A Wounded Name | Page 3

wore the navy button
or tormented a sailor father. Blake sought the roughest duty--that of
escorting inspectors, staff officers or paymasters on their wearisome
trips through the wilderness--and no one denied him. The cavalry was
short of officers and he got assigned to Sanford's troop, and the biggest
surprise that had come since his commission met him one day at Gila
Bend, when that same old red stage, a relic of California days, emerged
from the dust-cloud of its own manufacture, and a quiet youth in
pepper-and-salt and sand-colored costume, looked up from behind a
pair of green goggles saying:
"Hullo, Blake!"
It was the voice, not the face, that the tall trooper recognized.
"Well--of--all--the--Why, what in the name of Pegasus brings you here,
Loring? I thought you had graduated into the engineers."
"Fact," said the newcomer sententiously.
"Well, what's an engineer doing in Arizona? I'd as soon look to see an

archbishop."
"Scouting," said the dust-colored man. "Where's dinner?"
"In the shack yonder, if your stomach's copper-lined. Better come over
to my camp and take pot-luck there."
Which Loring gladly did, and then went on his dusty way, leaving
Blake with something to think of beside his own woes. Within half a
year of his graduation from West Point the young engineer, one of the
stars of his class, had been ordered to report to the general commanding
the Division of the Pacific and was set to work on a military map in
that general's office. Loring found all maps of Arizona to be vague and
incomplete, and was ordered forthwith to go to the territory and gather
in the needed data. That he, too, should be lass-lorn never for a moment
occurred to his comrade of the line. Had such facts been confessed
among the exiles of those days many a comradeship of the far frontier
would have been strengthened. That the girl who duped Gerald Blake
should have been known to her who had captivated Mr. Loring was
suspected by neither officer at the time, and that, despite the efforts and
the resolution of both men, both women were destined to reappear upon
the stage, and temporarily, at least, reassume their sway, was something
neither soldier would have admitted possible. Yet stranger things had
happened, and stranger still were destined to happen, and the first step
in the drama was taken within the fortnight of this chance meeting at
Gila Bend.
Sancho, studying the coming stage with Blake's binocular until it dove
into the arroyo five hundred yards to the west, handed that costly
instrument to the silent, dumpy, dark-skinned woman who stood
patiently at his side, and said briefly, "Dos" at which she vanished, and
after restoring the glass to its hiding-place in her bedroom, was heard
uplifting a shrill, raucous voice at the back of the house, ordering
dinner to be ready for two. When the vehicle came rattling up to the
door Sancho stood at his threshold, the old lorgnette in hand, bowing
profoundly as two travelers, officers of the army apparently, emerged
in their dusters and stiffly alighted.

"Have any letters or dispatches been left here for me?" asked in quiet
tone the elder of the two, limping slightly as he advanced, leaving to
his comrade the responsibility of seeing that none of their luggage had
been jolted out of the rickety vehicle. One or two hangers-on came
languidly, yet inquisitively, within earshot.
For answer the ranch-keeper, with another elaborate bow, produced a
bulky official envelope. The officer hastily glanced at the
superscription, said "This is for me," strode within the adobe-walled
corral, halted under a screen of brown canvas, and there tore open the
packet. Several personal letters fell to the ground, but he at first paid
little heed to them. Rapidly his eyes ran over a sheet of closely-written
matter, then he turned to the silent and ceremonious ranchman.
"When did this come?" he asked.
"At sunset yesterday, Señor Comandante."
"Where's the courier?"
"He returned before dawn to-day."
The loungers drew still nearer as the senior calmly turned to his
companion, who, having assured himself that their impedimenta were
all safe, came with quick, springy step to join him.
"Where do you suppose Blake and his detachment to be at this moment,
Loring?"
"Perhaps thirty miles ahead, sir; over toward Maricopa. Do you need
him, colonel?"
"Yes, and at once. Our bird has flown. In other words, Nevins has
skipped."
CHAPTER II.
Just what an officer's actual rank might be in the days that followed

close on the heels of the war was a matter no man could tell from either
his dress or address. Few indeed were they who escaped the deluge of
brevets that poured over the army and soaked some men six deep.
There were well-authenticated cases of well-preserved persons who