"Who was the creature?" I repeat, were the strange words, in Miss Wren's most telling tone, that brought Kate Sanders to a halt, startled, silent.
Then Blakely answered: "Some day I shall tell Miss Angela, madam, but never—you. Good-night."
CHAPTER XV
A CALL FOR HELP
hat night the wire across the mountains to Prescott was long alive with news, and there was little rest for operator, adjutant, or commanding officer at Sandy. Colonel Byrne, it seems, had lost telegraphic touch with his chief, who, quitting Camp McDowell, had personally taken the field somewhere over in the Tonto Basin beyond the Matitzal Range, and Byrne had the cares of a continent on his hands. Three of the five commands out in the field had had sharp encounters with the foe. Official business itself was sufficiently engrossing, but there were other matters assuming grave proportions. Mrs. Plume had developed a feverish anxiety to hie on to the Pacific and out of Arizona just at a time when, as her husband had to tell her, it was impossible for him, and impolitic for her, to go. Matters at Sandy, he explained, were in tangled shape. Mullins partially restored, but still, as Plume assured her, utterly out of his head, had declared that his assailants were women; and other witnesses, Plume would not give names, had positively asserted that Elise had been seen along the sentry post just about the time the stabbing occurred. Everything now, said he, must depend on Captain Wren, who was known to have seen and spoken to Elise, and who could probably testify that she returned to their roof before the tragic affair of the night. But Wren was now away up in the mountains beyond Snow Lake and might be going far over through Sunset Pass to the Colorado Chiquito. Meantime he, Plume, was responsible for Elise, in duty bound to keep her there to face any accuser. In her nervous, semi-hysterical state the wife could not well be told how much she, too, was involved. It was not necessary. She knew—all Fort Whipple, as Prescott's military post was called, knew all about the fire that had destroyed the "beetle shop" and Blakely's belongings. Elise, in wild excitement, had rushed to her mistress with that news and the further information that Downs was gone and could not be found. This latter fact, indeed, they learned before Plume ever heard of it—and made no mention of it in his presence.
"I shall have to run down to Sandy again," said Byrne, to Plume. "Keep up your heart and—watch that Frenchwoman. The jade!" And with the following day he was bounding and bumping down the stony road that led from the breezy, pine-crested heights about headquarters to the sandy flats and desert rocks and ravines fifty miles to the east and twenty-five hundred feet below. "Shall be with you after dark," he wired Cutler, who was having a bad quarter of an hour on his own account, and wishing all Sandy to the devil. It had transpired that Strom's rival ranchman, a little farther down the valley, was short just one horse and set of horse equipments. He had made no complaint. He had accused nobody. He had never failed in the past to appear at Sandy with charge of theft and demand for damages at the expense of the soldiery whenever he missed an item, big or little—and sometimes when he didn't miss a thing. But now he came not at all, and Cutler jumped at the explanation: he had sold that steed, and Downs, the deserter, was the purchaser. Downs must have had money to aid in his escape. Downs must have received it from someone eager to get him out of the way. It might well be Elise, for who else would trust him? and Downs must be striking for the south, after wide détour. No use now to chase him. The wire was the only thing with which to round him up, so the stage stations on the Gila route, and the scattered army posts, were all notified of the desertion, and Downs's description, with all his imperfections, was flashed far and wide over the Territory. He could no more hope to escape than fly on the wings of night. He would be cut off or run down long before he could reach Mexico; that is, he would be if only troopers got after him. The civil list of Arizona in 1875 was of peculiar constitution. It stood ready at any time to resolve itself into a modification of the old-day underground railways, and help spirit off soldier criminals, first thoughtfully relieving them of care and responsibility for any surplus funds in their possession.
And with Downs gone one way, Wren's troop gone another, and Blakely here clamoring to follow, Cutler was mentally torn out of shape. He believed it his duty to hold Blakely at least until the colonel came, and he lacked the "sand" to tell him so.