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An Apache Princess, a novel by Charles King |
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Chapter 22. Suspense |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. SUSPENSE Sandy again. Four of the days stipulated by Lieutenant Blakely had run their course. The fifth was ushered in, and from the moment he rode away from the bivouac at the tanks no word had come from the Bugologist, no further trace of Angela. In all its history the garrison had known no gloom like this. The hospital was filled with wounded. An extra surgeon and attendants had come down from Prescott, but Graham was sturdily in charge. Of his several patients Wren probably was now causing him the sorest anxiety, for the captain had been grievously wounded and was pitiably weak. Now, when aroused at times from the lassitude and despond in which he lay, Wren would persist in asking for Angela, and, not daring to tell him the truth, Janet, Calvinist that she was to the very core, had to do fearful violence to her feelings and lie. By the advice of bluff old Byrne and the active connivance of the post commander, they had actually, these stern Scotch Presbyterians, settled on this as the deception to be practiced--that Angela had been drooping so sadly from anxiety and dread she had been taken quite ill, and Dr. Graham had declared she must be sent up to Prescott, or some equally high mountain resort, there to rest and recuperate. She was in good hands, said these arch-conspirators. She might be coming home any day. As for the troop and the campaign, he mustn't talk or worry or think about them. The general, with his big field columns, had had no personal contact with the Indians. They had scattered before him into the wild country toward the great Colorado, where Stout, with his hickory-built footmen, and Brewster, with most of Wren's troop, were stirring up Apaches night and day, while Sanders and others were steadily driving on toward the old Wingate road. Stout had found Brewster beleaguered, but safe and sound, with no more men killed and few seriously wounded. They had communicated with Sanders's side scouts, and were finding and following fresh trails with every day, when Stout was surprised to receive orders to drop pursuit and start with Brewster's fellows and to scout the west face of the mountains from the Beaver to the heights opposite the old Indian reservation. There was a stirring scene at bivouac when that order came, and with it the explanation that Angela Wren had vanished and was probably captured; that Blakely had followed and was probably killed. "They might shoot Blakely in fair fight," said Stout, who knew him, and knew the veneration that lived for him in the hearts of the Indian leaders, "but they at least would never butcher him in cold blood. Their unrestrained young men might do it." Stout's awful dread, like that of every man and woman at Sandy, and every soldier in the field, was for Angela. The news, too, had been rushed to the general, and his orders were instant. "Find the chiefs in the field," said he to his interpreter and guide. "Find Shield's people, and say that if a hair of her head is injured I shall hunt them down, braves, women, and children--I shall hunt them anyhow until they surrender her unharmed." But the Apaches were used to being hunted, and some of them really liked the game. It was full of exhilaration and excitement, and not a few chances to hunt and hit back. The threat conveyed no terror to the renegades. It was to the Indians at the reservation that the tidings brought dismay, yet even there, so said young Bridger, leaders and followers swore they had no idea where the white maiden could be, much less the young chief. They, the peaceable and the poor servants of the great Father at Washington, had no dealings with these others, his foes. About the post, where gloom and dread unspeakable prevailed, there was no longer the fear of possible attack. The Indian prisoners in the guard-house had dropped their truculent, defiant manner, and become again sullen and apathetic. The down-stream settlers had returned to their ranches and reported things undisturbed. Even the horse that had been missing and charged to Downs had been accounted for. They found him grazing placidly about the old pasture, with the rope halter trailing, Indian-knotted, from his neck, and his gray hide still showing stains of blood about the mane and withers. They wondered was it on this old stager the Apaches had borne the wounded girl to the garrison--she who still lay under the roof of Mother Shaughnessy, timidly visited at times by big-eyed, shy little Indian maids from the reservation, who would speak no word that Sudsville could understand, and few that even Wales Arnold could interpret. All they would or could divulge was that she was the daughter of old Eskiminzin, who was out in the mountains, and that she had been wounded "over there," and they pointed eastward. By whom and under what circumstances they swore they knew not, much less did they know of Downs, or of how she chanced to have the scarf once worn by the Frenchwoman Elise. Then Arnold's