Specimen Jones. He looked at the departing peddler and saw Sergeant Keyser meet him and salute with stern, 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. "It ain't every young enlisted man," he was saying, "ez hez th' privilege of explainin' 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?" The disgusting truth flashed clear on Jones. Uttering a single disconcerted syllable of rage, he wheeled and went by himself into the barracks, and lay down solitary on his bunk and read a newspaper until mess-call without taking in a word of it. "If they go to put me in the mill fer that," he said, sulkily, to many friends who brought him their congratulations, "I'm going to give 'em what I think about wearin' disguises."



"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' the General, 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 than putting poor Jones in the guard-house. The trooper's willingness, after eight months hunting Indians, to buy almost anything brought a smile to his lips, and a certain sympathy in his heart. He knew what those eight months had been like; how monotonous, how well endured, how often dangerous, how invariably plucky, how scant of even the necessities of life, how barren of glory, and unrewarded by public recognition. The American "statesman" does not care about our army until it becomes necessary for his immediate personal protection. General Crook knew all this well; and realizing that these soldiers, who had come into winter-quarters this morning at eleven, had earned a holiday, he was sorry 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 small bands of Indians that were roving through the country of the Snake and its tributaries, a danger to the miners in the Bannock Basin, and to the various ranches in west Idaho and east Oregon. As usual, he had been given an insufficient force to accomplish this, and, as always, he had been instructed by the "statesmen" to do it without violence—that is to say, he must never shoot the poor Indian until after the poor Indian 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 garrison at Boise Barracks—one troop of cavalry and one company of infantry. The latter was not adapted to the matter in hand—rapid marching and surprises; all it could be used for was as a reinforcement, and, moreover, somebody must be left at Boise Barracks. The cavalry had had its full dose of scouting and skirmishing and long exposed marches, the horses were poor, and nobody had any trousers to speak of. Also, the troop was greatly depleted; it numbered forty men. Forty had deserted, and three—a sergeant and three privates—had cooked and eaten a vegetable they had been glad to dig up one day, and had spent the ensuing forty-five minutes in attempting to make their ankles beat the backs of their heads; after that the captain had read over them a sentence beginning, "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery"; and after that the camp was referred to as Wild Carrot Camp, because the sergeant had said the vegetable was wild carrot, whereas it had really been wild parsnip, which is quite another thing.

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

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

"I think so," said the General. "This E-egante is likely to make trouble if he is not checked." Then, understanding the thoughts of Captain Glynn, 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 long time and had to get ready for a start."

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

"Certainly. And, Captain Glynn, I took the liberty of giving a few directions myself. We'll take an A tent, you know, for you and me. I see Keyser is sergeant in F troop. Glad we have a non-commissioned officer so competent. Haven't seen him since '64, at Winchester. Why, it's cleared 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 that little cottonwood-tree. Haven't you often noticed how much finer the stars shine in this atmosphere than in the East? Oh, captain! I forgot to 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-half horses have smallish hoofs."

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

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

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

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

Down at the barracks there was the same curiosity about what the "Old Man" was going to do as existed at the post commander's during the early part of supper. It pleased the cavalry to tell the infantry that the Old 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 to the river and the week, and it was hard luck the General needed only mounted troops on this trip. Others had heard he had come to superintend the building of a line of telegraph to Klamath, which would be a good winter's job for somebody; but nobody supposed that anything would happen yet awhile.

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

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

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

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

"Why, y'u talk almost like a man, Jock," said Specimen Jones. "Blamed if y'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 heels and 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 a man must take his medicine, y'u know, and not squeal." Jones had lowered his voice, and now spoke without satire to the boy whom he had in a curious manner taken under his protection.

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

"Look at my coat, Cumnor." It was Sergeant Keyser showing the article furnished the soldier by the government. "You can spit through that." He had overheard their talk, and stepped up to show that all were in the same box. At his presence reticence fell upon the privates, and Cumnor hauled his black felt hat down tight in embarrassment, which strain split it open half-way round his head. It was another sample of regulation clothing, and they laughed at it.

