Harper's Round Table, July 14, 1896 - 1

The younger boy ceased his efforts to close the gates, and advancing a few steps before the entrance of the fort, looked up the valley to where the road from Prescott appeared from behind a spur of the foot-hills. The two boys, aged respectively fourteen and sixteen, were dressed in the army uniform, and wore gold-lace sergeant's chevrons upon their sleeves. Their white stripes were piped with red, and their cap cords and regimental badges were of the officers' pattern and quality.

A beautiful white setter, with liver-colored spots and ears, and mottled nose and paws, followed the boys and stood between them, nestling her delicate muzzle against the younger boy's hip, and responding to his caresses with waves of a plumy tail.

"Do you think we shall hear from father, Frank?"

"We ought to. He said, in his last letter, he was getting settled at the Presidio, and would soon send for us."

"Takes twelve days to bring a letter from San Francisco. I suppose it would take us longer to go there. Seems to me he might get ready for us while we are on the road," said Henry, lugubriously. "I'm getting mighty tired of opening and shutting these gates."

"You forget father has to visit all the posts where companies of his regiment are stationed. That will probably take him a month longer."

"And we must go on opening and closing gates and running errands in Arizona. Santa Fe was a good place for boys. But this is the pokiest place we've struck yet. But come; let's shut the gates, and watch for the expressman afterwards. We haven't much time before retreat."

The gates closed a stockaded post near Prescott, Arizona. Pine logs ten feet long had been set up vertically in the ground, two feet of them below the surface and eight above, enclosing an area of a thousand square feet, in which were store-rooms, offices, and quarters for two companies of soldiers and their officers. At corners diagonally opposite each other were two large block-house bastions commanding the flanks of the fort. The logs of the walls were faced on two sides, set close together, and were slotted every four feet for rifles. At one of the bastionless corners were double gates, also made of logs, bound by cross and diagonal bars, dove-tailed and pinned firmly to them. Each hung on huge triple hinges of iron.

The two boys went back to the gates, and setting their backs against one of them and digging their heels in the earth, swung it ponderously and slowly until its outer edge caught on a shelving log set in the middle of the entrance to support it and its fellow. Then, as the field music began to play, and the men to assemble in line for retreat roll-call, they swung the second gate in the same way, and braced the two with heavy timbers.

As the companies broke ranks, the boys went to the fifth log on the left of the gates and swung it back on its hinges. This was one of two secret posterns. On the inside of the wall, when closed, its location was easily noticeable on account of the hinges, latches, and braces; on the outside it looked like any other log. It had been sawed off close to the ground, and being over three feet in diameter, afforded a convenient night entrance to the fort. Their work being completed, the boys went to the Adjutant's office to report.

"Very well, sergeants," said the commanding officer; "no further duty will be required of you to-day."

Frank and Henry ran through the postern, and arrived on the crest of the bluff overlooking the Prescott road just as a horseman turned up the height. The news that the La Paz courier had arrived spread quickly through the quarters, and every man not on duty appeared outside the walls.

Joining the boy sergeants, I said,

"Boys, if you want to drop the job of opening and closing the gates, it can hereafter be done by the guard."

"Thank you, sir. We took the job, and we will stick to it," replied Sergeant Frank.

"I wonder if Samson could pack those gates off as easily as he did the gates of Gaza?" said Henry, seating himself on a log which had been rejected in the building, and taking Vic's head in his hip and fondling her silken ears.

"They are the heaviest gates I ever saw," said Frank.

"Then stop straining at them. Captain Bayard has several times suggested that you be relieved of the duty."

"We have swung them since they were hung, and we want to do it until we leave," continued Frank. "We can't remain here much longer. I think this express will bring an order for us to go to San Francisco."

"Very likely. It will be an agreeable change for you. Life here is not very enjoyable for boys."

"I should say not," said Henry. "At Santa Fe there was plenty of fun. Of course we had to study there; but that made play all the more pleasant. Then we could go hunting now and then, or gathering piñons; but here we can't look outside of the fort unless a dozen soldiers are along, for fear the Apaches will get us."

"But you can go to Prescott."

"Prescott!" in a tone of great contempt. "Twenty-one log cabins and stores, and not a boy in the place—only a dozen Pike County, Missouri, girls."

"And we can't go there with any comfort since Texas Dick and Jumping Jack stole Sancho and Chiquita," added Frank.

Further conversation was temporarily interrupted by the arrival of the expressman. A roan bronco galloped up the slope bearing a youthful rider wearing a light buckskin suit and a soft felt hat with a narrow brim. He was armed with a breech-loading carbine and two revolvers, and carried, attached to his saddle, a roll of blankets and a mail-pouch.

Dismounting, he detached the pouch, at the same time answering questions and giving us items of news later than any contained in his despatches.

