Tonio, Son of the Sierras | Page 3

at his
feet. "'Tonio has not half an ounce of fat in his hide," said Harris, in
explaining his tireless work on the trail. "'Tonio can go sixty miles
without a gulp of water and come out fresh as a daisy at the end."
'Tonio's eminently fit condition had been something Harris ever held in

envy and emulation, yet on this recent scout even 'Tonio had failed him.
'Tonio had complained. To look at him as he stood there now, erect,
slender, with deep chest and long, lank arms and legs, trammelled only
by the white cotton breechclout that looped over the waist belt and
trailed, fore and aft, below the bony knee, his back and shoulders
covered by white camisa unfastened at the throat and chest, his feet
cased in deerskin moccasins, the long leggings of which hung in folds
at the ankles, one could liken him only to the coyote--the half-famished
wolf of the sage plain and barren, for even the greyhound knew thirst
and fatigue,--knew how to stretch at full length and luxury in the shade,
whereas 'Tonio, by day at least, stood or squatted. Never in all their
long prowlings, by day or night, among the arid deserts or desolate
ranges along the border, had Harris known his chief trailer and scout to
hint at such a thing as weariness. Yet, within the week gone by, thrice
had he declared himself unable to go farther. Did it mean that at last
'Tonio would purposely fail him, now that there were some of his own
people among the renegades?
'Tonio had stoutly denied such a weakness. The few young men with
the hostiles, said he, were more Tonto than Mohave--fools who had
offended their brothers and dishonored their tribe. Chiefs, medicine
men, even the women, he said, disowned them. The braves would kill,
and the women spurn, them on sight. 'Tonio pointed to the "hound"
scouts with the Verde company--Hualpais, some of them--splendid
specimens from the mountains; Apache Yumas, some of them, not
quite the peer of the Hualpais; but many of them--most of them, in
fact--Apache Mohaves, fiercest, surest trailers of the wild Red Rock
country, familiar with every cañon and crag in all the rude range from
Snow Lake to the Sierra Blanca. "All brothers," protested 'Tonio. "All
soldiers. All braves, unafraid of a thousand Tontos, eager only to meet
and punish their traitor fellows who had taken the White Chief's pay
and bread, pledged their best services and then gone renegading to the
fastnesses of the Mogollon," adding with scorn unspeakable, "taking
other women with them."
And still Harris was not content. Harris had sent a runner back when
the scout was but half finished, with a note to be relayed to Prescott, to

tell the general of his ill success and his evil suspicions, and the chief
being himself out a-hunting, what did his chief of staff do but order the
Newly Arrived down to Almy to meet the home-coming party and see
for himself--and his general!
And of all men chosen to meddle in matters concerning "Hefty" Harris,
perhaps the latest suitable, in some ways, was his classmate and
comrade lieutenant, though in different arms of the service--Hal Willett
of "The Lost and Strayed," so called from the fact that they had been
sent to desert wilds in '65, scattered over three territories, and despite
some hard fighting and many hard knocks, had never, said their
detractors, been heard from since.
Rivals they had been in cadet days and more than one pursuit. Rivals
they still were in the field of arms, for the name Harris had won for
himself in Arizona Willett had matched in the Columbia, and now,
fresh from the ill-starred campaign of the Lava Beds, was one of the
few men to get something better than hard knocks, censure and
criticism. Until the previous evening, not since the day they parted at
West Point had they set eyes one on the other, and, knowing nothing of
what had gone before and never dreaming of what would come to pass,
a benighted bureau officer had sent the one down to find out what was
the matter with the other.
And thereby hangs this tale.
For, as luck would have it, there was even then stationed in that
far-away land a luckless lieutenant-colonel of infantry who had started
with good prospects in the Civil War, had early been given command
of a brigade of volunteers and within the month had had his raw
concourse of undrilled, undisciplined levies swept from under him in
the first fierce onset at Shiloh. What else could have been expected of
men to whom arms had been issued but ten days before, and who had
not yet learned which end to bite from the cartridge? Hurled from