there a starting
shoe. Gaunt and sunburned were his short-coupled California chargers,
as were their tough-looking riders; fetlocks and beards were uniformly
ragged; shoes of leather and shoes of iron showed equal wear. A
bronze-faced sergeant, silently following his young chief, watched him
with inquiring eyes and waited for the decision that was to condemn
the command to another night march across the desert, or remand them
to rest until an hour or so before the dawn.

"How far did you say it was to Ceralvo's, sergeant?"

"About twenty-two miles, west."

"And to Moreno's?"

"About fifteen, sir; off here." And the sergeant pointed out across
the plain, lying like a dun-colored blanket far towards the southern
horizon.

"We can get barley and water at both?"

"Plenty, sir."

"The men would rather wait here, I suppose, until two or three
o'clock?"

"Very much, sir; they haven't been able to rest at all to-day. I've
fed out the last of the barley, though."

The lieutenant reflected a moment, pensively studying the legs of the
trumpeter's horse.

"Is there any chance of Moreno's people not having heard about the
Apaches in the Christobal?"

"Hardly, sir; they are nearer the Tucson road than we are. The stage
must have gone through this morning early. It's nothing new anyhow.
I've never known the time when the Indians were not in the
neighborhood of that range. Moreno, too, is an old hand, sir."

The lieutenant looked long and intently out over the dreary flats
beyond the foot-hills. Like the bottom of some prehistoric lake long
since sucked dry by the action of the sun, the parched earth stretched
away in mile after mile of monotonous, life-ridden desert, a Sahara
without sign of an oasis, a sandy barren shunned even by scorpion and
centipede. Already the glow was dying from the western sky. The red
rim of the distant range was purpling. The golden gleam that flashed
from rock to rock as the sun went down had vanished from all but the
loftiest summits, and deep, dark shadows were creeping slowly out
across the plain. Over the great expanse not so much as the faintest
spark could be seen. Aloft, the greater stars were beginning to peep
through the veil of pallid blue, while over the distant pass the sun's
fair hand-maiden and train-bearer, with slow, stately mien, was
sinking in the wake of her lord, as though following him to his rest.
Not a breath of air was astir. The night came on still as the realms
o