A Wounded Name | Page 4

in the field and didn't know the difference between a pole yoke and a pedometer. Every captain, except one or two who had laughingly declined, wore the straps of field officers, some few even of generals, and so when one heard a military-looking man addressed as colonel the chances were ten to one that he was drawing only the stipend of a company officer, and in matters of actual rank in the army it was money that talked.
But there could be no questioning the right of the senior of the two officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a nondescript duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was tanned by desert suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white. His beard, once flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His steely blue eyes snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was carried high and well back, and his soft felt hat, wide-brimmed, was pulled down over the brows. His deep chest, square shoulders, erect carriage and straight muscular legs all told of days and years in the field, and every word he uttered had about it the crisp, clear-cut ring of command. It was safe to bet that no mere company was the extent of this soldiers authority, and Sancho, keen observer, had put him down for a lieutenant-colonel at least. Full colonels were mostly older men, and Arizona had but one in "the days of the Empire."
The ranchman had eagerly whispered questions to the loungers as to the identity of the two arrivals, but without success. Both were strangers, although the junior had been seen at the ranch once before, the day Blake's troop was camped there on the way back from the Dragoons. There was the packet left by the orderly to be called for by officers arriving on the Yuma stage, addressed in clerkly hand, but Sancho, alas! could not read. Hovering as near as the gravity and dignity of his station would permit, he had heard the colonel's query about Blake. He pricked up his ears at once. Teniente Blake! Thirty miles east on the Maricopa road! Why, how was this? Some one had told him Blake had been to the Colorado and was coming back by this very stage. How did Blake get to the east of Sancho's ranch, after having once gone west, without Sancho's knowing it? Suspiciously he watched the two soldiers, the grizzled colonel, the slim lieutenant. They were talking together in low tones, at least the colonel was talking, eagerly, energetically, and with much gesticulation. The junior listened wordless to every word. What had he meant by "the bird had flown?" Why should Nevins "skip?" An unpleasant fear seized upon Sancho. He knew Nevins, at least a Nevins, a captain whom everybody knew, in fact, and few men trusted. What had Nevins been doing? or rather, what that he had been doing was he to be held to account for? Why should the colonel so eagerly ask where they could reach Blake? Time was when Sancho flattered himself that there was no deviltry going on in Arizona, except such as originated with the Indians, in which he had not at least the participation of full knowledge, yet here came two officials, hastening by stage instead of marching with military deliberation and escort, and they were in quest of the Se?or Capitan Nevins of whom all men had heard and at whose hands many had suffered, for was not he a player whom the very cards seemed to obey? Was it not he who broke the bank at Bustamente's during the fiesta at Tucson but five months agone? Was it not Nevins who won all the money those two young tenientes possessed--two boys from the far East just joining their regiment and haplessly falling into the hands of this dashing, dapper, wholesouled, hospitable comrade who made his temporary quarters their home until they could find opportunity to go forward to the distant posts where their respective companies were stationed? Was it not Nevins who, right there at Sancho's ranch, finding a party of prospectors, several ex-Confederate soldiers among them, languidly staking silver at the monte table presided over by Sancho's own brother, had calmly opened a faro "layout" and enticed every man from the legitimate game and every peso from their pockets before the two-day's session was finished? Well did Sancho recall his own wrath and that of his brother at this unlicensed interference with their special business, and the surprising liberality, too, with which the Se?or Capitan had silenced their remonstrance. Rascal though he was, Sancho had sense enough to know that such proceedings were not seemly in a man