Few were the families at Fort Worth that were not up and out on the piazzas or at the windows to see Brooks's detachment as it marched away in the light of the setting moon just as the stars were paling in the eastern sky; but the merciful angel of sleep spread her hushing wings over the white bed where two children lay dreaming, and never until the troopers were miles beyond the vision of the keen-eyed sentries did Ada know that the loved father, restored to her but a few hours before, was once more riding the Texan trail, soldier sense of duty leading on, and God alone knowing to what end.
CHAPTER X.
The day that broke on old Fort Worth thus late in a sunshiny May proved one of deep anxiety. There was no telegraph wire then to connect it with the distant head-quarters of the department. If there had been it would have been cut six times a week. There was no way of waving back the coming convoy or of signalling danger. Crockett Springs lay a long day's ride to the southeast, and the little troop of cavalry there in camp was looking for the coming of no call upon it for duty until early on the morrow it should supply the paymaster and his party with breakfast, the ambulance with fresh mules and driver, and the night riders of the escort with their relief. Forty troopers from Crockett Springs would take the place of those who had come from the San Saba, and trot along with the paymaster until, somewhere about midway to Worth, they should meet the forty sent out the previous night to bivouac on the prairie and be ready to take up the gait and keep it until the man of money and his safe were well within the limits of the reservation. But the fifty-mile stage from Crockett to the southeast was the worst on the long line. The road wound over the divide to the valley of the San Saba, and on the way had to twist and turn through defiles of the range of hills, where more than a dozen times Indians and outlaws had defied the little detachments of cavalry scouting after them. The worst part of the pass lay some twenty miles beyond the stage station at Crockett Springs. Neither Indians nor outlaws, to be sure, had been heard of in that neighborhood for several months, but that proved nothing. It was easy for the latter to sweep from their supposed fastnesses in the Apache range to the west, and, issuing from the Wild Rose Pass, to water miles below the springs and then line the rocks in the heart of the San Saba Pass, without a trooper being the wiser. Forty cavalrymen, as Lawrence knew, would be the major's escort from the camp on the Rio San Saba beyond the range. Forty men disciplined and organized ought ordinarily to be able to cope with any band of outlaws to be found in Texas. But when, as was now reasonably certain, this far-famed Friday gang had received accessions from the troops themselves and had welcomed the deserters and desperadoes so frequently sloughed off from the soldier skin of Uncle Sam in the days close following the great war, there was grave reason for precaution, and graver still for anxiety. Question as he might, Frazier could not shake an atom of the original statement of Fuller's men. Fifty mounted outlaws, at least count, with a dozen led horses, they had seen through their field-glass far over the prairie, pushing southeastward from the direction of Wild Rose Pass of the Apache range, straight for the lower valley through which ran the little stream that had its source at Crockett Springs.
So there were anxious hearts at Worth, for, while it was felt that Brooks would lose no moment and was well on his way at four o'clock of this bright Sunday morning, he had still some sixty miles to traverse before he could get to Crockett, rest and bait his men and horses, pick up Cramer's troop there camped, and then push ahead for the San Saba, where he expected to find the outlaw gang disposed in ambuscade, confidently awaiting the coming of their prey.
Now, Brooks had men enough to thrash them soundly, but unless he caught them in the act of spoliation he lacked authority. Just as sure as he pitched into a force of armed frontiersmen, they would appeal to the courts, and public sentiment would be dead against him. He could doubtless push ahead through the range, careless of lurking scouts of the would-be robbers, meet Major Pennywise and his protectors, and escort them back in safety. That problem presented no great difficulty; but what Frazier wanted and Brooks wanted and everybody, presumably, wanted was that the outlaws should be caught in the act and be punished then and there. The question was how to catch them in the act without being themselves discovered, and before the gang had had time to inflict much damage on the paymaster's party. There was the rub. "Why, their first volley, delivered from ambush, might kill half the outfit and the paymaster too," said Frazier. "No, we dare not risk it, Brooks. Push through and pull him through, that's the best we can do—unless," and here came the redeeming clause, "unless on the way you should light on some unforeseen chance. Then—use your discretion."
Mounted on the very horse he used to ride as troop commander, and with the old familiar horse-equipments, Ned Lawrence left the post at the major's side. He had slept as only soldiers can, curled up in the stage-coach, during the previous afternoon, and was in far better trim for the long ride in saddle than Captain Mullane, who with bleary eyes and muddled head rode solus in front of the leading troop, his one lieutenant, Mr. Bralligan, being reported by Dr. Collabone's assistant as sick in quarters, which indeed he was, with a lump the size of an apple on the side of his head, and another, apparently the heft and density of a six-pounder cannon-ball, rolling about inside of it. "D" Troop, jogging easily along at the rear of column, was led by Barclay and Brayton, both of whom had marked the absence of the subaltern of the leading company, and neither of whom was surprised when ten miles out there came galloping past them, with a touch of the hand to his hat-brim, the late regimental commissary, Lieutenant Harry Winn.
"That's good!" said Brayton, as he saw his classmate ride up to the major and report, then fall back and range himself alongside Mullane. But Barclay was silent.
"You think he ought not to have come?" asked Brayton, half hesitatingly, as he glanced at his silent leader.