se them, kick them, murther them both if you like,--the
curs!--and they'd drink when they knowed every man was needed." And
adding force to his words, Feeny drove a furious kick at the luckless
Mullan.

"Do you mean there is no truth in this? Do you mean you think it all a
fraud, a trick?" at last queried the major. "Why, it seems
incredible!"

"I say just what I mean, major. It's a plot to rob you. I mean the
gang has gathered for that very purpose. I mean that every story told
us about the Apaches west or south of here or between us and the Gila
is a bloody lie. The guard at the signal-station hadn't seen or heard
of them. They laughed at me when I told them what they tried to make
us believe at Ceralvo's. 'Twas there they wanted to have you stop, for
there you'd have no chance at all. Shure, do you suppose if the
Apaches _were_ out--if this story _was_ true--they wouldn't have heard
it and investigated it by this time, and the beacon-fire would have
been blazing at the Picacho?"

Then Murphy turned and ran around the corner of the corral to a point
where he could see the dim outline of the range against the western
sky. The next moment his voice rose upon the night air, vibrant,
thrilling,--

"Look! God be good to us, major! It's no lie. The signal-fire's
blazing at the peak."

II.

Late that night, with jaded steeds, a little troop of cavalry was
pushing westward across the desert. The young May moon was sinking to
rest, its pure pallid light shining faintly in contrast with the ruddy
glow of some distant beacon in the mountains beneath. Ever since
nightfall the rock buttress at the pass had been reflecting the lurid
glare of the leaping flames as, time and again, unseen but busy hands
heaped on fresh fuel and sent the sparks whirling in fiery eddies to
the sky. Languid and depressed after a long day's battling with the
fierce white sunshine, horses and men would gladly have spent the
early hours of night dozing at their rude bivouac in the Christobal.
Ever since nine in the morning, after a long night march, they had
sought such shade as the burning rocks might afford, scooping up the
tepid water from the natural tanks at the bottom of the canon and
thanking Providence it was not alkali. The lieutenant commanding, a
tall, wiry, keen-faced young fellow, had made the rounds of his camp
at sunset, carefully picking up and scrutinizing the feet of his
horses and sending the farrier to tack on here and