ying our coffee and
_frijoles_; Blake had ridden up into the garrison. Potts was still
absent; and so, as we expected, was Mr. Gleason.

Half an hour more, and in long column of twos, and followed by our
pack-train, the command was filing out along the road whereon "No. 3"
had seen the ambulance darting by in the darkness. Blake had come back
from the post with a flush of anger on his face and with lips
compressed. He did not even dismount. "Saddle up at once" was all he
said until he gave the commands to mount and march. Opposite the
quarters of the commanding officer we were riding at ease, and there he
shook his gauntleted fist at the whitewashed walls, and had recourse to
his usual safety-valve,--

"'Take heed, my lords, the welfare of us all
Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man,'

and may the devil fly away with him! What d'ye think he told me when I
went to hunt him up?"

There was no suitable conjecture.

"He said to march ahead, leaving his horse, Potts's, and his orderly's,
also the pack-mule: he would follow at his leisure. He had given Potts
authority to wait and go with him, but did not consider it necessary to
notify me."

"Where was he?"

"Still at the store, playing with the trader and some understrappers.
Didn't seem to be drunk, either."

And that was the last we heard of our commander until late in the
evening. We were then in bivouac on the west bank of the Sandy within
short rifle-range of the buildings of Crocker's Ranch on the other side.
There the lights burned brightly, and some of our people who had gone
across had been courteously received, despite a certain constraint and
nervousness displayed by the two brothers. At "Starlight," however,
nearly a mile away from us, all was silence and darkness. We had studied
it curiously as we marched up along the west shore, and some of the men
had asked permission to fall out and ride over there, "just to see it,"
but Blake had refused. The Sandy was easily fordable on horseback
anywhere, and the Crockers, for the convenience of their ranch people,
had placed a lot of bowlders and heaps of stones in such position that
they served as a foot-path opposite their corrals. But Blake said he
would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it
happened that we were around the fire when Gleason rode in about nine
o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts.

"You may retain command, Mr. Blake," sai