After handing his pouch to the quartermaster-sergeant, his eyes fell upon the boy sergeants.

"I saw Texas Dick and Juan Brincos at Cisternas Negras," he said, addressing them.

"My! Did you, Mr. Baldwin?" exclaimed Henry, springing to his feet and approaching the courier. "Did they have our ponies?"

"You know I never saw your ponies; but Dick was mounted on a black, and Juan on a cream-color."

"Sancho!" said Frank.

"Chiquita!" said Henry.

"Do you know where they were bound?" asked Captain Bayard.

"I did not speak to them, nor did they see me. I dared not hold communication in a lonely place with such desperate characters. I learned from a friend of theirs at Date Creek that they were going to open a monte bank at La Paz."

"Then they are likely to stay there some time."

"Can't something be done, sir, to get the ponies back?" asked Frank.

"Perhaps so. I will consider the matter."

The mail was taken to the office of the Quartermaster, and soon distributed through the command. Among my letters was one from Colonel Burton, the father of the boy sergeants. He said he had expected to send for his sons by this mail, but additional detached service had been required of him which might delay their departure from Whipple for another month, if not longer. He informed me that a detail which I had received to duty as professor of military science and tactics in a boys' military school had been withheld by the Department Commander until my services could be spared at Fort Whipple, and that he thought the next mail or the one following it would bring an order relieving me and ordering me East. This would enable me to leave for the coast the first week in November.

Frank and Henry occupied quarters with me. Seated before our open fire I read their father's letter, and remarked that perhaps I should be able to accompany them to San Francisco, and if the Colonel consented to their request to go to the military school with me, we might take the same steamer for Panama and New York.

"Oh, won't that be too fine for anything!" exclaimed Henry. "Then I'll not have to leave Vicky here, after all."

Vic, upon hearing her name called, left her rug on the hearth and placed her nose on Henry's knee, and the boy stroked and patted her in his usual affectionate manner.

"Then you have been dreading to leave the doggie?" I asked.

"Yes; I dream all sorts of uncomfortable things about her. She is in trouble or I am, and I cannot rescue her and she cannot help me. Usually we are parting, and I see her far off, looking sadly back at me."

"Henry is not alone in dreading to part with Vic," said Frank. "We boys can never forget the scenes at Laguna and the Rio Carizo. She assisted in the recovery of Chiquita, and she helped rescue Manuel, Sapoya, and Henry from the Navajos."

"Nice little doggie. Nice little Vicky. Are you really going to San Francisco and the East with us!" said Henry, assuming at once that he was to accompany me to the military school. "I believe if I only had Chiquita back, and Frank had Sancho, I should be perfectly happy."

After a slight pause, during which the boy seemed to have relapsed into his former depression, Henry asked,

"Do they have cavalry drill at the school you're going to?"

"Yes; the superintendent keeps twenty light horses, and allows some of the cadets to keep animals. All are used in drill."

"And if we get our ponies back, I suppose we shall have to leave them here. Do you think, sir, there is any chance of our seeing them again?" asked Frank.

"Not unless some one can go to La Paz for them. Captain Bayard is going to see me after supper about a plan of his."

"I wonder what officer he will send?"

"I think, because he spoke to me, I am likely to go."

"Father would never stand the expense of sending them to the States, I suppose," said Henry, sadly.

"They could be got as far as the Missouri River without cost," I observed.

"How, please?"

"There is a Quartermaster's train due here in a few weeks—one started before the order transferring us to the Department of the Pacific was issued. It would cost nothing to send the ponies by the wagon-master to Fort Union, and there they could be transferred to another train to Fort Leavenworth."

"Frank, I've a scheme!" exclaimed the younger boy.

"What is it?"

"If the Lieutenant finds the ponies, let's send them to Manuel Perea and Sapoya on the Rio Grande. When they go to the military school they can take our horses and theirs, and we'll join the cavalry."

"That's so," said Frank. "Manuel wrote that if he went to school he should cross the plains with his uncle Miguel Otero, who is a freighter. He could take the whole outfit East for nothing. 'Twouldn't cost much from Kansas City to the school."

"But before you cook a hare you must catch him," said I.

"Yes, and I suppose there is small chance that we shall catch ours," said Frank, despondently.

The two boy sergeants had found life in Arizona scarcely monotonous, for the hostile Apaches made it lively enough, compelling us to build a defensible post, and look well to the protection of our stock. A few years later a large force, occupying many posts, found it difficult to maintain themselves against the Indians, so it cannot seem strange to the reader that our little garrison of a hundred soldiers should find it difficult to do much more than act on the defensive. Close confinement to the reservation chafed the boys. They had been interested in the building of the stockade, and had accompanied the parties engaged in felling the trees in the woods, and watched all the details of construction. When the great gates were hung they asked the privilege of closing them the first night of our occupancy, and when certain duties were assigned them in their capacity of sergeants, the opening and closing of the gates had been placed among them.

