es along
the stream, the plashing waters of the ford, the still and glassy
surface of the shadowy pool, were speedily all alive with dark and
darting forms intermingled in odd confusion. From the eastward side,
from officers' row, Plume and his white-coated subordinates hastened
to the southward face, realizing instantly what must have
occurred--the long-prophesied rush of Apache prisoners for freedom.
Yet how hopeless, how mad, how utterly absurd was the effort! What
earthly chance had they--poor, manacled, shackled, ball-burdened
wretches--to escape from two hundred fleet-footed, unhampered,
stalwart young soldiery, rejoicing really in the fun and excitement of
the thing? One after another the shackled fugitives were run down and
overhauled, some not half across the parade, some in the shadows of
the office and storehouses, some down among the shrubbery toward the
lighted store, some among the shanties of Sudsville, some, lightest
weighted of all, far away as the lower pool, and so one after another,
the grimy, sullen, swarthy lot were slowly lugged back to the unsavory
precincts wherein, for long weeks and months, they had slept or
stealthily communed through the hours of the night. Three or four had
been cut or slashed. Three or four soldiers had serious hurts,
scratches or bruises as their fruits of the affray. But after all, the
malefactors, miscreants, and incorrigibles of the Apache tribe had
profited little by their wild and defiant essay--profited little, that
is, if personal freedom was what they sought.

But was it? said wise heads of the garrison, as they looked the
situation over. Shannon and some of his ilk were doing much
independent trailing by aid of their lanterns. Taps should have been
sounded at ten, but wasn't by any means, for "lights out" was the last
thing to be thought of. Little by little it dawned upon Plume and his
supporters that, instead of scattering, as Indian tactics demanded on
all previous exploits of the kind, there had been one grand, concerted
rush to the southward--planned, doubtless, for the purpose of drawing
the whole garrison thither in pursuit, while three pairs of moccasined
feet slipped swiftly around to the rear of the guard-house, out beyond
the dim corrals, and around to a point back of "C" Troop stables,
where other little hoofs had been impatiently tossing up the sands
until suddenly loosed and sent bounding away to where the North Star
hung low over the sheeny white