and letting
the boy know I had overheard all his fond talk to Vic, so withdrew
into a clump of bushes and began calling the dog.

Henry promptly answered: "Here she is, sir. This way. She wants to
come, but I think she had better not."

"Is she much hurt?" I asked, approaching them.

"Not dangerously, sir. This arrow passed through the top of her neck.
I notched it and broke it, so as not to be obliged to draw the barb or
plume through the wound. She is weak from her long run and loss of
blood. The wound might be bound up if her collar was off."

"I will remove it and not put it on again until the sore heals," I
answered, and, taking a key from my pocket, I took off the collar and
assisted in dressing the wound.

After petting Vic for a while, and using quite as much "baby talk" in
doing so as Henry had in dressing the wound, I asked the boy how he
came to return with the cavalry.

"I ran ahead, as you told me to, sir, and the wagon-master came to
meet me. He lent me his mule, and I rode on to Captain Bayard and made
my report. The captain sent Lieutenant Baldwin and his men, and lent
me a spare horse to come along as guide."

"Have you seen Chiquita?"

"At a distance. Is she all right?"

"Yes, but very tired. Let us join the troop, for it is time we were on
our way to the train."

Our return ride was at a walk. Henry turned his cavalry horse over to
a trooper to be led, and mounted Chiquita with Vic in his arms.
Arrived in camp he took the dog to the surgeon for treatment, and in a
few days she was as lively as ever.

VIII

OVER THE DIVIDE--A CORPORAL MISSING

Fort Wingate was reached in two more marches--six in all from the Rio
Grande--and we went into camp for two days for rest and some needed
repairs to wagons before undertaking the second and longer section of
our military journey--a section upon which at that time no white man
had set up a home.

Recalling my promise to the priest who had interviewed me in behalf of
Senora Perea, I made inquiries of the Port Wingate officers concerning
her son. None of them had heard more than she already knew, but a
scout claimed he had recently seen a Mexican boy herding ponies for
the Navajo chief Elarnagan, thirty miles north of Zuni.

The evening before resuming our march Captain Bayard informed me that
there was an emigrant family camped half a mile to the west of Fort
Wingate, which had been awaiting our arrival in order to travel to
Arizona un