Willett, but not, thank God, until better and brighter days had dawned
on most of them, and of one of these days, and of 'Tonio, there is yet
this to tell.

There had been a year in which the Archers took their little girl
abroad. The old regiment had been ordered to an eastern station, and
the change was welcome, for with all her bravery, and despite their
fondest care, she drooped in Arizona, and there came a longed-for
opportunity they could not neglect. They were many moons away; they
were for a time at regimental head-quarters on their return, and then,
in days when nothing was so rare as advancement, came Archer's
promotion to the colonelcy of the very regiment that had taken the
stations of their former friends in Arizona. In a little less than two
years from that eventful night among the cedars, the Archers, three,
were once more welcomed to the general's roof, escorted the last ten
miles of the dusty stage ride from the desert by Harris, whose letters
to the general or to Mrs. Archer had been regular as the fortnightly
mail. With the morrow he and 'Tonio were on hand to hail them, looking
fit and spare and sinewy as ever they had of old, for these were
strenuous days and stirring times in the Apache-haunted mountains--the
Tontos had broken faith and were again afield.

Camp Sandy on the Verde was the centre of the storm. Pelham and his
cavalry had just been sent to other climes, marching overland to "the
Plains." Archer was needed at once in command of the district, and was
speedily there established, and thither too went Crook, with Bright to
write his orders and despatches, with Harris and 'Tonio to head the
scouts. Thither presently went Lilian and her mother. The post was
large, the garrison ample. There was active service that their own
white-haired general welcomed eagerly, for Crook meant to the full that
his loyal old friend and supporter should have all the credit that the
campaign might bring him. But campaigns conducted under daily
telegraphic promptings from distant superiors were not the brisk and
independent matters of a few years back. There were too many advisers
within easy, if expensive, reaching distance--too many "Friends of the
Indian," and far too few of the soldier, close in touch at court. Crook
himself was looking vexed and worried. It is so hard to serve God and
Mammon, to grapple with the foemen at the front, the Press and the
Pulpit at the rear. At the very moment when he had the "