n a pole yoke and a pedometer. Every captain, except
one or two who had laughingly declined, wore the straps of field
officers, some few even of generals, and so when one heard a
military-looking man addressed as colonel the chances were ten to one
that he was drawing only the stipend of a company officer, and in
matters of actual rank in the army it was money that talked.

But there could be no questioning the right of the senior of the two
officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier
stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a
nondescript duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was
tanned by desert suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white.
His beard, once flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His
steely blue eyes snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was carried
high and well back, and his soft felt hat, wide-brimmed, was pulled down
over the brows. His deep chest, square shoulders, erect carriage and
straight muscular legs all told of days and years in the field, and
every word he uttered had about it the crisp, clear-cut ring of command.
It was safe to bet that no mere company was the extent of this soldiers
authority, and Sancho, keen observer, had put him down for a
lieutenant-colonel at least. Full colonels were mostly older men, and
Arizona had but one in "the days of the Empire."

The ranchman had eagerly whispered questions to the loungers as to the
identity of the two arrivals, but without success. Both were strangers,
although the junior had been seen at the ranch once before, the day
Blake's troop was camped there on the way back from the Dragoons. There
was the packet left by the orderly to be called for by officers arriving
on the Yuma stage, addressed in clerkly hand, but Sancho, alas! could
not read. Hovering as near as the gravity and dignity of his station
would permit, he had heard the colonel's query about Blake. He pricked
up his ears at once. Teniente Blake! Thirty miles east on the Maricopa
road! Why, how was this? Some one had told him Blake had been to the
Colorado and was coming back by this very stage. How did Blake get to
the east of Sancho's ranch, after having once gone west, without
Sancho's knowing it? Suspiciously he watched the two soldiers, the
grizzled colonel, the slim lieutenant. They were talking together in low
tones, at least the colonel was talking, eagerly, energetically, and
with much ges