No question now as to the duty immediately before them. In twenty
minutes the pack mules were again strapped between the saplings, the
little command was slowly climbing toward the westward heights, with
Arnold and two of his friends scouting the rough trail and hillsides,
firing at long intervals and listening in suspense almost intolerable
for some answering signal. The other of their number had volunteered
to follow Stout over the plateau toward the Pass and acquaint him with
the latest news.
While the sun was still high in the heavens, far to the northward,
they faintly heard or thought they heard two rifle shots. At four
o'clock, as they toiled through a tangle of rock and stunted pine,
Arnold, riding well to the front, came suddenly out upon a bare ledge
from which he could look over a wild, wide sweep of mountain side,
stretching leagues to north and south, and there his keen and
practiced eye was greeted by a sight that thrilled him with dread
unspeakable. Dread, not for himself or his convoy of wounded, but
dread for Angela. Jutting, from the dark fringe of pines along a
projecting bluff, perhaps four miles away, little puffs or clouds of
smoke, each separate and distinct, were sailing straight aloft in the
pulseless air--Indian signals beyond possibility of doubt. Some
Apaches, then, were still hovering about the range overlooking the
broad valley of the Sandy, some of the bands then were prowling in the
mountains between the scouting troops and the garrisoned post. Some
must have been watching this very trail, in hopes of intercepting
couriers or stragglers, some must have seen and seized poor Angela.
He had sprung from saddle and leveled his old field glass at the
distant promontory, so absorbed in his search he did not note the
coming of the little column. The litter bearing Blakely foremost of
the four had halted close beside him, and Blakely's voice, weak and
strained, yet commanding, suddenly startled him with demand to be told
what he saw, and Arnold merely handed him the glass and pointed. The
last of the faint smoke puffs was just soaring into space, making
four still in sight. Blakely never even took the binocular. He had
seen enough by the unaided eye.
With uplifted hand the sergeant had checked the coming of the next
litter, Wren's, and those that followed it. One of the wounded men,
the poor lad crazed by the perils of the siege, was alert and begging
for more water, but Wren was happily lost to the world in swoon or
slumber. To the soldier bending over him he seemed scarcely breathing.
Presently they were joined by two of Arnold's party who had been
searching out on the left flank. They, too, had seen, and the three
were now in low-toned conference. Blakely for the moment was unnoted,
forgotten.