it might become when sung by youth or
beauty. As it fell from the lips of Senora Moreno the air was a
succession of vocal nasal disharmonies, high-pitched, strident,
nerve-wracking.

[Illustration: Music]

Unable to listen after the third repetition, Plummer slowly retired
from the corral and once more appeared at the front, just in time for
a sensation. Two troopers, two of the men who had ridden back with
Donovan, came lurching into the lighted space before the main
entrance. At sight of the paymaster one of them stiffened up and with
preternatural gravity of mien executed the salute. The other, with an
envelope in his hand, reeled out of saddle, failed to catch his
balance, plunged heavily into the sand and lay there. Corporal Murphy
sprang eagerly forward, the first man to reach him, and turned the
prostrate trooper over on his back.

"What's the matter?" queried Plummer. "Is he sick?"

"Sick is it?" was the quick retort, as the corporal sniffed at the
tainted breath of the sufferer. "Be the powers! I only wish I had half
his disayse."

And then came Feeny, glaring, wrathful.

"Come down off the top of that horse, Mullan," he ordered, fiercely.
"How--how'd ye get here? Which way'd ye come? Where's the rest?"

With the ponderous dignity of inebriety, Mullan slowly pointed up the
desert under the spot where the pole-star glowed in the northern
skies.

"Sarsh'nt," he hiccoughed, "we're--we're too late; 'Paches got
there--first."

"Hwat! hwat!" thundered Feeny. "D'ye mean there _were_ women,--that it
wasn't a plant?"

"Fack."

"Hware's your despatches, you drunken lout? How dare you dhrink when
there was fight ahead? Hware's your despatches? and may heaven blast
the souls of you both!"

"Here, sergeant," said Murphy, wrenching the soiled envelope from the
loose grasp of the prostrate trooper.

"It's to you, sir," said Feeny, with one glance at the sprawling
superscription. "In God's name read and let us know what devil's
work's abroad to-night."

Even Plummer's pudgy fingers trembled as he tore open the dingy
packet. Old Moreno came forth with a light, his white teeth gleaming,
his black eyes flashing from one to another of the group. Holding the
pencilled page close to the lantern, the paymaster read aloud,--

"Camp burned. One man killed; others scattered; mules and
buck-board gone. For God's sake help in the pursuit. Strike
for Raton Pass. The Indians have run away my poor sister