hed it in four gulps,
and, like a greyhound, looked eagerly for more. Briggs laughed and
pointed to the tray on the steps, but the Hualpai shook his head and
drew back shyly.

"You'll have to give it piece by piece, Briggs," said Strong. "His
squaw would scoop the whole trayload into her skirt or blanket, but not
a Hualpai brave."

Approached in accordance with Hualpai views of table etiquette, the
Indian ate greedily, and was still eating when the corporal came and,
with him, the sleepy and dishevelled courier, the American. And now in
the radiant moonlight the strange war council was resumed.

"Ask him, if you can, where the first fight came off, and who was sent
with the despatch," demanded the general of the new-comer, upon whom
the Hualpai looked in recognition, but with neither light nor welcome
in his piercing eyes. Question and answer in halting, uncanny speech
progressed fitfully a moment. Then came the report:

"He says there was a fight the first day out; another when they struck
Tonto Creek, and two soldiers were killed."

"And as to the first runner?"

"He says 'Patchie Mohave brought it all way safe. This buck met him
going back. He said he gave it to 'scout capitan' out by Picacho."

"'Out by Picacho!''Scout capitan!' Who on earth does he mean?" asked
Archer, with a sudden fear at heart.

Once again, stumbling question, much gesticulation, many words in
strange gutturals--and a name. Then the final report:

"He means Apache-Mohave--'Tonio!"

CHAPTER XIV.

Three anxious, watchful days went by, with anxious, watchful nights
intervening, with no further tidings of 'Tonio or Stannard or Turner,
of friend or foe from the outside world, and with only one attempt on
part of the invisibly, yet perceptibly, surrounded garrison to
communicate with the field columns. "Hualpai 21," the only designation
he would own to (the real name, in the absence of some tribesman to
speak for him, one could rarely learn from an Indian), was given his
fill of food and rest, then, with a despatch to Turner, was sent forth
Monday night south-eastward, the way he came, and bidden if he reached
the rugged height known as El Caporal, some twelve miles to the
south-east, and deemed it safe to do so, to send at sunrise three quick
mirror flashes toward the flagstaff, repeating twice or thrice to be
sure of its attracting attention. Hualpai 21 took with him one of those
cheap little disks of looking-glass, cased in pe