Stannard glanced an instant toward the gaunt figure of the Apache, standing dejectedly apart from all others and gazing fixedly toward the dawn. The light was stronger now. The red was in the orient sky. The distant butte was all aglow with the radiance of the rising yet invisible sun. Stannard seemed more concerned in the whereabouts of Mr. Harris than in the worries of Mr. Willett. Again he returned to his questions.
"Well, did Harris give any inkling of his purpose—whether he meant to follow the trail till he found captives and captors, or only till he found where it probably led to? I've got to act, and lose no time. Sergeant, tell the men to hurry with their coffee," he called, to the brown-eyed, dark-featured soldier who was coming forward at the moment. A salute was the only answer, as the sergeant turned about in his tracks and signalled to the boy trumpeter, holding his own and the captain's horse. Another moment and Stannard was in saddle.
"Harris didn't say," was the guarded answer. "You know, I suppose, that he left the post without consulting the general, and he took it much amiss that, in compliance with the general's orders, I exercised certain authority after reaching him. Now you are here to take entire charge, I turn over the whole business to you. There's what's left of the scouts; there's what's left of the ranch; and there," with a glance at the blanket-shrouded form, "is what's left of the Bennetts. I'll jog back to the post by and by."
"Oh, then you're not going on with us?" said Stannard, relieved in mind, he hardly knew why.
"No, sir, I only rode out here to investigate and report. We, of course, hoped to save something."
"Pity you hadn't spared yourself and not spoiled the pie," thought Stannard as he looked about him over the scene of desolation. The men were snapping their tin mugs and the refilled canteens to the saddle rings. The captain rode over to 'Tonio, a kindly light in his blue-gray eyes. He whipped off the right gauntlet and held forth his hand.
"No Apache-Mohave!" said he stoutly. "Apache Tonto. Si! Now catch 'em Teniente Harris." Poor lingo that "pidgin" Indian of the desert and the long ago, but it served its purpose. 'Tonio grasped the proffered hand, a grateful gleam in his black eyes; warned with the other hand the captain's charger from certain tracks he had been jealously guarding; then pointed eagerly, here, there, in half a dozen places, where footprints were still unmarred in the powdery dust. "Si—si—Apache Tonto!" and the long, skinny finger darted, close to the ground, from one print to the other. "No Apache-Mohave! No!"
"Then come! Mount!" called Stannard. "Leave a corporal and four men here as guard until the ambulance gets out from the post," he added, to the first sergeant. "Mount the troop, soon's you're ready. I'm going ahead with 'Tonio and the scouts. Ugashi, 'Tonio! Good-by, Mr. Willett. Take one of the men, if you need an orderly," he shouted back, over a flannel-shirted shoulder, innocent of badge or strap of any kind. In point of dress or equipment there was absolutely no difference between the captain of cavalry and his fifty men.
A moment later, spreading out over the low ground like so many hounds throwing off for a scent, 'Tonio and his scouts were trotting away toward a dip in the rugged heights to the north-east, for thither, the moment it was light enough even faintly to see, the keen eyes of the Apaches had trailed the fugitives, and now with bounding feet they followed the sign, Tonio foremost, his mount discarded. Afoot, like his fellows, and bending low, pointing every now and then to half turned pebble, to broken twig or bruised weed, he drove ever eagerly forward, the stolid bearing of the Indian giving way with each successive minute to unusual, though repressed excitement. Thrice he signalled to Stannard and pointed to the crushed and beaten sand—to toe or heel or sole marks to which the Caucasian would have attached but faint importance had not the aborigine proclaimed rejoicefully "Apache-Mohave!" whereat Stannard shook his head and set his teeth and felt his choler rising.
"Thought you swore Apache Tonto awhile ago," said Stannard wrathfully. "Now you're saying Apache Mohave!"