useless, and I tired."

"Could _you_ have caught them and persuaded them had you gone alone?"
And Willett asked as he had been instructed at headquarters.

"Caught? Yes! Persuaded? No! They say white soldiers killed Comes
Flying, brother to Chief Lone Pine."

"How does he know Comes Flying was killed? We heard it only the night I
reached Prescott. No one has told it--here." And now the officer's eyes
were glittering. The adjutant shifted uneasily in his chair. This was
news to him. Comes Flying stood second only to Lone Pine in the tribe,
yet Camp Almy had not heard it. 'Tonio had told it not even to Harris.

"The mountain eagle is 'Tonio's friend; the bear, the lynx, the birds
are his brothers."

"Then you _knew_ the Apache Mohaves were in the Verde Valley--and in
Dead Man's Canon as late as last week--that they had raided Stoner's
Ranch?"

"They were not there, nor did they raid Stoner's Ranch! My people
stayed not even on the East Fork. They fled deep in the Mogollon."

Willett gave vent to impatient "Pish!" The Indians he had known all
lied, of course, but looked it. This man looked him full in the face,
even as he lied, and looked the truth.

"I'll show you why we know you lie," said he impulsively, but the
adjutant held up a warning hand, saying, "Listen!"

Through the open doorway, barred against unauthorized intruder by the
single soldier, standing beyond earshot upon the level of the parade,
there came the prolonged cry of a sentry at the upper end of the
garrison. Number Three had repeated, but Number Four was impatient,
imperative, and the yell came again: "Corporal of the Guard, Number
Four!"

"That _means_ something," said the adjutant, springing to his feet.
"I'll be back in a minute if it doesn't," and away he went,
swift-speeding under the flagstaff, and Munoz followed straight to the
base of the staff, where the trumpeter of the guard and three or four
men from the barracks were already gathered, their own surreptitious,
blanket-shrouded game for the moment forgotten. They were staring
through the moonlight straight away to the northeastward chain of
heights, rocky and precipitous, that spanned the valley in that
direction, and suddenly two of them gave tongue:

"There it is again! Didn't I tell you?"

Far away among the pines at the crest a tiny blaze shot into the skies,
brilliant even in the moonshine. "Signal fire, sure!" said three voices
at once. "Signal fire, sure!" echoed other v