wter, at that time
found at every frontier store. He took also the injunction to give his
despatch to Captain Turner or one of his men, but to no Indian
whomsoever--'Tonio in particular. It was the last attempt of the week.

For, from dawn until the sun was an hour high, the watchers watched in
vain. Three signal glasses, telescope and binocular, were trained upon
the heights and no one of them caught the faintest spark of reflected
light. The nearest approach to a signal was seen by a corporal of the
guard and sentry Number Six an hour after midnight, when, in quick
succession, two faint, firefly flashes, unrepeated, were visible afar
out due east of the Picacho, and they could have been caused in only
two ways--somebody experimenting with a mirror and the moonbeams, the
moon being then about three hours high and three-quarters full, or
else, as they were ruddier than moonshine, somebody taking two quick
shots, probably at somebody else. The corporal counted seconds up to
twenty and more, and even in that breathless silence, heard not a sound
to warrant the belief.

Yet a few hours later that sun-blistered morning, the bookkeeper Case
"blew in for a bottle," as he expressed it; remarked with engaging
frankness that he believed he had still a day or so in which to taper,
and would be home and on deck if the Apaches didn't get him meantime;
and, being delicately invited to state where he had spent the night,
replied as frankly as before, "Down at Jose Sanchez's," meaning thereby
the down-stream resort two miles distant, where prospectors, packers
and occasionally men from the post, in peace times, at least, went for
unlimited mescal and monte. Since the death of Comes Flying, the
disappearance of 'Patchie Sanchez (the runner, half-brother to Sanchez,
the gambler), and the general outbreak among the Indians, it had been
shunned as utterly unsafe, and reported abandoned. When cautioned by
Watts against returning thither, Mr. Case replied that now that the
Indians spurned it, for not even 'Tonio would set foot anywhere about
the ranch, the ghost of the brother was seen there every night. He had
seen it and it was an honest ghost, and a convivial spirit, which was
why last night's bottle had lasted no longer. Moreover, Case said that
when he was drinking he was only at home in half-bred society and
couldn't live up to the high tone of the post. When told of Mr.
Willett's further mishap, Case sobered for a moment in manner,