“Listen to that!” yelped Martin, the cook, from the “bell.”
Distant rifle-shots sounded faintly. It was a battle! Captain Crawford’s scouts and the Chiricahuas were fighting!
The reports welled faster. Every ear was keen set. Major Chaffee’s cavalry had quickened pace, each trooper erect in his saddle; the pack-mules were being forced more compactly, ready for corralling should the cavalry leave; the general, in the advance with his aides, clearly was impatient for the country to open out and the battle-field be sighted.
“Bet they got away, dog-gone it!” yelled back Cook Martin. For presently the firing dwindled to spatters, and ceased. Shucks!
“Anyhow, the old man’ll keep agoin’,” voiced the packer behind Jimmie. “There’s a nice moon for huntin’ Injuns, an’ we can live on what those bronc’s are throwin’ away!”
So it was plod, plod, up and down, and down and up. The troopers dismounted, to lead their horses.
Toward dusk a great smoke was to be seen several miles away, on a high mountain-side. The pack-train guessed that a Chiricahua rancheria was being cleaned up.
The horizon over there flared into red, and while supper was being eaten, in camp under a glorious full moon, here came Captain Crawford and his scouts at last, both afoot and ahorse. They brought also forty-seven horses loaded with plunder, and five prisoners—two boys, two girls, and a woman.
Alchisé acted rather disgusted, but Micky Free was joyful.