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

And so at two in the morning F troop left the bunks it had expected to sleep in for some undisturbed weeks, and by four o'clock had eaten its well-known breakfast of bacon and bad coffee, and was following the "awful old man" down the north bank of the Boise, leaving the silent, dead, wooden town of shanties on the other side half a mile behind in the darkness. The mountains south stood distant, ignoble, plain-featured heights, looming a clean-cut black beneath the piercing stars and the slice of hard, sharp-edged moon, and the surrounding plains of sage and dry-cracking weed slanted up and down to nowhere and nothing with desolate perpetuity. The snowfall was light and dry as sand, and the bare ground jutted through it at every sudden lump or knoll. The column moved through the dead polar silence, scarcely breaking it. Now and then a hoof rang on a stone, here and there a bridle or a sabre clinked lightly; but it was too cold and early for talking, and the only steady sound was the flat, can-like tankle of the square bell that hung on the neck of the long-eared leader of the pack-train. They passed the Dailey ranch, and saw the kittens and the liniment-bottle, but could get no information as to what way E-egante had gone. The General did not care for that, however; he had devised his own route for the present, after a talk with the Indian guides. At the second dismounting during march he had word sent back to the pack-train not to fall behind, and the bell was to be taken off if the rest of the mules would follow without the sound of its shallow music. No wind moved the weeds or shook the stiff grass, and the rising sun glittered pink on the patched and motley-shirted men as they blew on their red hands or beat them against their legs. Some were lucky enough to have woollen or fur gloves, but many had only the white cotton affairs furnished by the government. Sarah the squaw laughed at them: the interpreter was warm as she rode in her bright green shawl. While the dismounted troopers stretched their limbs during the halt, she remained on her pony talking to one and another.

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

"Thet's what he does, Sarah."

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

"No, no," assented Mr. Long. "Gray Fox go teh-teh" (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 him heap 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 line of march was taken up as before, Crook at the head of the column, his ragged fur collar turned up, his corduroys stuffed inside a wrinkled pair of boots, the shot-gun balanced across his saddle, and nothing to reveal that he was any one in particular, unless you saw his face. As the morning grew bright, and empty, silent Idaho glistened under the clear blue, the General talked a little to Captain Glynn.

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

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

"So should I, captain. But next time he might dip Mrs. Dailey. And I'm not sure he didn't have a hand in more serious work. Didn't you run across 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 the west side of the Des Chutes."

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

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

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

"How strong is this band reported, sir?"

"I've heard nothing I can set reliance upon," said Crook, instinctively levelling his shot-gun at a big bird that rose; then he replaced the piece across his saddle and was silent. Now Captain Glynn had heard there were three hundred Indians with E-egante, which was a larger number than he had been in the habit of attacking with forty men. But he felt discreet about volunteering any information to the General after last night's exhibition of what the General knew. Crook partly answered what 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. They have made up their minds—that is, if I know them—that we're going to loaf inside Boise Barracks until the hard weather lets up."

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

The captain agreed that there was nothing like a false impression for assisting the efficacy of military movements, and presently the General asked him to command a halt. It was high noon, and the sun gleamed on the brass trumpet as the long note blew. Again the musical strain sounded on the cold, bright stillness, and the double line of twenty legs swung in a simultaneous arc over the horses' backs as the men dismounted.

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

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

"I see you haven't forgotten how to pack," Crook said to him. "Can we make 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, five pounds next ten, and you're out of grain for the next ten. Is that the way still?"

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

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

They made Snake River. Crook knew better than Long what the animals could do. And next day they crossed, again by starlight, turned for a little 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 barren height of land, and made for the Malheur River, finding the eight hoofs of two deer lying in a melted place where a fire had been. Mr. Dailey had insisted that at least fifty Indians had drunk his liniment and trifled with his cats. Indeed, at times during his talk with General Crook the old gentleman had been sure there were a hundred. If this were their trail which the command had now struck, there may possibly have been eight. It was quite evident that the chief had not taken any three hundred warriors upon that visit, if he had that number anywhere. So the column went up the Malheur main stream through the sage-brush and the gray weather (it was still cold, but no sun any more these last two days), and, coming to the North Fork, turned up towards a spur of the mountains and Castle Rock. The water ran smooth black between its edging of ice, thick, white, and crusted like slabs of cocoanut candy, and there 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 of willow thicket, dense, tall as two men, a netted brown and yellow mesh of twigs and stiff wintry rods. Out from the level of their close, nature-woven tops rose at distances the straight, slight blue smoke-lines, marking each the position of some invisible lodge. The whole acre was a bottom ploughed at some former time by a wash-out, and the troops looked down on it from the edge of the higher ground, silent in the quiet, gray afternoon, the empty sage-brush territory stretching a short way to fluted hills that were white below and blackened with pines above.

