's side.

"Harris," he puffed, "this is no way to work your men. They'll be blown
when you get there, and of no earthly use."

"You don't know them," answered Harris, with exasperating calm, and
without so much as a symptom of slowing up.

"But--I know how it affects--me,--and I'm no novice at scouting."

"You are to--this sort of thing, anyhow," was the uncompromising
answer, and then with a cool, comprehensive glance that seemed to take
in the entire man, he added, "You're out of training, Willett--the one
thing a man has to watch out for in Apache work. Better let me leave a
couple of men with you, and come on easily. You won't be very far
behind us."

And then, as bad luck would have it, 'Tonio came cantering up from the
rear, his big, lop-eared mule protesting to the last, and 'Tonio bore a
little folded paper.

He was not versed in cavalry etiquette, this chieftain of the frontier,
nor had he learned to read writing as he did men. The two officers at
the moment were side by side, Willett on the right, his charger
plunging and sweating with back set ears and distended nostrils; Harris
on the left, his broncho jogging steadily, sturdily on, showing no
symptom of weariness. "To Gran Capitan--Willett" were the general's
words, it seems, when he sent 'Tonio on his way with the note, but in
'Tonio's eyes Harris was "Gran Capitan," even though hailed at times as
"_Capitan Chiquito_," and to Harris's left 'Tonio urged his mount and
silently held forth the missive.

There was never any question thereafter that it was meant for the
other. Archer had his reasons. Willett was there as the aid, the
representative, of the department commander, charged with an important
duty. Willett had come to him, volunteered to go with the scouts, and
he had bidden him God speed. Willett was the senior in rank as first
lieutenant, promotions in the "Lost and Strayed" having been livelier
than in the "Light Dragoons." Moreover, Willett had shown proper
deference to him, the post commander, whereas, Harris, said he, in his
first impulsive, self-excusing mood, even though warranted in going,
had gone without a word. Sensitive and proud, the veteran of many
fights and many sorrows, ruefully bethinking himself of Harris's
abstinence and his own conviviality, saw fit to imagine Harris guilty
of an intentional slight.

Like noble old Newcombe, the gentlest and humblest-minded of men, "he
was furious if anybody took a liberty with him," an