courtesy, commanding, compelling.

"Miss Archer and--ah--Willett, be good enough to sit perfectly still a
moment. Don't--move--a muscle!"

Even the general, for a wonder, had ceased--for breath, perhaps--and
sat speechless and startled, for noiseless and stealthy as a cat, with
long strides, 'Tonio had skirted the edge of the veranda, and with
agile spring was at the back of Lilian's chair. There he swooped
instantly. There was sound of strident, rasping sk-r-r-r-rr: then a
lightning snap, as of a whip. Something black and writhing went flying
into the sand, and then squirming blindly away, and 'Tonio straightened
to his full height, and without a word strode from the veranda.

"In God's name, what was that?" cried the general, springing from his
chair and hastening to his daughter's side.

"Nothing but a snake, sir," said Harris quietly, strolling toward them.
"_That_ one's done for, anyhow!"

CHAPTER IV.

An hour later the lights were out among the barracks, and the silence
of the summerlike winter's night had settled on the garrison. Over at
the Mess and office buildings all was darkness. Along the log and adobe
facade of the officers' quarters, from occasional open doorways the
gleam of lantern was thrown across the wooden verandas. The moonbeams
flooded the sandy parade and the rough-hewn roofs and walls with
tender, silvery radiance that put to shame the twinkling lights, down
at the store on the lower flats, and the bleary eye of the big,
triangular, glass-faced, iron-bound cresset at the log guard-house,
perched at the edge of the mesa. Afar off, through dim vistas of the
valley, the silver ribbon of the stream wound and twisted among the
willows, but the heights, as a rule, were wrapped in the shadows of
their own pines. A game of goodly proportion was going on down at the
card room, a brace of ranchmen and prospectors, a venturesome "sub" and
the "contract doctor" making up the party, but the general, his
household and near neighbors had retired or were retiring for the
night. Only the guard and the "owls" were "on deck." Army folk in those
days and regions had a way of turning out at dawn for the cool of the
morning, turning in at taps for the needed six hours' beauty sleep,
lunching lightly at noon, snoozing drowsily an hour or two, then after
tub and fresh linen, venturing forth, those who had to, for the
afternoon duties. All social enjoyment, as a rule, began when the sun
could not see, bu