wife and brood had gone back to their home up the Beaver, while he himself returned to the search for Angela and for Blakely. But those four days had passed without a word of hope. In little squads a dozen parties were scouring the rugged canons and cliffs for signs, and finding nothing. Hours each day Plume would come to the watchers on the bluff to ask if no courier had been sighted. Hours each night the sentries strained their eyes for signal fires. Graham, slaving with his sick and wounded, saw how haggard and worn the commander was growing, and spoke a word of caution. Something told him it was not all on account of those woeful conditions at the front. From several sources came the word that Mrs. Plume was in a state bordering on hysteric at department headquarters, where sympathetic women strove vainly to comfort and soothe her. It was then that Elise became a center of interest, for Elise was snapping with electric force and energy. "It is that they will assassinate madame--these monsters," she declared. "It is imperative, it is of absolute need, that madame be taken to the sea, and these wretches, unfeeling, they forbid her to depart." Madame herself, it would seem, so said those who had speech with her, declared she longed to be again with her husband at Sandy. Then it was Elise who demanded that they should move. Elise was mad to go--Elise, who took a turn of her own, a screaming fit, when the news came of the relief of Wren's little force, of the death of their brave sergeant, of the strange tale that, before dying, Carmody had breathed a confession to Lieutenant Blakely, which Blakely had reduced to writing before he set forth on his own hapless mission. It was Mrs. Plume's turn now to have to play nurse and comforter, and to strive to soothe, even to the extent of promising that Elise should be permitted to start by the very next stage to the distant sea, but when it came to securing passage, and in feverish, nervous haste the Frenchwoman had packed her chosen belongings into the one little trunk the stage people would consent to carry, lo! there came to her a messenger from headquarters where Colonel Byrne, grim, silent, saturnine, was again in charge. Any attempt on her part to leave would result in her being turned over at once to the civil authorities, and Elise understood and raved, but risked not going to jail. Mullins, nursed by his devoted Norah, was sitting up each day now, and had been seen by Colonel Byrne as that veteran passed through, ten pounds lighter of frame and heavier of heart than when he set forth, and Mullins had persisted in the story that he had been set upon and stabbed by two women opposite Lieutenant Blakely's quarters. What two had been seen out there that night but Clarice Plume and her Gallic shadow, Elise? Meantime Aunt Janet was "looking ghastly," said the ladies along that somber line of quarters, and something really ought to be done. Just what that something should be no two could unite in deciding, but really Major Plume or Dr. Graham ought to see that, if something wasn't done, she would break down under the awful strain. She had grown ten years older in five days, they declared--was turning fearfully gray, and they were sure she never slept a wink. Spoken to on this score, poor Miss Wren was understood to say she not only could not sleep, but she did not wish to. Had she kept awake and watched Angela, as was her duty, the child could never have succeeded in her wild escapade. The "child," by the way, had displayed rare generalship, as speedily became known. She must have made her few preparations without a betraying sound, for even Kate Sanders, in the same room, was never aroused--Kate, who was now well-night heartbroken. They found that Angela had crept downstairs in her stockings, and had put on her riding moccasins and leggings at the kitchen steps. There, in the sand, were the tracks of her long, slender feet. They found that she had taken with her a roomy hunting-pouch that hung usually in her father's den. She had filled it, apparently, with food,--tea, sugar, even lemons, for half a dozen of this precious and hoarded fruit had disappeared. Punch, too, had been provided for. She had "packed" a half-bushel of barley from the stables. There was no one to say Miss Angela nay. She might have ridden off with the flag itself and no sentry would more than think of stopping her. Just what fate had befallen her no one dare suggest. The one thing, the only one, that roused a vestige of hope was that Lieutenant Blakely had gone alone on what was thought to be her trail. Now here was a curious condition of things. If anyone had been asked to name the most popular officer at Sandy, there would have been no end of discussion. Perhaps the choice would have lain between Sanders, Cutler, and old Westervelt--good and genial men. Asked to name the least popular officer, and, though men, and women, too, would have shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone, self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and selfish," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's business, and never mentioning his own, courteous and civil, but