Foes in Ambush | Page 3

draw 'em back,
and they played it on you because they saw you were new to the
country and they knew I was asleep; and now, unless Lieutenant
Drummond should happen in with his troop, there's no help for it but to
wait for to-morrow night, and no certainty of getting away then."
"Well, if Mr. Drummond were here, don't you suppose he'd have gone
or sent back to protect those people?"

"Oh, he'd have gone,--certainly,--that's his business, but it isn't yours,
major. You've got government money there enough to buy up every
rum-hole south of the Gila. You're expected to pay at Stoneman, Grant
and Goodwin and Crittenden and Bowie, where they haven't had a cent
since last Christmas and here it is the middle of May. You ought to
have pushed through with all speed, so none of these jay-hawkers could
get wind of your going, let alone the Apaches. Every hour you halt is
clear gain to them, and here you've simply got to stay twenty-four
hours all along of a cock-and-bull story about some stage-load of
frightened women fifteen miles back at Gila Bend. It's a plant, major,
that's what I believe."
Old Plummer kicked the toe of his shoe into the sandy soil and hung a
reflective head. "I wish you hadn't shut your eyes," he drawled at
length.
"I wouldn't, sir, if I hadn't thought you'd keep yours open. You slept all
night, sir, you and Mr. Dawes, while I rode alongside with finger on
trigger every minute."
Absorbed in their gloomy conversation, neither man noticed that the
wooden shutter in the adobe wall close at hand had been noiselessly
opened from within, just an inch or two. Neither knew, neither could
see that behind it, in the gathering darkness of the short summer
evening, a shadowy form was crouching.
"Then you think we must stay here, do you?" queried the paymaster.
"Think? I know it. Why, the range ahead is alive with Apaches, and we
can't stand 'em off with only half a dozen men. Your clerk's no 'count,
major."
Old Plummer stood irresolute. His clerk, a consumptive and
broken-down relative, was at that moment lying nerveless on a rude
bunk within the ranch, bemoaning the fate that had impelled him to
seek Arizona in search of health. He was indeed of little "'count," as the
paymaster well knew. After a moment's painful thought the words rose
slowly to his lips.

"Well, perhaps you know best, so here we stay till to-morrow night, or
at least until they get back."
One could almost hear the whisper in the deep recess of the retaining
wall,--sibilant, gasping. Some one crouching still farther back in the
black depths of the interior did hear.
"Santa Maria!"
But when a moment later the proprietor of this roadside ranch, this
artificial oasis in a land of desolation, strolled into the big bare room
where half a dozen troopers were dozing or gambling, it was with an air
of confidential joviality that he whispered to the corporal in charge,--
"Our fren', the major, he riffuse me sell you aguardiente,--mescal; but
wait--to-night."
"Oh, damn it, Moreno, we'll be half-way to Stoneman by that time,"
interrupted the trooper, savagely. "Who's to know where we got the
stuff? We'll make 'em believe Donovan's squad brought it in from
Ceralvo's. Give me a drink now anyhow, you infernal Greaser; I'm all
burnt out with such a day as this. We've got to start the moment they
get back, and there won't be any time then."
"Hush, caballero; they come not to-night. You will rest here."
"Why, how in blazes do you know?"
"Softly!--I know not. I know noting; yet, mira!--I know. They talk long
in the corral,--the major and that pig of a sergeant;--for him I snap my
finger. Look you!" And Moreno gave a flip indicative of combined
defiance and disdain.
"Don't you count on his not finding out, Moreno. It's all easy enough so
far as the major's concerned, but that blackguard Feeny's different, I tell
you. He'd hear the gurgle of the spigot if he were ten miles across the
Gila, and be here to bust things before you could serve out a
gill,--damn him! He's been keen enough to put that psalm-singing

Yankee on guard over your liquor. How're you going to get at it,
anyhow?"
For all answer the Mexican placed the forefinger of his left hand upon
his lips and with that of the right hand pointed significantly to the
hard-beaten earthen floor.
"Ah--I have a mine," he whispered. "You will not betray, eh? Shu-u!
Hush! He comes now."
The gruff voice of Sergeant Feeny broke up the colloquy.
"Corporal Murphy, take what men you have here and groom at once.
Feed and water too.--Moreno, I want supper cooked for eight