An Apache Princess | Page 8

later years, a thing that had stirred certain callow
wits to differentiate between the Misses Wren as Angela and Angular,
which, hearing, some few women reproved but all repeated. Miss Wren,
the sister, was in fine a woman widely honored but little sought. It was
Angela that all Camp Sandy would have met with open arms.
"R-r-robert," began Miss Wren, as the captain unclasped his saber belt
and turned it over to Mickel, his German "striker." She would have
proceeded further, but he held up a warning hand. He had come
homeward angering and ill at ease. Disliking Blakely from the first, a
"ballroom soldier," as he called him, and alienated from him later, he
had heard still further whisperings of the devotions of a chieftain's
daughter at the agency, above all, of the strange infatuation of the
major's wife, and these had warranted, in his opinion, warning words to
his senior subaltern in refusing that gentleman's request to ride with
Angela. "I object to any such attentions--to any meetings whatsoever,"
said he, but sooner than give the real reason, added lamely, "My
daughter is too young." Now he thought he saw impending duty in his

sister's somber eyes and poise. He knew it when she began by rolling
her r's--it was so like their childhood's spiritual guide and mentor,
MacTaggart, erstwhile of the "Auld Licht" persuasion, and a power.
"Wait a bit, Janet," said he. "Mickel, get my horse and tell Sergeant
Strang to send me a mounted orderly." Then, as Mickel dropped the
saber in the open doorway and departed, he turned upon her.
"Where's Angela?" said he, "and what was she doing out after recall?
The stable sergeant says 'twas six when Punch came home."
"R-r-robert, it is of that I wish to speak to you, and before she comes to
dinner. Hush! She's coming now."
Down the row of shaded wooden porticos, at the major's next door, at
Dr. Graham's, the Scotch surgeon and Wren's especial friend and crony,
at the Lynns' and Sanders's beyond, little groups of women and
children in cool evening garb, and officers in white, were gathered in
merry, laughing chat. Nowhere, save in the eyes of one woman at the
commanding officer's, and here at Wren's, seemed there anything
ominous in the absence of this officer so lately come to join them. The
voice of Angela, glad and ringing, fell upon the father's ears in sudden
joy. Who could associate shame or subterfuge with tones so charged
with merriment? The face of Angela, coming suddenly round the corner
from the side veranda, beamed instantly upon him, sweet, trusting and
welcoming, then slowly shadowed at sight of the set expression about
his mouth, and the rigid, uncompromising, determined sorrow in the
features of her aunt.
Before she could utter a word, the father questioned:
"Angela, my child, have you seen Mr. Blakely this afternoon?"
One moment her big eyes clouded, but unflinchingly they met his gaze.
Then, something in the stern scrutiny of her aunt's regard stirred all that
was mutinous within her; yet there was an irrepressible twitching about
the corners of the rosy mouth, a twinkle about the big brown eyes that
should have given them pause, even as she demurely answered:

"Yes."
"When?" demanded the soldier, his muscular hand clutching ominously
at the wooden rail; his jaw setting squarely. "When--and where?"
But now the merriment with which she had begun changed slowly at
sight of the repressed fury in his rugged Gaelic face. She, too, was
trembling as she answered:
"Just after recall--down at the pool."
For an instant he stood glaring, incredulous. "At the pool! You! My
bairnie!" Then, with sudden outburst of passionate wrath, "Go to your
room!" said he.
"But listen--father, dear," she began, imploringly. For answer he seized
her slender arm in almost brutal grasp and fairly hurled her within the
doorway. "Not a word!" he ground between his clinched teeth. "Go
instantly!" Then, slamming the door upon her, he whirled about as
though to seek his sister's face, and saw beyond her, rounding the
corner of the northwest set of quarters, coming in from the mesa
roadway at the back, the tall, white figure of the missing man.
Another moment and Lieutenant Blakely, in the front room of his
quarters, looking pale and strange, was being pounced upon with eager
questioning by Duane, his junior, when the wooden steps and veranda
creaked under a quick, heavy, ominous tread, and, with livid face and
clinching hands, the troop commander came striding in.
"Mr. Blakely," said he, his voice deep with wrath and tremulous with
passion, "I told you three days ago my daughter and you must not meet,
and--you know why! To-day you lured her to a rendezvous outside the
post--"
"Captain Wren!"
"Don't lie! I say