inute
to unusual, though repressed excitement. Thrice he signalled to
Stannard and pointed to the crushed and beaten sand--to toe or heel or
sole marks to which the Caucasian would have attached but faint
importance had not the aborigine proclaimed rejoicefully
"Apache-Mohave!" whereat Stannard shook his head and set his teeth and
felt his choler rising.

"Thought you swore Apache _Tonto_ awhile ago," said Stannard wrathfully.
"Now you're saying Apache _Mohave_!"

"Si! Si! Apache Tonto--kill--shoot. Apache-Mohave good Indian. Look,
see, _carry_," and with hands and arms in eager gesture he strove to
illustrate.

Could he mean that they who killed Bennett were hostile Tontos, and
that these who bore the poor widowed creature were of the Mohave blood?
If so, why should 'Tonio seem really to rejoice? Had he not strenuously
denied that his people took any part in the outrage? Was he not now
insisting that they were active in bearing her away--probably to
captivity and a fate too horrible? Stannard, riding close at his heels,
his men still following in loose skirmish order until they should reach
the ravine, studied him with varying emotion. Harris had certainly
betrayed a fear that 'Tonio was but half-hearted in the matter of
scouting after Apache-Mohaves. Now the suspected scout was trailing for
all he was worth, with the pertinacity of the bloodhound.

Broad daylight again, and the sun peering down from the crest of the
great Mesa, and the morning growing hot, and some new hands already
pulling eagerly at the canteens, despite their older comrades' warning.
And still the advance went relentlessly on. They were climbing a
rugged, stony ravine now, with bare shoulders of bluff overhanging in
places, and presently, from a projecting ledge, Stannard was able to
look back over the rude landscape of the lowlands. There to the west,
stretching north and south, was the long, pine-crested bulwark of the
Mazatzal, the deep, ragged rift of Dead Man's Canon toward the upper
end. Winding away southward, in the midst of the broad valley, the
stream shone like burnished silver in the shallow reaches, or sparkled
over rocky beds. Far to the south-west, the dull, dun-colored roofs and
walls of the post could barely be discerned, even with the powerful
binocular, against the brown barren of the low "bench" whereon it lay.
Only the white lance of the flagstaff, and the glint of tin about the
chimneys, betrayed its position. From north