-whist now!"

Both men bent their ears--the veteran sentry, the veteran company
commander. Both had spent years in service, in the South in the war
days, in the West ever since, and neither was easily alarmed.

As sure as they stood there somebody was sobbing--a low,
heart-breaking, half-stifled sound, down there somewhere among the
willows, that for two hundred yards, at least, lined the stream. "Come
with me," said the captain instantly, and together the two went
plunging down the sandy slope and out over the flats beneath, and into
the shadows at the brink, and up and down the low bank between the
fords, and not a living being could they find.

"What first caught your ear?" asked Bonner, as together, finally, they
came plodding back.

"Sure, I heard the captain come out on his side porch for a drink at
the olla, sir, and saw him step over and look at the doctor's place
before starting for the guard-house, and I knew he'd be around this way
and was thinking to meet him up yonder where Number Four is, when I
heard Six down here whistling to me, and when I went Six said as how
the dogs way over at the store was barking a lot, and he said had I
seen or heard anything in the willows--he's that young fellow that
'listed back at Wickenburg after the stage holdup--and while we was
talkin' he grabbed me and said, 'Listen! There's Indians out on the
bluff! I heard 'em singing.' I told him he was scared, but when I came
back along the bank I could have sworn I saw something go flashing into
the willows from this side, an' then came the cryin', and then you,
sir."

Bonner turned straightway to his own quarters, to the side porch at the
doctor's--and 'Tonio was gone. Peering within the open doorway, he saw
the attendant nodding in his chair by the little table where dimly
burned the nightlamp, close to the cot where Harris lay in feverish
slumber. Next, the captain started for the post of Number Six, near the
south-east corner of the rectangle, and there was the corporal and the
relief, just marching away with "the young feller that 'listed in
Wickenburg." A new sentry, another old soldier, had taken his place.
There was nothing to do but tell him to keep a sharp lookout and report
anything strange he saw or heard, particularly to be on lookout for
'Tonio. Then he pushed on after the relief, and then, catching sight of
the lights at the trader's, strode briskly over there and stopped a few
minutes, asking himself should he