The General, taking a rough chance as he often did, sent ground scouts forward and ordered a charge instantly, to catch the savages unready; and the stiff rods snapped and tangled between the beating hoofs. The horses 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 the General 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 glared at 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 serene and even innocent, fitted to harbor birds—not birds of prey—and the quiet smoke threaded upwards through the air. Of course the liniment-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 would have been less worth watching. Two willow branches shook, making a vanishing ripple on the smooth surface of the tree-tops. The pack-train was just coming in sight over the rise, and Crook immediately sent an orderly with some message. More willow branches shivered an instant and were still; then, while the General and the captain sat on their horses and watched, the thicket gave up its secret to them; for, as little light gusts coming abreast over a lake travel and touch the water, so in different spots the level maze of twigs was stirred; and if the eye fastened upon any one of these it could have been seen to come out from the centre towards the edge, successive twigs moving, as the tops of long grass tremble and mark the progress of a snake. During a short while this increased greatly, the whole thicket moving with innumerable tracks. Then everything ceased, with the blue wands of smoke rising always into the quiet afternoon.

"Can you see 'em?" said Glynn.

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

Glynn mentioned his tale of the three hundred.

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

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

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

"You tell E-egante," he said, "that I am not going to fight with his people 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. Ask E-egante if he has heard of Gray Fox. Tell him Gray Fox wishes E-egante and all his people to be ready to go with him to-morrow at nine o'clock."

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

On that there was a moving in the bushes farther along, and, going opposite that place with the squaw, Crook and Glynn saw a narrow entrance across which some few branches reached that were now spread aside 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 with fringe 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," he continued to the squaw, "that I will not send for more soldiers than he sees here. I do not wish anything but peace unless he wishes otherwise."

Sarah's musical voice sounded again from the bank, and E-egante watched her 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 had not hurt them. Gray Fox would not hurt any one till their hand was raised against him first. E-egante and his people had wondered why the horses made so much noise just now. He and his people would come to-morrow with Gray Fox.

And then he went inside the thicket again, and the willows looked as innocent 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 the place. I'll give you my notion, captain. If I had said we had more soldiers behind the hill, like as not this squaw of ours would have told him I lied; she's an uncertain quantity, I find. But I told him the exact truth—that I had no more—and he won't believe it, and that's what I want."

So Glynn understood. The pack-train had been halted in a purposely exposed position, which would look to the Indians as if another force was certainly behind it, and every move was now made to give an impression 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 troops went into camp regardlessly near. The horses were turned out to graze ostentatiously unprotected, so that the people in the thicket should have every chance to notice how secure the white men felt. The mules pastured comfortably over the shallow snow that crushed as they wandered among the sage-bush, and the square bell hung once more from the neck of the leader and tankled upon the hill. The shelter-tents littered the flat above the wash-out, and besides the cook-fire others were built irregularly far down the Malheur North Fork, shedding an extended glimmer of deceit. It might have been the camp of many hundred. A little blaze shone comfortably on the canvas of Crook's tent, and Sergeant Keyser, being in charge of camp, had adopted the troop cook-fire for his camp guard after the cooks had finished their work. The willow thicket below grew black and mysterious, and quiet fell on the white camp. By eight the troopers had gone to bed. Night had come pretty cold, and a little occasional breeze, that passed like a chill hand laid a moment on the face, and went down into the willows. Now and again the water running through the ice would lap and gurgle at some air-hole. Sergeant Keyser sat by his fire and listened to the lonely bell sounding from the dark. He wished the men would feel more at home with him. With Jack Long, satirical, old, and experienced, they were perfectly familiar, because he was a civilian; but to Keyser, because he had been in command of a battalion, they held the attitude of school-boys to a master—the instinctive feeling of all privates towards all officers. Jones and Cumnor were members of his camp guard. Being just now off post, they stood 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 it much myself. Sit down and get warm, won't you?"

The men came and stood awkwardly. "I 'ain't never found any excitement in 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. Jones kicked 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 his tobacco-pouch. Presently they were seated, and the conversation going better. Arizona was compared with Idaho. Everybody had gone to bed.

