Foes in Ambush | Page 9

may be, and means only one
thing,--'Apaches here.' Sergeant Wing is not the man to get stampeded.
Can they have jumped the stage, do you think, or attacked some of
Ceralvo's people?"
"Lord knows, sir. I don't see how they could have swung around there;
there's nothing to tempt them along that range until they get to the pass
itself. They must have come around south of Moreno's."
"I think not, sergeant."

The words were spoken in a very quiet voice. Drummond turned in
surprise, his foot in the stirrup, and looked at the speaker, a keen-eyed
trooper of middle age, whose hair was already sprinkled with gray.
"Why not, Bland?"
"Because we have been along the range for nearly fifty miles below
here, sir, and haven't crossed a sign, and because I understand now
what I couldn't account for at two o'clock,--what I thought must be
imagination."
"What was that?"
"Smoke, sir, off towards the Gila, north of Ceralvo's, I should say, just
about north of west of where we are."
"Why didn't you report it?"
"You were asleep, sir, and by the time I got the glasses and looked it
had faded out entirely; but it's my belief the Indians are between us and
the river, or were over there north of Ceralvo's to-day. If not Indians,
who?"
"You ride with me, Bland. I'll talk with you further about this. Come on
with the men as soon as you have the packs ready, sergeant." And so
saying, Lieutenant Drummond mounted and rode slowly down the
winding trail among the boulders. At the foot of the slope, where the
water lay gleaming in its rocky bed, he reined his horse to the left to
give him his fill of the pool, and here the trooper addressed as Bland
presently joined him.
"Where was it you enlisted, Bland?" was the younger soldier's first
question. "I understand you are familiar with all this country."
"At Tucson, sir, six months ago, after the stage company discharged
me."
"I remember," was the answer, as the lieutenant gently drew rein to lift

his horse's head. "I think you were so frank as to give the reason of
your quitting their employment."
"Well, there was no sense trying to conceal it, or anything else a man
may do out here, lieutenant. They fired me for drinking too much at the
wrong time. The section boss said he couldn't help himself, and I don't
suppose he could."
"As I remember," said Drummond, presently, and with hesitation, for
he hated to pry into the past of a man who spoke so frankly and who
made no effort to conceal his weakness, "you were driver of the
buck-board the Morales gang held up last November over near the
Catarinas."
"Yes; that's the time I got drunk, sir. It's all that saved me from being
killed, and between keeping sober and losing my life or getting drunk
and losing a job, I preferred the latter."
"Yet you were in a measure responsible for the safety of your
passengers and mail, were you not?"
"Well, no, sir, not after the warning I gave the company. I told them
Ramon Morales was in Tucson the night before we had to pull out, and
wherever he was that infernal cut-throat of a brother of his wasn't far
away. I told them it was taking chances to let Judge Gillette and that
infantry quartermaster try to go through without escort. I begged to
throw up the job that very night, but they held me to my contract, and I
had to go. We were jumped not ten miles out of town, and before any
one could draw a Derringer every man of us was covered. The judge
might have known they'd shoot him on sight ever since that Greaser
from Hermosillo was lynched. But they never harmed the
quartermaster."
"Huh! The devil they didn't!" laughed the lieutenant. "They took his
watch and his money and everything he had on except his
underclothing. How long had you been driving when that happened?"
"Just eight months, sir, between Tucson and Grant."

"And did you never serve with the cavalry before? You ride as though
you had."
"Most men hereabouts served on one side or other," said Bland, calmly,
as his horse finished his long pull at the water.
"And your side was--?"
"Confederate," was the brief reply. "I was born in Texas. Here comes
the troop, sir."
"Come on, then. I want to ask you about that trail to Crittenden as we
ride. We make first for the Picacho Pass from here."
"Why, that's south of west, sir," answered Bland. "I had thought
perhaps the lieutenant would want to go northward towards the Gila to
head off any parties of the Apaches that might be striving to get