A ride to Prescott, two miles distant, was the longest the boys had taken unaccompanied by officers or soldiers. Two weeks before this story opens they had been invited to dine with the Governor of the Territory at the gubernatorial residence, except the Territorial Capitol the most imposing of the log edifices in the town. Governor Goodwin had made their call exceedingly pleasant, and they had remained his guests until tattoo. When the boys took leave of their host and went to the stable for their saddle-horses, they found them missing, with their saddles and bridles.

Next day inquiries in town elicited the information that two notorious scamps, Texas Dick and Juan Brincos, an American and Mexican, were missing, and it was the opinion of civil and military authorities that they had stolen the ponies. The boys took Vic to the Governor's, and showing her the tracks of her equine friends, she followed them several miles on the Skull Valley trail. It was plainly evident that the thieves had gone towards the Rio Colorado.

After supper I accompanied the commanding officer to his quarters. He told me that the express had brought him a communication from the Department Commander stating that, since Arizona had been transferred to the Department of the Pacific, our stores would be shipped from San Francisco to the mouth of the Colorado and up that stream by the boats of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company to La Paz. He said that he had decided to send me to La Paz to make arrangements with a freighter for the transportation of the supplies from the company's landing to Fort Whipple.

"And while you are in La Paz," said the Captain, "look up those horse-thieves, and turn them over to the civil authorities; but whether you catch them or not, be sure to bring back the boys' ponies."

"What do you think about letting the boys go with me?"

"No doubt they would like it. Would it be safe?"

"There have been no Indians seen on the route lately."

"But it may be the 'calm before the storm.'"

"The mail-courier, Baldwin, has seen no signs of them."

"So he told me. The excursion would be a treat to the boys, and might bring luck to your undertaking. I believe I will let them go with a strong escort. Tell the Adjutant to detail a corporal and any ten men you may select, and take an ambulance and driver."

"Shall I go by the Bill Williams Fork route or the one over the Xuacaxélla Desert?"

"The desert route is much the nearer, and the courier says there is water in the Hole-in-the-Plain. There was a rainfall there last week. That will give you water at the end of each day's drive."

I returned to my rooms, and looked over an itinerary of the route, with a schedule of distances and other information. After making myself familiar with all its peculiarities, I told Frank and Henry that if they desired to do so they might accompany me.

They were overjoyed at the prospect. Henry caught Vic by the fore-paws and began a waltz about the room. Then, sitting down, he held her head up between his palms and informed her that she was going to bring back Sancho and Chiquita.

"I think we better not take her, Henry," I said.

"Not take Vic? Why not, sir?"

"The road is long—six days going and six days returning—over a rough and dry region, and she will be in the way and a constant care to us."

"But perhaps we cannot find our horses without her. She will be sure to help us in some way; she always does," said Henry, emphatically.

"She certainly will be of much use to us if we have to make a search," added Frank. "She need be no care to you; Henry and I will look after her."

"I am sorry to disappoint you, boys, but I cannot take the dog. She will be left with Captain Bayard."

This decision made the boys very miserable for some time. They lavished more than their usual attentions and caresses upon Vic, seeming to look upon her as a much abused dog, whose privileges and rights had been tyrannically set aside without reason. They put her to bed in her box, both patting her repeatedly and whispering their sympathies in her ears. Then Frank asked,

"Have you ever been to La Paz?"

"I have never been beyond Date Creek in that direction," I replied.

"Is the Xuacaxélla really a desert?"

"Only in the absence of water. Grasses, cacti, and shrubbery not needing much moisture grow there. One of the geological surveys calls it Cactus Plain. It is one hundred miles long. There is water in a fissure of a mountain spur on one side called Cisternas Negras, or Black Tanks; but for the rest of the distance there was formerly no water except after a great rainfall in the depressions, a supply that quickly evaporates under a hot sun and in a dry atmosphere. A man named Tyson has lately sunk two wells thirty miles this side of La Paz."

"It was at the Black Tanks the expressman saw Texas Dick and Juan Brincos with our ponies," said Henry. "What a queer name that is—Juan Brincos, John Jumper, or Jumping Jack, as nearly every one calls him."

"He is well named; he has been jumping government stock for some years."

"I thought Western people always hung horse-thieves."

"Not when they steal from the government. They are apt to look upon army mules and horses as common property."

"Frank," said Henry, just before the boys fell asleep that night, "I felt almost sure we should recapture the ponies when I thought Vic was going; but now I'm afraid we never shall see them again."