"Then—there wasn't any girl?—any letters?"
"There's only one girl in creation he cares for."
"But—Stella?" she persisted.
"Never saw his Stella in all my life. What he needs is ice, and I'm going to see he gets it."
With that he was gone, deaf to the words of relief the poor child would have spoken—trying to be deaf to the fierce upbraiding of conscience, and failing as he deserved, miserably.
An hour later that evening, with a pack mule, blankets, old newspapers and a brace of cracker boxes, two half-tamed Mohaves were heading for the heights to the north-east, where water would freeze in the canteens these December nights, and the rock tanks were nearly solid ice. Two hours later while Harris, nervous, irritable, and filled with nameless self-reproach, was pacing the narrow veranda at the doctor's quarters, there was a stir at the southward end of the post, a sound of hoofbeats and footfalls, a running to and fro and lighting up at the office. An orderly came on the jump and banged at the adjutant's door, and Strong shuffled forth in the moonlight and joined other dark forms over at head-quarters. The sentries were calling the midnight hour without, and the doctor was snoring placidly within. It was barely ten minutes before Strong came back, in one of his hurries, and Harris hailed for the tidings.
"Oh, you'll be glad, I'm betting!" was the answer, half-rueful, half-relieved, for somehow Strong had "taken to" the doctor's guest—and to doubting his own. "Those galoots at McDowell let up on their watch, and 'Tonio's walked off—'gone where the woodbine twineth'—'Patchie Sanchez with him!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
That meant new trouble—trouble for Major Brown commanding the little two-company station—the "tuppenny post," his subaltern, Blake, derisively termed it—trouble for Blake, who was officer of the day, and was held on tenterhooks for many a day thereafter—trouble for Sergeant Collins, who was directly in command of the guard—"Collins né Oolahan," as Freeman wrote him down, it having been discovered that this versatile Celt had served a previous enlistment in the "Lost and Strayed," when four of its companies were pioneering shortly after the war, where even the paymaster couldn't find them. Such of them as could be found in course of years were gathered up and sent to San Francisco for further exploration in other desert lands, but Oolahan and four of his fellows of Company "A," not having returned from wagon escort duty, were finally dropped as dead or deserted (those were days wherein nobody much cared which), whereas they were merely drunk at Cerbat. Under other names, as orthodox as the originals, they were now doing valorous and valuable service in other commands, Collins in particular proving a capital fighter and trooper, to the end that the best interests of the service were subserved by keeping a keen eye on his present and a "Nelson blind" on his past. Of the three soldiers thus involved at McDowell, Collins was the one who took it most to heart, for Collins had come to think ill of 'Tonio, whom at first he had championed. Collins despised 'Patchie Sanchez, whom he had known five years, and described as a "durrty cross betune a skunk and a spitbox," a greaser Indian who would knife his best friend. As for 'Tonio, whom he had known ever since he came to Arizona in '65, and once held to be "the wan good Indian in it," 'Tonio had made him believe he too held Sanchez in contempt. Yet, to all appearance, the two, who up to this night had been confined entirely apart, had gone together. One of the counts in the unwritten indictments against McDowell was that its officers and men had lionized the dangerous Indian they were bidden to hold under careful guard, had held him without bond or shackle in a vacant room of the hospital, until that very day, when, stung by an inspector's comment, Brown ordered him at last into confinement with Sanchez, who was shackled to a post in the prison room. Yet all that was left of either was the "greaser's" chains. Could there have been collusion?
It meant more trouble for 'Tonio. Instead of facing investigation, as Harris declared he would, he had fled. It even meant more trouble for Harris, who, having stood his friend through thick and thin, proclaimed his innocence in spite of accumulation of evidence, now found himself utterly alone in his views and all Almy beginning to veer over to Willett. Willett, now able at last to recognize those about him, was sitting up a little to be nursed and petted and read to, a recovery in which the ice, for which Harris had sent his Indian followers forty miles, had played no unimportant part. Willett was now the object of devoted care and unspeakable interest, for all Almy hoped to hear the story of the assault with intent to kill. But Almy was doomed to disappointment. Beyond the expression of an unalterable conviction that he had been shot down from ambush by 'Tonio, hammered senseless, and left for dead, Willett declared he knew no more about it than they did. He seemed, in fact, to know as little of them as he knew of Stella, when at last the doctor gave him, without a word, the little packet held in trust by Mrs. Stannard. "He is muddle-headed yet," said Bentley, in explanation. "He'll know more after awhile, which is more than we may," was the mental addition, as he looked into Mrs. Stannard's doubtful eyes.