"Yes," he said, emptying the soap-caked water from the Indian basket wash basin upon the earth floor; "why?"—"I used to know him in '61. He came up to the Mescalero Agency then, not long before the Texans overran the place. I recollect there was a sort of blizzard and it was seventeen below. He came after a kid me and another feller'd been looking after. Pretty little cuss, about four years old. I gave her her first bow'n arrow."
Brewster took on an elaborate and entirely unnecessary air of indifference, and yawned to heighten the effect. "What did he want of the child?" he asked negligently.
"Her father was dead. He left her to him."
"Who was her father?" Brewster wanted to know.
The man told him. "He'd been a private up to Stanton, and had been killed by some of Cochise's people that summer. Her mother was a half-breed by the name of Felipa. Good-looking squaw, but dead, too—killed by Mexicans. Do you happen to know whatever became of the kid?"
Brewster told him that she was with Landor at the post now.
"She must be a woman by this time," reflected the civilian. "Is she married to him?"
Brewster explained that she was visiting Captain Campbell's family.
Did she show the squaw? he asked. "Not unless you knew it was there," the officer said tolerantly. Then he went to bed and slept with that peace of mind which comes of a proud consciousness of holding the handle of the whip. In the morning he got the man's name and address before he went on up to the Agency.
There he heard of Landor again. This time it was through Barnwell, and the descriptions were picturesque. Brewster encouraged them, paying a good deal more heed to them than to the little complaints of the Indians he had been sent up to investigate. Then he returned to Grant, taking with him in the ambulance an enlisted man returning to receive his discharge.