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

"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, "coming to an ice-box from a hundred thousand in the shade, it's a wonder a man don'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 not running away. Nor had he weapons. He rode into the fire-light, and "How! how!" he repeated, anxiously. He looked and nodded at the three, who remained 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 his horse, looking at the men, the camp, the cook-fire, the A tent, and beyond into the surrounding silence. He started when the bell suddenly jangled near by. The wandering mule had only shifted in towards the camp and shaken his head; but the Indian's nerves were evidently on the sharpest strain.

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

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

The chief edged a thought closer. His intent, brilliant eyes seemed almost to listen as well as look, and though he sat his horse with heedless grace and security, there was never a figure more ready for vanishing upon the instant. He came a little nearer still, alert and pretty as an inquisitive buck antelope, watching not the three soldiers only, but everything else at once. He eyed their signs to dismount, looked at their faces, considered, and with the greatest slowness got off and came stalking to the fire. He was a fine tall man, and they smiled and nodded at him, admiring his clean blankets and the magnificence 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're a fighter too, ain't y'u?" he added, to E-egante.

"How! how!" said that personage, looking at them with grave affability from the other side of the fire. Reassured presently, he accepted the sergeant'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 of being relaxed. And so they all looked at each other across the waning embers, while the old pack-mule moved about at the edge of camp, crushing the crusted snow and pasturing along. After a time E-egante gave a nod, handed the pipe back, and went into his thicket as he had come. His visit had told him nothing; perhaps he had never supposed it would, and came from curiosity. One person had watched this interview. Sarah the squaw sat out in the night, afraid for her ancient hero; but she was content to look upon his beauty, and go to sleep after he had taken himself from her sight. The soldiers went to bed, and Keyser lay wondering for a while before he took his nap between his surveillances. The little breeze still passed at times, the running water and the ice made sounds together, and he could hear the wandering bell, now distant on the hill, irregularly punctuating the flight of the dark hours.

By nine next day there was the thicket sure enough, and the forty waiting for the three hundred to come out of it. Then it became ten o'clock, but that was the only difference, unless perhaps Sarah the squaw grew more restless. The troopers stood ready to be told what to do, joking together in low voices now and then; Crook sat watching Glynn smoke; and through these stationary people walked Sarah, looking wistfully at the thicket, and then at the faces of the adopted race she served. 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. He gave the orders himself.

"Sergeant."

Keyser saluted.

"You will detail eight men to go with you into the Indian camp. The men are to carry pistols under their overcoats, and no other arms. You will tell 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 a shot will be fired out here. At that signal you will remain in there and blaze away at the Indians."

So Keyser picked his men.

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

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

"We're to wait," Long whispered back, "till nothin' happens, and then th' 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 the thicket, and his lips grew bloodless. The running river sounded more plainly. "—— —— it!" cried the man, desperately, "let's start the fun, then." He whipped out his pistol, and Jack Long had just time to seize him and stop a false signal.

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

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

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

The eight troopers with Keyser were not having anything like so distasteful a time. "Jock," said Specimen Jones to Cumnor, as they followed the sergeant into the willows and began to come among the lodges 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, "you patrol this path to the right so you can cover that gang there. There must be four or five lodges down that way. Cumnor, see that dugout with side-thatch and roofing of tule? You attend to that family. It's a big one—all brothers." Thus the sergeant disposed his men quietly and quick through the labyrinth till they became invisible to each other; and all the 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 used arrows, and had these stacked beside them where they squatted. Keyser singled out a somewhat central figure—Fur Cap was his name—as his starting-point if the signal should sound. It must sound now in a second or two. He would not look at his watch lest it should hamper him. Fur Cap sat by a pile of arrows, with a gun across his knees besides. Keyser calculated that by standing close to him as he was, his boot would catch the Indian under the chin just right, and save one cartridge. Not a red man spoke, but Sarah the squaw dutifully speechified in a central place where paths met near Keyser and Fur Cap. Her voice was persuasive and warning. Some of the savages moved up and felt Keyser's overcoat. They fingered the hard bulge of the pistol underneath, and passed on, laughing, to the next soldier's coat, while Sarah did not cease to harangue. The tall, stately man of last night appeared. His full dark eye met Sarah's, and the woman's voice faltered and her breathing grew troubled as she gazed at him. Once more Keyser looked at his watch: Seven minutes. E-egante noticed Sarah's emotion, and his face showed that 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, at which Fur Cap rose.

