So swift had been the succession of events since the first day of the
week, few of the social set at Sandy could quite realize, much less
fathom, all that had happened, and as they gathered on the verandas,
in the cool of the evening after Daly's funeral, the trend of talk was
all one way. A man who might have thrown light on certain matters at
issue had been spirited away, and there were women quite ready to vow
it was done simply to get him beyond range of their questioning.
Sergeant Shannon had been sent to the agency on some mission
prescribed by Colonel Byrne. It was almost the last order issued by
Major Plume before turning over the command.
Byrne himself still lingered at the post, "watching the situation," as
it was understood, and in constant telegraphic correspondence with the
general at Prescott and the commander of the little guard over the
agency buildings at the reservation--Lieutenant Bridger, of the
Infantry. With a sergeant and twenty men that young officer had been
dispatched to that point immediately after the alarming and
unlooked-for catastrophe of the reveille outbreak. Catastrophe was
what Byrne called it, and he meant what he said, not so much because
it had cost the life of Daly, the agent, whose mistaken zeal had
precipitated the whole misunderstanding, but rather because of the
death of two such prominent young warriors as "Shield" and his friend,
who had fallen after dealing the fatal blow to him who had laid
violent hands, so they regarded it, on two young girls, one a
chieftain's daughter and both objects of reverent and savagely
sentimental interest. "If war doesn't come at once," said Byrne, "it
will be because the Apache has a new sense or a deep-laid scheme. Look
out for him."
No news as yet had come from the runners sent forth in search of the
scattered fugitives, who would soon be flocking together again in the
fastnesses of the Mogollon to the east or the Red Rock country
northward--the latter probably, as being nearer their friends at the
reservation and farther from the few renegade Tontos lurking in the
mountains toward Fort Apache. Byrne's promise to the wanderers, sent
by these runners, was to the effect that they would be safe from any
prosecution if they would return at once to the agency and report
themselves to the interpreter and the lieutenant commanding the guard.
He would not, he said, be answerable for what might happen if they
persisted in remaining at large. But when it was found that, so far
from any coming in, there were many going out, and that Natzie's
father and brother had already gone, Byrne's stout heart sank. The
message came by wire from the agency not long after the return of the
funeral party, and while the evening was yet young. He sent at once
for Wren, and, seated on the major's front piazza, with an orderly
hovering just out of earshot, and with many an eye anxiously watching
them along the row, the two veterans were holding earnest conference.
Major Plume was at the bedside of his wife, so said Graham when he
came down about eight. Mrs. Plume, he continued, was at least no
worse, but very nervous. Then he took himself back to the hospital.