s
nearly nine and not a glimmer of fire had been seen at the appointed
rendezvous. Nine passed and 9.15, and at 9.30 the fifes and drums of
the Eighth turned out and began the long, weird complaint of the
tattoo. Nobody wished to go to bed. Why not sound reveille and let
them sit up all night, if they chose? It was far better than tossing
sleepless through the long hours to the dawn. It was nearly time for
"taps"--lights out--when a yell went up from the parade and all Sandy
started to its feet. All on a sudden the spark at the lookout bluff
began violently to dance, and a dozen men tore out of garrison, eager
to hear the news. They were met halfway by a sprinting corporal, whom
they halted with eager demand for his news. "_Two_ blazes!" he panted,
"two! I must get in to the major at once!" Five minutes more the
Assembly, not Taps, was sounding. Plume was sending forth his fifty
rescuers, and with them, impatient for tidings from the far front,
went Byrne, the major himself following as soon as he could change to
riding dress. The last seen of the little command was the glinting of
the starlight on the gun barrels as they forded the rippling stream
and took the trail up the narrow, winding valley of the Beaver.

It was then a little after ten o'clock. The wire to Prescott was still
unresponsive. Nothing had been heard from the linesmen and their
escort, indicating that the break was probably far over as the Agua
Fria. Not a sign, except Stout's signal blazes at the _picacho_, had
been gathered from the front. Camp Sandy was cut off from the world,
and the actual garrison left to guard the post and protect the women,
children and the sick as eleven o'clock drew nigh, was exactly forty
men of the fighting force. It was believed that Stout's couriers would
make the homeward run, very nearly, by the route the pack-train took
throughout the day, and if they succeeded in evading hostile scouts or
parties, would soon appear about some of the breaks of the upper
Beaver. Thither, therefore, with all possible speed Plume had directed
his men, promising Mrs. Sanders, as he rode away, that the moment a
runner was encountered he would send a light rider at the gallop, on
his own good horse--that not a moment should be lost in bearing them
the news.

But midnight came without a sign. Long before that hour, as though by
common impulse, almost all the women of the garrison had gathered
about Truman's quarters, now the northernmost of