Foes in Ambush | Page 5

a dozen of your men ride out and escort them down here.
There is no doubt in the world the Apaches are in the mountains on
both sides, and I'm trembling for fear they've already found our camp.
None of my party dared make the ride, so I had to come."
What was Plummer to do? He didn't want to rouse the sergeant. This
wasn't going back to Ceralvo's, but riding northward to the rescue of
imperilled beauty. He simply couldn't refuse, especially when Donovan
and others were eager to go. From Mr. Harvey he learned that his father
had married into an old Spanish Mexican family at Havana, had been
induced by them to take charge of certain business in Matamoras, and
that long afterwards he had removed to Guaymas and thence to Tucson.
The children had been educated at San Francisco, and the sisters, now

seventeen and fifteen years of age respectively, were soon to go to
Cuba to visit relatives of their mother, but were determined once more
to see the quaint old home at Tucson before so doing; hence this
journey under his charge. The story seemed straight enough. Plummer
had never yet been to Tucson, but at Drum Barracks and Wilmington
he had often heard of the Harveys, and Donovan swore he knew them
all by sight, especially the old man. The matter was settled before
Plummer really knew whether to take the responsibility or not, and the
cavalry corporal with five men rode back into the fiery heat of the
Arizona day and was miles away towards the Gila before Feeny awoke
to a realizing sense of what had happened. Then he came out and
blasphemed. There in that wretched little green safe were locked up
thousands enough of dollars to tempt all the outlawry of the Occident to
any deed of desperation that might lead to the capture of the booty, and
with Donovan and his party away Feeny saw he had but half a dozen
men for defence.
At his interposition the major had at least done one thing,--warned
Moreno not to sell a drop of his fiery mescal to any one of the men; and,
when the Mexican expressed entire willingness to acquiesce, Feeny's
suspicions were redoubled, and he picked out Trooper Latham, a New
Englander whom some strange and untoward fate had led into the ranks,
and stationed him in the bullet-scarred bar-room of the ranch, with
strict orders to allow not a drop to be drawn or served to any one
without the sanction of Sergeant Feeny or his superior officer, the
major. Even the humiliation of this proceeding had in no wise disturbed
Moreno's suavity. "All I possess is at your feet," he had said to the
major, with Castilian grace and gravity; "take or withhold it as you
will."
"Infernal old hypocrite!" swore Feeny, between his strong, set teeth. "I
believe he'd like nothing better than to get the escort drunk and turn us
over bag and baggage to the Morales gang."
Thrice during the hot afternoon had Feeny scouted the premises and
striven to find what number and manner of men Moreno might have in
concealment there. Questioning was of little use. Moreno was ready to

answer to anything, and was never known to halt at a lie. Old Miguel,
the half-breed, who did odd jobs about the well and the corral,
expressed profound ignorance both of the situation and Feeny's English.
The Mexican boy had but one answer to all queries: "No sa-a-abe."
Other occupants there were, but these even Feeny's sense of duty could
not prompt him to disturb. Somewhere in the depths of the domestic
portion of the ranch, where the brush on the flat roof was piled most
heavily and the walls were jealously thick, all scouting-parties or
escorts well knew that Moreno's wife and daughter were hidden from
prying eyes, and rumor had it that often there were more than two
feminine occupants; that these were sometimes joined by three or four
others,--wives or sweethearts of outlawed men who rode with Pasqual
Morales, and all Arizona knew that Pasqual Morales had little more
Mexican blood in his veins than had Feeny himself. He was an
Americano, a cursed Gringo for whom long years ago the sheriffs of
California and Nevada had chased in vain, who had sought refuge and a
mate in Sonora, and whose swarthy features found no difficulty in
masquerading under a Mexican name when the language of love had
made him familiar with the Mexican tongue.
Slow to action, slow of speech as was the paymaster, he was not slow
to see that Sergeant Feeny was anxious and ill at ease, and if a veteran
trooper whom his captain had pronounced the coolest, pluckiest, and
most reliable man in the