then those of Miss Wren now fixed upon him
with austere challenge, as though she would say the flight and fate of
this friendless soldier were crimes to be laid only at his door.

Byrne saw the instant distress in his comrade's face, and, glancing
from him to her, almost in the same instant saw the inciting cause.
Byrne had one article of faith if he lacked the needful thirty-nine.
Women had no place in official affairs, no right to meddle in official
matters, and what he said on the spur of his rising resentment was
intended for her, though spoken to him. "So Downs skipped eastward,
did he, and the Apaches got him! Well, Plume, that saves us a
hanging." And Miss Wren turned away in wrath unspeakable.

That Downs had "skipped eastward" received further confirmation with
the coming day, when Wales Arnold rode into the fort from a personally
conducted scout up the Beaver. Riding out with Captain Stout's party,
he had paid a brief visit to his, for the time, abandoned ranch, and
was surprised to find there, unmolested, the two persons and all the
property he had left the day he hurried wife and household to the
shelter of the garrison. The two persons were half-breed Jose and his
Hualpai squaw. They had been with the Arnolds five long years, were
known to all the Apaches, and had ever been in highest favor with them
because of the liberality with which they dispensed the _largesse_ of
their employer. Never went an Indian empty-stomached from their door.
All the stock Wales had time to gather he had driven in to Sandy. All
that was left Jose had found and corraled. Just one quadruped was
missing--Arnold's old mustang saddler, Dobbin. Jose said he had been
gone from the first and with him an old bridle and saddle. No Indian
took him, said he. It was a soldier. He had found "government boot
tracks" in the sand. Then Downs and Dobbin had gone together, but only
Dobbin might they ever look to see again.

It had been arranged between Byrne and Captain Stout that the little
relief column should rest in a deep canon beyond the springs from
which the Beaver took its source, and, later in the afternoon, push on
again on the long, stony climb toward the plateau of the upper
Mogollon. There stood, about twenty-five miles out from the post on a
bee line to the northeast, a sharp, rocky peak just high enough above
the fringing pines and cedars to be distinctly visible by day from the
crest of the nearest foothills west of the flagstaf