CHAPTER IX.
A week later the surgeon at Camp Cooke found himself minus one of his ambulances after all. In response to a penciled note from Blake it had been hurried from what there was of the shack aggregation at that point to what was left of Sancho's, Major Starke and the doctor with it. They found much of the corral in ruins and one end of the rancho badly scorched. "The wife of my brother," with Pancha, and that ceremonious copy of the Castilian himself had disappeared, but Sancho was still there, a much wronged man, and Pedro and José and Concho and a decrepit mule or two, all under the surly surveillance of Sergeant Feeny and half a dozen troopers whose comrades were afield chasing banditti through the deserts and mountains, while those who were detailed to remain spent long, anxious hours watching over and striving to soothe a young officer delirious from injuries to the head and resultant fever. Loring a sick man, indeed, when the surgeon reached him; but poor Blake, wearing himself down to skin and bone in fruitless chase, would gladly have been in his place.
The stage which he and his men had rushed to rescue was actually out there to the east, as Pancha had declared, "held up" among some little sand dunes, but it bore neither passengers nor treasure, and what on earth the robbers should have detained him for nearly twenty miles east of Gila Bend—held him in the hot sun from nine in the morning until late in the afternoon, then sent him on again, only to be once more "rounded to" with a furious chorus of yells and volleyings of pistols when within only two miles of Sancho's, that bewildered Jehu could not imagine. The marvel of it was that, though the old stage was "riddled like a sieve," as he said, "and bullets flew round me like a swarm of buzzin' bees, not one of 'em more'n just nipped me and raised a blister in the skin." Indeed, even those abrasions were indistinguishable, though Jake solemnly believed in their existence. Then another queer thing! Long before the lieutenant and "his fellers" reached the imperiled vehicle all but two or three of the dozen assailants went scurrying off in the darkness, and when the cavalry came charging furiously through the gloom there was no one to oppose them. Jehu Jake couldn't even tell which way the bandits had gone—every way, he reckoned; and after careering blindly about for half an hour or so, Blake's most energetic men came drifting back and said it was useless to attempt pursuit until dawn, even though that would give the renegades six hours' start. Slowly and disgustedly Blake ordered his men to form ranks and march back to camp, when suddenly an idea struck him—Loring! Loring, with his precious saddle-bags, had been left alone; and, calling for a set of fours to follow him, Blake clapped his spurless heels to his indignant horse's flanks and galloped for home, only to find Sancho and Pete lamenting over the prostrate, senseless and bleeding form of the engineer, whose arm was still thrown protectingly over the ravished saddle-bags.
The pocket containing that precious envelope was slashed open. The envelope and watch were gone. The record of the court in the other bag was undisturbed.
And then as he bathed his comrade's head and stanched the blood and strove to call him back to consciousness, Blake saw it all, or thought he did, and gnashed his teeth in impotent wrath. He was tricked, betrayed, yes, possibly ruined, all by a gang of miserable "greasers," through the medium of a pretty Mexican girl and his own wretched imbecility. There was no name Blake didn't call himself. There was nothing disreputable he did not not think of Sancho, but what could he prove? Sancho was a heavy loser. Sancho's best mules and all his fine horses, including the famous roan had been spirited away. The gang had made a wreck of the bar and a puddle of his famous liquor. Manuel, his brother, with his beloved wife and child, had fled in terror, said Sancho, else would they now be here nursing the heroic officer who had striven to defend them against such a rush of wretches. Blake drove him away with imprecations, vowing that he, Sancho, was in collusion with the gang, against which unmerited slur Sancho protested in sonorous Spanish, and to prove his innocence pointed to his bespattered bar-room, and as that failed to move the obdurate heart of the raging cavalryman, went sorrowfully back to the dark ranch whence there suddenly arose a sheet of flame and the cry that the villains had set fire to the corral before they left. For half an hour the straw and hay made a fierce blaze, and the troopers turned to and saved the ranch, as Sancho knew they would, and the actual damage was but slight. Some day Sancho would present a claim against the government for twenty times the amount and get such portion of it as was not required by the local agent and lobbying aids who rushed it through congress. Against Sancho there was no proof whatever, and when Blake rode away at dawn to take the trail of the robber band he had to invoke Sancho's assistance in looking after his stricken friend. There were hours that day when Blake could almost have blown his brains out. He, who prided himself on the field record he was making, had been outwitted, tricked, utterly and ridiculously fooled. By heaven! if horses could hold out those rascals should not go unwhipped of justice! Bitter as was his cup the previous year, this was bitterer still.
Not for ten days, after a long and fruitless chase through the Dragoon Mountains and almost into Mexico, did Blake return to the Bend, and by that time Loring was just gone, borne in the ambulance to Yuma. He had regained consciousness under the doctor's care, said old Feeny, but was sorely weak and shaken, and the doctor had gone on with him.
So ended for the time being, at least, the survey of the Gila Valley, for the surgeon at Fort Yuma coincided with the opinion of his brother from Cooke that Lieutenant Loring could perform no duty for weeks, that he should have care, rest and a sea voyage. The record of the court had been sent on by mail stage to San Francisco, and after a fortnight of total quiet at Yuma, Loring was conveyed down the Colorado to the Gulf and shipped aboard the coasting steamer for the two weeks run around Old California and up the Pacific to Yerba Buena. The very day they sailed old Turnbull came to join him on the voyage. Not a trace had been discovered of the fugitive, Captain Nevins, and such suspicious characters as Blake had overhauled were long since released for lack of evidence. Sancho held the fort as imperturbably as ever. The "family of my brother" were reported gone to Hermosillo.
Those were years in which the steamer, plying every month between the Colorado and the Bay of San Francisco, carried heavy burdens of freight, stores, and supplies into the far territory, but took little out. Gold being the monetary standard of California at the time, it cost a captain a month's pay to take that two weeks' voyage. The government paid the way into the territory in the case of officers going under orders, and once landed there a man speedily found himself too poor to think of returning. Therefore was the stout mariner who commanded the Idaho more than surprised to find two army officers on his scanty passenger list. Turnbull he had met before; Loring was a stranger.
"Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen," said he; "you practically own the ship till we get to Guaymas. There we pick up some Mexican families going to 'Frisco, and two mighty pretty girls."