VANISHED PRINCESS,

CHAPTER XXII

SUSPENSE,

CHAPTER XXIII

AN APACHE QUEEN,

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MEETING AT SANDY,

CHAPTER XXV

RESCUE REQUITED,

CHAPTER XXVI

"WOMAN-WALK-NO-MORE,"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE PARTING BY THE WATERS,

_L'ENVOI_

* * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE

"NOW HALTING, DROPPING ON ONE KNEE TO FIRE,"

"BLAKELY LED 'EM ACROSS NO. 4'S POST,"

THE FIGHT IN THE CANON,

"INDIAN SIGNALS BEYOND POSSIBILITY OF A DOUBT,"

"THEN SLOWLY, THEY SAW HER RAISE HER RIGHT HAND,
STILL CAUTIOUSLY HOLDING THE LITTLE MIRROR,"

"THEY HUSTLED HER PONY INTO A RAVINE,"

"NATZIE WRENCHED HER HAND FROM THAT OF BLAKELY,
AND WITH THE SPRING OF A TIGRESS BOUNDED AWAY,"

* * * * *

AN APACHE PRINCESS

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING BY THE WATERS

Under the willows at the edge of the pool a young girl sat
daydreaming, though the day was nearly done. All in the valley was
wrapped in shadow, though the cliffs and turrets across the stream
were resplendent in a radiance of slanting sunshine. Not a cloud
tempered the fierce glare of the arching heavens or softened the sharp
outline of neighboring peak or distant mountain chain. Not a whisper
of breeze stirred the drooping foliage along the sandy shores or
ruffled the liquid mirror surface. Not a sound, save drowsy hum of
beetle or soft murmur of rippling waters, among the pebbly shallows
below, broke the vast silence of the scene. The snow cap, gleaming at
the northern horizon, lay one hundred miles away and looked but an
easy one-day march. The black upheavals of the Matitzal, barring the
southward valley, stood sullen and frowning along the Verde, jealous
of the westward range that threw their rugged gorges into early shade.
Above and below the still and placid pool and but a few miles distant,
the pine-fringed, rocky hillsides came shouldering close to the
stream, but fell away, forming a deep, semicircular basin toward the
west, at the hub of which stood bolt-upright a tall, snowy flagstaff,
its shred of bunting hanging limp and lifeless from the peak, and in
the dull, dirt-colored buildings of adobe, ranged in rigid lines about
the dull brown, flat-topped _mesa_, a thousand yards up stream above
the pool, drowsed a little band of martial exiles, stationed here to
keep the peace 'twixt scattered settlers and swarthy, swarming
Apaches. The fort was their soldier home;