Stannard sighed as he closed his signal glass and turned again to the duty in hand. "What's the trouble?" he bluntly asked his faithful sergeant; lieutenants at the moment he had none.
"Check, sir. All rock and half a dozen gullies. Scouts are trying three of them. Don't seem to know which way they went from here. Even a mule shoe makes no print."
The troop, following its leader's example, without sound or signal had dismounted, and stood in long column of files adown the ravine. 'Tonio and his fellow-scouts had disappeared somewhere in the stony labyrinth ahead. Up this way, before the dawn, the dusky band must have led or driven their captives, two of Bennett's mules having been pressed into service. Up this way, not an hour behind them, must have followed Harris and his handful of allies, four Indians in all. Up this way, swift and unerring thus far, 'Tonio, backed by half a dozen half-naked young braves, had guided the cavalry, and never before, so said old Farrier Haney, who had 'listed in the troop at Prescott, and had served here with the previous regiment in '69--never before had he known 'Tonio so excited, so vehement. Beyond all question, 'Tonio's heart was in the chase to-day.
[Illustration: Scrambling down the adjacent slope every man for himself. Page 81]
But this delay was most vexatious. Every moment lost to the pursuit was more than a minute gained by the pursued. Lighter by far and trained to mountain climbing, the Apache covers ground with agility almost goatlike. It was long after seven, said Stannard's watch, and not a glimpse had they caught of Indian other than their own. It was just half past the hour, and Stannard with an impatient snap of the watch-case was about thrusting it back in his pocket, when, far to the front, reëchoing, resounding among the rocks, two shots sounded in quick succession, followed in sudden sputter by half a dozen more. "Turn your horses over to Number Four, men!" shouted Stannard. "Sergeant Schreiber, remain in charge. The rest of you come on."
Scrambling up a rocky hillside, he led on to the divide before him--the crest between two steep ravines--his men coming pell-mell and panting after, every now and then dislodging a stone and sending it clattering to the depths below. Two hundred yards ahead, at a sharp, angular point, one of the Yuma scouts stood frantically waving his hand, and thither Stannard turned his ponderous way. No lightweight he, and the pace and climb began to tell. Eager young soldiers were at his heels, but grim old Stauffer, the first sergeant, growled his orders not to crowd; hearing which their captain half turned with something like a grin: "Tumble ahead if you want to," was all he said, and tumble they did, for the firing was sharp and fierce and close at hand, augmented on a sudden as 'Tonio's little party reached the scene and swelled the clamor with their Springfields. Another moment and, springing from rock to rock, spreading out to the right and left as they came in view of a little fastness along the face of a cliff, the troopers went scrambling down the adjacent slope and, every man for himself, opened on what could be seen of the foe. Some men, possibly, never knew what they were firing at, but the big-barrelled Sharp's carbine made a glorious chorus to the sputtering fire of the scouts. Five hundred yards away, bending double, dodging from bowlder to bowlder, several swarthy Indians could be seen in full flight, apparently. Then old 'Tonio threw up a hand from across the stony chasm, signalled to his friends to cease, sprang over a low barrier of rock, disappeared one moment from view, then a few yards farther signalled "Come on." And on they went and came presently upon an excited, jabbering group at a little cleft in the hillside. A mule lay kicking in death agony down the slope. Another lay dead among the bowlders. An Apache warrior, face downward in a pool of blood, was sprawled in front of the cleft, and presently, from the cavelike entrance, came Lieutenant Harris and 'Tonio, bearing between them the form of an unconscious woman, and Stannard, as he came panting to the spot, ordering everybody to fall back and give her air, and somebody to bring a canteen, slapped Harris a hearty whack on the shoulder, whereat that silent young officer suddenly wilted and dropped like a log, and not until then was it seen he was shot--that his sleeve and shirt were dripping with blood.