ng to go would probably be his sergeant's bars,
whereat Murray went red to the roots of his hair--which "continued the
march" of the color,--and said, with a snap of his jaws, that he got
those chevrons, as he did his orders, from his troop commander. A
court might order them stricken off, but a captain couldn't, other
than his own. For which piece of impudence the veteran went
straightway to Sudsville in close arrest. Corporal Bolt was ordered to
take over his keys and the charge of the stables until the return of
Captain Wren, also this order--that no government horse should be sent
to Lieutenant Blakely hereafter until the lieutenant was declared by
the post surgeon fit for duty.

There were left at the post, of each of the two cavalry troops, about
a dozen men to care for the stables, the barracks, and property. Seven
of these had gone with the convoy to Prescott, and, when Cutler
ordered half a dozen horsemen out at midnight to follow Blakely's
trail and try to find him, they had to draw on both troop stables, and
one of the designated men was the wretch Downs,--and Downs was not in
his bunk,--not anywhere about the quarters or corrals. It was nearly
one by the time the party started down the sandy road to the south,
Hart and his buckboard and a sturdy brace of mules joining them as
they passed the store. "We may need to bring him back in this," said
he, to Corporal Quirk.

"An' what did ye fetch to bring him _to_ wid?" asked the corporal.
Hart touched lightly the breast of his coat, then clucked to his team.
"Faith, there's more than wan way of tappin' it then," said Quirk, but
the cavalcade moved on.

The crescent moon had long since sunk behind the westward range, and
trailing was something far too slow and tedious. They spurred,
therefore, for the nearest ranch, five miles down stream, making their
first inquiry there. The inmates were slow to arise, but quick to
answer. Blakely had neither been seen nor heard of. Downs they didn't
wish to know at all. Indians hadn't been near the lower valley since
the "break" at the post the previous week. One of the inmates declared
he had ridden alone from Camp McDowell within three days, and there
wasn't a 'Patchie west of the Matitzal. Hart did all the questioning.
He was a business man and a brother. Soldiers, the ranchmen didn't
like--soldiers set too much value on government property.

The trail ran but a few hundred yards east of the stream, and close to
the adob