“Has no one a little whiskey?” asked Corporal Watts.
“Here you are” was the answer. And Mr. Staines, with very white face, stepped down from behind the ledge and held out his flask.
A week later the lieutenant lay convalescing at Rawlins' camp. A vigorous constitution and the healthful, bracing, open-air life he had led for several years, either in the saddle or tramping over the mountains, had enabled him to triumph speedily over such minor ills as flesh wounds, even though the loss of blood had been very great. The young soldier was soon able to give full particulars of his chase, and to one man alone, Rawlins, the secret of its inspiration.
Most important had been the results. It was evident to everyone who examined the ground—and Rawlins had scoured the range with one platoon of his troop that very afternoon after the fight, while his lieutenant, Mr. Lane, was chasing the fugitives with another—that a band of at least twenty outlaws had been concealed among the rocks of Canyon del Muerto for two or three days, evidently for the purpose of waylaying the escort of the paymaster when he came along. Their horses had been concealed half a mile away in a deep ravine, and it was in trying to escape to them that they had sustained their losses. Five of their number were shot down in full flight by Adri-ance's men, and, could they have caught the others, no quarter would have been given, for the men were infuriated by the sight of the havoc the robbers had wrought, and by the shooting of their favorite officer.
No papers had been found on the bodies; nothing, in fact, to identify them with any band. All, with one exception, were Mexicans; he was a white man whom none of the troopers could identify, though Corporal Watts, of Troop B, declared he had seen him at “Cutthroat Crossing” the last time he went through there on escort duty. The others, whoever they were, rode in a body until they got around the range to the southward, then seemed to scatter over the face of the earth. Some odd things had transpired, over which Rawlins pondered not a little. It was Corporal Watts who brought to his camp at 11 o'clock the news of the desperate attempt to murder and rob the paymaster, and as they rode back together the corporal gave the captain such information as lay in his power. Lieutenant Adriance had “routed out” the detachment just at daybreak, when it was still dark, and saddling with the utmost haste had led away across country for the canyon, leaving the pack mules and a small guard at camp. “We rode like the wind,” said Watts, “after the first few miles, and every man seemed to know just what to expect when at last we struck the road and saw the trail of the ambulance and escort. We got there just in the nick of time.”
When Sherrick—who though severely battered and bruised had no bones broken—was able to talk at all, he never could say enough in praise of Adriance and his men; but what he wanted to know was how they came to learn of the threatened danger. Captain Rawlins protested that it was “past finding out.” The major questioned the men, but without success, and as for Staines, it was remarked that his pertinacity in cross-examination was simply wonderful. For some reason, however, the men of B troop did not like the fellow and would have little to do with him. But up to the time that Major Sherrick was able to push ahead for Tucson it is certain that he had discovered nothing as to the source of the lieutenant's information; neither had they heard of Leon Ruiz, the night messenger. Staines opined that he must have been intercepted by the bandits, perhaps killed by them, when it was found that he was the bearer of a message to Captain Rawlins. After a brief chat with the lieutenant himself, one which the doctor did not interdict, the old troop commander sent a trusty sergeant with six men to scout the neighborhood of the rancho.
Lieutenant Lane was detached to take command of Adriance's troop, which was sent on its way forthwith, leaving the gloomy rancho alone to sentinel the Gila crossing. But the moment Sherrick and his silent clerk drove on toward Tucson the old captain said a few words of farewell to the invalid, left him in the doctor's charge and rode away northward on the trail of his sergeant. That night he rapped for admission and ordered supper at Rancho Ruiz, while his men, strolling about the premises, took careful note of the three or four scowling “greasers” who infested the corral.