That Harris was to choose his own time was the understanding between them when they parted, almost affectingly, at night, for between the snake episode and the successive toddies the good old gentleman was quite effusive. There would have been, probably, no change in the instructions had Harris started at reveille or even at dawn. But to "pull out" at midnight, with the situation changed and without another word with the commander, was something open to criticism. Moreover, Harris knew it.
But he had two reasons, neither of which might count with a court of his peers, but were of mighty account to him. 'Tonio had come to him actually ablaze with indignation. 'Tonio had said his people were accused when his people were innocent. 'Tonio had begged that they start at once, and he would show it was not Apache-Mohaves at fault. He would show who were the real raiders, and might even rescue the prisoners. So Harris never hesitated. Leaving a brief note in the hands of Dr. Bentley, he had ridden away with 'Tonio and a dozen of his best, only to be overtaken a mile or so out by the man of all others he least desired to see. Hal Willett was the second reason Harris had for wishing to get well away. If ever there came opportunity for a man to step in, and upon, another man's plans and purposes, Harold Willett could be relied upon to take it. Harris knew him of old, knew instinctively that, if a possible thing, his classmate, ever selfish and self-seeking, would rob him of the fruits of his long service with the scouts, and would not scruple in such an emergency to take over the command.
Harris was right. Just as the leaders rounded the huge shoulder of hillside jutting so boldly to the bank of the stream, and were eagerly pointing to the two distant flames far up in the foothills, Willett came galloping to his side. "Signal fires, of course!" said he. "It's just as I said, and this fellow of yours denied. They're making for the Mesa. I'll send back word at once." With that he set to scribbling a note on a page of his scouting book, then again galloped forward, catching Harris and 'Tonio riding side by side.
"Tell 'Tonio to take this straight to General Archer," said he.
Then Harris turned on him:
"I don't recognize your right to order my scouts about, Willett. I need 'Tonio here."
"You'll have him again in twenty minutes," was the conciliatory answer. "This is by Archer's own order, Harris. I've come straight from his side. Otherwise I'll interfere with you as little as possible."
And Harris, with one look of distrust in his comrade's flushing face, turned quietly to 'Tonio, said barely ten words to his second, not one to his senior, then bitterly spurred ahead.
He was not the first man in the profession of arms to realize what it is to faithfully and persistently labor to develop, instruct and discipline a body of men until he and they are working in absolute accord, all the intricate parts of the human machine nicely adjusted and moving without the faintest friction, and then to find himself at the eleventh hour set to one side, a stranger to his men and a rival to himself set in his stead, and be bidden to move on as a sort of martial second fiddle, while the credit and reward go to the new first violin. Nor was Harris the last by any manner of means. As General Archer had himself been heard to say, "One essential of military preferment is a knowledge of the game of euchre—your neighbor." Couple this with utter indifference to the rights of fellow-soldiers, and a catlike capacity to work by stealth in the dark, and there is no starry altitude to which one may not aspire. Harris made the same mistake older soldiers had sometimes made in higher commands, that of sticking to their own men, and duties, without keeping an eye on, and a friend at, headquarters. Anomalous as it may sound, the absent are ever wrong, even when "present for duty," where they should be. If Harris that night had only gone to headquarters instead of his camp; had stopped to see the general instead of starting promptly to the rescue, there would have been less to tell by way of a story.
Possibly a realization of this had already come over him, as angering yet unswerving, he once again overtook the eager leaders among his scouts,—lean, wiry fellows, ever gliding swiftly on in that tireless Apache running walk. Once there again, he kept his broncho at the trot to hold his own, and a broncho trot, after a mile or two of warming up, becomes something besides monotonous. Away to the far front, the north-east, flickered the tiny blazes; guiding lights, as Willett would have it; bale fires, as Harris began to believe—fires set by confederates to blind the eye of the pursuit, or lure pursuers to a trap. Away to the far front, seven miles now, and deep in a nook of the foothills, lay the site of Bennett's ruined ranch, and thither, at top speed of his scouts, was the young leader pressing. Not even a dull glow in the heavens above, or a spark on the earth beneath, could the sharp-eyed scouts discover to tell of its lonely fate. Only the dago's horrified words, only the confirmative symptoms of these farther fires, had these fly-by-night rescuers to warrant their mission. The story had its probable side. Peaceable as had been the Apache-Mohaves, the fact that a clash had occurred between them and some of the agent's forces,—a clash in which Comes Flying had been killed,—might readily turn the scale and send them on the war-path. If so, the first and nearest whites were apt to be the victims. If so, Bennett and his beloved wife and boys might well have been murdered in their beds—or spared for a harsher fate. In any event, the first duty—the obvious one—for Harris and his scouts was to reach the spot with all speed; ascertain, if possible, the fate of the ranch folk, then act as their discoveries might direct. All this Harris was turning over in mind as he hurried ahead. The road, though little worn, was distinct, and now that they were out of the bottom and skirting the stony bed of a little mountain stream, quite firm and dry. Six miles an hour, easily, his swarthy, half-naked fellows were making without ever "turning a hair." His own lean broncho, long trained to such work, scrambled along in that odd, short-legged trot, and Harris himself, trained to perfection, hard and dry, all sinewy strength, rode easily along—he could have done almost as well afoot—at the head of his men, keeping them to their pace, yet never overdriving.