Meantime there was a painful situation at Fort Whipple, away up in
"the hills." Major Plume, eager on his wife's account to get her to
the seashore--"Monterey or Santa Barbara," said the sapient medical
director--and ceaselessly importuned by her and viciously nagged by
Elise, found himself bound to the spot. So long as Mullins stuck to
his story Plume knew it would never do for him to leave. "A day or two
more and he may abate or amend his statement," wrote Graham. Indeed,
if Norah Shaughnessy were not there to prompt--to prop--his memory,
Graham thought it like enough that even now the soldier would have
wavered. But never a jot or tittle had Mullins been shaken from the
original statement.
"There was two women," he said, "wid their shawls over their heads,"
and those two, refusing to halt at his demand, had been overtaken and
one of them seized, to his bitter cost, for the other had driven a
keen-bladed knife through his ribs, even as he sought to examine his
captive. "They wouldn't spake," said he, "so what could I do but pull
the shawl from the face of her to see could she be recognized?" Then
came the fierce, cat-like spring of the taller of the two. Then the
well-nigh fatal thrust. What afterwards became of the women he could
say no more than the dead. Norah might rave about its being the
Frenchwoman that did it to protect the major's lady--this he spoke in
whispered confidence and only in reply to direct question--but it
wouldn't be for the likes of him to preshume. Mullins, it seems, was a
soldier of the old school.
Then came fresh and dire anxiety at Sandy. Four days after Blakely's
start there appeared two swarthy runners from the way of Beaver Creek.
They bore a missive scrawled on the paper lining of a cracker box, and
it read about as follows: CAMP IN SUNSET PASS, November 3d.
COMMANDING OFFICER, CAMP SANDY: Scouting parties returning find no trace of Captain Wren and
Sergeant Carmody, but we shall persevere. Indians lurking
all about us make it difficult. Shall be needing rations in
four days. All wounded except Flynn doing fairly well. Hope
couriers sent you on 30th and 31st reached you safely.
The dispatch was in the handwriting of Benson, a trooper of good
education, often detailed for clerical work. It was signed "Brewster,
Sergeant."
Who then were the couriers, and what had become of them? What fate had
attended Blakely in his lonely and perilous ride? What man or pair of
men could pierce that cordon of Indians lurking all around them and
reach the beleaguered command? What need to speculate on the fate of
the earlier couriers anyway? Only Indians could hope to outwit Indians
in such a case. It was madness to expect white men to get through. It
was madness for Blakely to attempt it. Yet Blakely was gone beyond
recall, perhaps beyond redemption. From him, and from the detachment
that was sent by Bridger to follow his trail, not a word had come of
any kind. Asked if they had seen or heard anything of such parties,
the Indian couriers stolidly shook their heads. They had followed the
old Wingate road all the way until in sight of the valley. Then,
scrambling through a rocky labyrinth, impossible for hoof or wheel,
had made a short cut to the head waters of the Beaver. Now Blakely,
riding from the agency eastward slowly, should have found that Wingate
trail before the setting of the first day's sun, and his followers
could not have been far behind. It began to look as though the
Bugologist had never reached the road. It began to be whispered about
the post that Wren and his luckless companions might never be found at
all. Kate Sanders had ceased her song. She was now with Angela day and
night.