"They're coming."
One long look the boy gave in the direction pointed, then, backing away from the edge, he quickly swept away a Navajo blanket that hung from the protruding branches of a low cedar, letting the broad light into the cavelike space beyond. There, on a hard couch of rock, skin, and blanket, lay a fevered form in rough scouting dress. There, with pinched cheeks, and eyes that heavily opened, dull and suffused, lay the soldier officer who had ridden forth to rescue and to save, himself now a crippled and helpless captive. Beside him, wringing out a wet handkerchief and spreading it on the burning forehead, knelt Angela. The girls who faced each other for the first time at the pool—the daughter of the Scotch-American captain—the daughter of the Apache Mohave chief—were again brought into strange companionship over the unconscious form of the soldier Blakely.
Resentful of the sudden glare that caused her patient to shrink and toss complainingly, Angela glanced up almost in rebuke, but was stilled by the look and attitude of the young savage. He stood with forefinger on his closed lips, bending excitedly toward her. He was cautioning her to make no sound, even while his very coming brought disturbance to her first thought—her fevered patient. Then, seeing both rebuke and question in her big, troubled eyes, the young Indian removed his finger and spoke two words: "Patchie come," and, rising, she followed him out to the flat in front.
"Then slowly they saw her raise her right hand, still cautiously holding the little mirror"
Natzie at the moment was still crouching close to the edge, gazing intently over, one little brown hand nervously grasping the branch of a stunted cedar, the other as nervously clutching the mirror. So utterly absorbed was she that the hiss of warning, or perhaps of hatred, with which Lola greeted the sudden coming of Angela, seemed to fall unnoted on her ears. Lola, her black eyes snapping and her lips compressed, glanced up at the white girl almost in fury. Natzie, paying no heed whatever to what was occurring about her, knelt breathless at her post, watching, eagerly watching. Then, slowly, they saw her raise her right hand, still cautiously holding the little mirror, face downward, and at sight of this the Apache boy could scarcely control his trembling, and Lola, turning about, spoke some furious words, in low, intense tone, that made him shrink back toward the screen. Then the wild girl glared again at Angela, as though the sight of her were unbearable, and, with as furious a gesture, sought to drive her, too, again to the refuge of the dark cleft, but Angela never stirred. Paying no heed to Lola, the daughter of the soldier gazed only at the daughter of the chief, at Natzie, whose hand was now level with the surface of the rock. The next instant, far to the northwest flashed a slender beam of dazzling light, another—another. An interval of a second or two, and still another flash. Angela could see the tiny, nebulous dot, like will-'o-the-wisp, dancing far over among the rocks across a gloomy gorge. She had never seen it before, but knew it at a glance. The Indian girl was signaling to some of her father's people far over toward the great reservation, and the tale she told was that danger menaced. Angela could not know that it told still more,—that danger menaced not only Natzie, daughter of one warrior chief, and the chosen of another now among their heroic dead—it threatened those whom she was pledged to protect, even against her own people.
Somewhere down that deep and frowning rift to the southwest, Indian guides were leading their brethren on the trail of these refugees among the upper rocks. Somewhere, far over among the uplands to the northwest, other tribesfolk, her own kith and kin, were lurking, and these the Indian girl was summoning with all speed to her aid.
And in the slant of that same glaring sunshine, not four miles away, toiling upward along a rocky slope, following the faint sign here and there of Apache moccasin, a little command of hardy, war-worn men had nearly reached the crest when their leader signaled backward to the long column of files, and, obedient to the excited gestures of the young Hualpai guide, climbed to his side and gazed intently over. What he saw on a lofty point of rocks, well away from the tortuous "breaks" through which they had made most of their wearying marches from the upper Beaver, brought the light of hope, the fire of battle, to his somber eyes. "Send Arnold up here," he shouted to the men below, and Arnold came, clambering past rock and bowlder until he reached the captain's side, took one look in the direction indicated, and brought his brown hand down with resounding swat on the butt of his rifle. "Treed 'em!" said he exultantly; then, with doubtful, backward glance along the crouching file of weary men, some sitting now and fanning with their broad-brimmed hats, he turned again to the captain and anxiously inquired: "Can we make it before dark?"
"We must make it!" simply answered Stout.