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

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

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



The General saw, and did not give the signal. The sight of the skirmishers hastened E-egante's mind. He spoke in a loud voice, and at once his warriors began to emerge from the willows obediently. Crook's bluff was succeeding. The Indians in waiting after nine were attempting a little bluff of their own; but the unprecedented visit of nine men appeared to them so dauntless that all notion of resistance left 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 had all they could do to form an escort and keep up the delusion, but by degrees order began, and the column was forming. Riding along the edge of 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, and sidled, 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 the curve. Keyser had lifted his carbine, but forbore; for he hesitated to kill the woman. Once more the two appeared, diminutive and scurrying, the green shawl bright against the hill-side they climbed. Sarah had been willing to take her chances of death with her hero, and now she vanished with him among his mountains, returning to her kind, and leaving 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," he said, "if we can get 'em all to Boise. They'll probably roast me in the East." And they did. Hearing how forty took three hundred, but let one escape (and a few more on the march home), the superannuated cattle of the 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 overtook him; 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 friend who was present has written me since the first publication of this story.

Mr. Remington's illustration was made to suit the text in its original form.—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 was the other man—the unknown one. There were his boot-prints this fine morning, marking his way from the tent down the hill into the trees. He was not an inhabitant of the camp. This was his first visit, cautiously made, and nobody had seen him come or go except Drylyn.

The woman was proprietor of the dance-hall at Salvation Gap, and on account of her beauty and habits had been named the American Beer Gazelle by a travelling naturalist who had education, and was interested in the wild animals of all countries. Drylyn's relations with the Gazelle were colored with sentiment. The sentiment on his part was genuine; so genuine that the shrewd noticing camp joked Drylyn, telling him he had grown to look young again under the elixir of romance. One of the prospectors had remarked fancifully that Drylyn's "rusted mustache had livened up; same ez flow'rs ye've kerried a long ways when yer girl puts '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 the Gazelle's that was purely official; it was for him that she personally cared. He never thought of suspecting anything when, after one of her trips to Folsom, she began to send away some of the profits—gold, coined sometimes, sometimes raw dust—that her hall of entertainment earned 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 to ask, or even wonder, how it came that this mother had never needed money until so lately, or why the trips to Folsom became so constant. Counting her middle-aged adorer a fool, the humorous Gazelle had actually once, on being prevented from taking the journey herself, asked him to carry the package to Folsom for her, and deliver it there to a certain shot-gun messenger of the express company, who would see that it went to the right place. A woman's name and an address at San Antonio were certainly scrawled on the parcel. The faithful Drylyn waited till the stage came in, and handed over his treasure to the messenger, who gave him one amazed look that he did not notice. He ought to have seen that young man awhile afterwards, the package torn open, a bag of dust on his knee, laughing almost to tears over a letter he had found with the gold inside the wrapping. But Drylyn was on the road up to Salvation Gap at that time. The shot-gun messenger was twenty-three; Drylyn was forty-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 lover learn the face of his secret rival. It was one of those early unimagined nails people sometimes drive in their own coffins. An ancient series of events followed: continued abject faith and passion on the miner's part; continued presents of dust from him to the lady; on her part continued trips to Folsom, a lessened caution, and a brag of manner based upon her very just popularity at the Gap; next, Drylyn's first sickening dawn of doubt, jealousy equipping him with a new and alien slyness; the final accident of his seeing the shot-gun messenger on his very first visit to the Gap come out of the Gazelle's tent so early in the morning; the instant blaze of truth and fury that turned Drylyn to a clever, calculating wild beast. So now her throat was cut, and she was good and dead. He had managed well. The whole game had shown instantly like a picture on his brain, complete at a stroke, with every move clear. He had let the man go down the hill—just for the present. The camp had got up, eaten its breakfast, and gone out to the ditches, Drylyn along with the rest. Owing to its situation, neighbors could not see him presently leave his claim and walk back quickly to the Gap at an hour when the dance-hall was likely to be lonely. He had ready what to say if the other women should be there; but they were away at the creek below, washing, and the luxurious, unsuspecting Gazelle was in bed in her own tent, not yet disturbed. The quiet wild beast walked through the deserted front entrance of the hall in the most natural manner, and so behind 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 wild beast was back at his claim, knee-deep, and busy among the digging and the wetness, in another pair of overalls just like the ones that were now under some stones at the bottom of a mud-puddle. And then one very bad long scream came up to the ditches, and Drylyn knew the women had returned from their washing.