never intimate, studying a good deal but saying little, asking no favors and granting few, perhaps because seldom asked, the chances are he will win the name of being cold, indifferent, even repellent, "too high, mighty, and superior." His very virtues become a fault, for men and women love best those who are human like themselves, however they may respect. Among the troopers Blakely was as yet something of an enigma. His manner of speaking to them was unlike that of most of his fellows--it was grave, courteous, dignified, never petulant or irritable. In those old cavalry days most men better fancied something more demonstrative. "I like to see an officer flare up and--say things," said a veteran sergeant. "This here bug-catcher is too damned cold-blooded." They respected him, yes; yet they little understood and less loved him. They had known him too short a time. But among the Indians Blakely was a demi-god. Grave, unruffled, scrupulously exact in word and deed, he made them trust him. Brave, calm, quick in moments of peril, he made them admire him. How fearlessly he had stepped into the midst of that half-frenzied sextette, tiswin drunk, and disarmed Kwonagietah and two of his fellow-revelers! How instant had been his punishment of that raging, rampant, mutinous old medicine man, 'Skiminzin, who dared to threaten him and the agency! (That episode only long years after reached the ears of the Indian Advancement Association in the imaginative East.) How gently and skillfully he had ministered to Shield's younger brother, and to the children of old Chief Toyah! It was this, in fact, that won the hate and envy of 'Skiminzin. How lavish was Blakely's bounty to the aged and to the little ones, and Indians love their children infinitely! The hatred or distrust of Indian man or woman, once incurred, is venomous and lasting. The trust, above all the gratitude, of the wild race, once fairly won, is to the full as stable. Nothing will shake it. There are those who say the love of an Indian girl, once given, surpasses that of her Circassian sister, and Bridger now was learning new stories of the Bugologist with every day of his progress in Apache lore. He had even dared to bid his impulsive little wife "go slow," should she ever again be tempted to say spiteful things of Blakely. "If what old Toyah tells me is true," said he, "and I believe him, Hualpai or Apache Mohave, there isn't a decent Indian in this part of Arizona that wouldn't give his own scalp to save Blakely." Mrs. Bridger did not tell this at the time, for she had said too much the other way; but, on this fifth day of our hero's absence, there came tidings that unloosed her lips. Just at sunset an Indian runner rode in on one of Arnold's horses, and bearing a dispatch for Major Plume. It was from that sturdy campaigner, Captain Stout, who knew every mile of the old trail through Sunset Pass long years before even the ----th Cavalry,--the predecessors of Plume, and Wren, and Sanders,--and what Stout said no man along the Sandy ever bade him swear to. "Surprised small band, Tontos, at dawn to-day. They had saddle blanket marked 'W. A.' [Wales Arnold], and hat and underclothing marked 'Downs.' Indian boy prisoner says Downs was caught just after the 'big burning' at Camp Sandy [Lieutenant Blakely's quarters]. He says that Alchisay, Blakely's boy courier, was with them two days before, and told him Apache Mohaves had more of Downs's things, and that a white chief's daughter was over there in the Red Rocks. Sanders, with three troops, is east of us and searching that way now. This boy says Alchisay knew that Natzie and Lola had been hiding not far from Willow Tank on the Beaver trail--our route--but had fled from there same time Angela disappeared. Against her own people Natzie would protect Blakely, even were they demanding his life in turn for her Indian lover, Shield's. If these girls can be tracked and found, I believe you will have found Blakely and will find Angela." That night, after being fed and comforted until even an Indian could eat no more, the messenger, a young Apache Mohave, wanted papel to go to the agency, but Plume had other plans. "Take him down to Shaughnessy's," said he to Truman, "and see if he knows that girl." So take him they did, and at sight of his swarthy face the girl had given a low cry of sudden, eager joy; then, as though reading warning in his glance, turned her face away and would not talk. It was the play of almost every Apache to understand no English whatever, yet Truman could have sworn she understood when he asked her if she could guess where Angela was in hiding. The Indian lad had shaken his head and declared he knew nothing. The girl was dumb. Mrs. Bridger happened in a moment later, coming down with Mrs. Sanders to see how the strange patient was progressing. They stood in silence a moment, listening to Truman's murmured words. Then Mrs. Bridger suddenly spoke. "Ask her if she knows Natzie's cave," said she. "Natzie's cave," she repeated, with emphasis, and the Indian girl guilelessly shook her head, and then turned and covered her face with her hands. _ |
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