g, "and her feller wouldn't stand it, I
reckon. Knifed the agent and Craney, too. Yonder's the feller."

Yonder lay, face downward, as described, a sinewy young brave of the
Apache Mohave band, his newer, cleaner shirt and his gayly ornamented
sash and headgear telling of superior rank and station among his kind.
With barely a glance at Craney, squatted beside a bush, and with teeth
and hands knotting a kerchief about a bleeding arm, Byrne bent over
the Apache and turned the face to the light.

"Good God!" he cried, at the instant, "it's Quonathay--Raven Shield!
Why, _you_ know him, corporal!"--this to Casey, of Wren's troop,
running to his side. "Son of old Chief Quonahelka! I wouldn't have had
this happen for all the girls on the reservation. Who were they? Why
did he try to arrest them? Here! I'll have to ask him--stabbed or
not!" And, anxious and angering, the colonel hastened over toward the
agent, now being slowly aided to his feet. Plume, too, had come
sidelong down the sandy bank with Cutler, of the infantry, asking
where he should put in his men. "Oh, just deploy across the flats to
stand off any possible attack," said Plume. "Don't cross the Sandy,
and, damn it all! get a bugler out and sound recall!" For now the
sound of distant shots came echoing back from the eastward cliffs. The
pursuit had spread beyond the stream. "I don't want any more of those
poor devils hurt. There's mischief enough already," he concluded.

"I should say so," echoed the colonel. "What was the matter, Mr.
Daly? Whom did you seek to arrest?--and why?"

"Almost any of 'em," groaned Daly. "There were a dozen there I'd
refused passes to come again this week. They were here in defiance of
my orders, and I thought to take that girl Natzie,--she that led Lola
off,--back to her father at the agency. It would have been a good
lesson. Of course she fought and scratched. Next thing I knew a dozen
of 'em were atop of us--some water, for God's sake!--and lift me out
of this!"

Then with grave and watch-worn face, Graham came hurrying to the spot,
all the way over from Mullins's bedside at the hospital and breathing
hard. Dour indeed was the look he gave the groaning agent, now gulping
at a gourd held to his pale lips by one of the men. The policy of
Daly's predecessor had been to feather his own nest and let the Indian
shift for himself, and this had led to his final overthrow. Daly,
however, had come direct from the care of a tribe of the Pu