ticulation. The junior listened wordless to every word.
What had he meant by "the bird had flown?" Why should Nevins "skip?" An
unpleasant fear seized upon Sancho. He knew Nevins, at least a Nevins, a
captain whom everybody knew, in fact, and few men trusted. What had
Nevins been doing? or rather, what that he had been doing was he to be
held to account for? Why should the colonel so eagerly ask where they
could reach Blake? Time was when Sancho flattered himself that there was
no deviltry going on in Arizona, except such as originated with the
Indians, in which he had not at least the participation of full
knowledge, yet here came two officials, hastening by stage instead of
marching with military deliberation and escort, and they were in quest
of the Senor Capitan Nevins of whom all men had heard and at whose
hands many had suffered, for was not he a player whom the very cards
seemed to obey? Was it not he who broke the bank at Bustamente's during
the _fiesta_ at Tucson but five months agone? Was it not Nevins who won
all the money those two young tenientes possessed--two boys from the far
East just joining their regiment and haplessly falling into the hands of
this dashing, dapper, wholesouled, hospitable comrade who made his
temporary quarters their home until they could find opportunity to go
forward to the distant posts where their respective companies were
stationed? Was it not Nevins who, right there at Sancho's ranch, finding
a party of prospectors, several ex-Confederate soldiers among them,
languidly staking silver at the monte table presided over by Sancho's
own brother, had calmly opened a faro "layout" and enticed every man
from the legitimate game and every peso from their pockets before the
two-day's session was finished? Well did Sancho recall his own wrath and
that of his brother at this unlicensed interference with their special
business, and the surprising liberality, too, with which the Senor
Capitan had silenced their remonstrance. Rascal though he was, Sancho
had sense enough to know that such proceedings were not seemly in a man
bearing the commission of an officer. But Sancho little knew how many a
congressman along at the close of the war, finding himself compelled to
provide some kind of living for political "heelers," or some impersonal
reward for services rendered, had foisted his henchmen into the army,
then being enlarged and reorganized, and Nevins was one of the results
of the iniquitous s