o strange men, and three girls--but no Brenda.

"Where is Brenda, Mr. Arnold?" I asked.

"Heaven only knows, lieutenant. She gave herself up to the Apaches."

"Gave herself up to the Apaches! What do you mean?"

"That's precisely what she did, lieutenant," said one of the
strangers, adding: "My name is Bartlett, from Hassayampa, and this is
Mr. Gilbert, from Tucson. We were on our way from La Paz to Prescott
and stopped here for a meal, and got corralled by the Indians. But
about the girl Brenda: she took it into her head, after we got into
the little fort, that unless some one could create a diversion to
mislead the devils, we'd all lose our scalps."

"That beautiful young girl! Gave herself up to certain torture and
death! Why did you allow it?"

"Allow it!" exclaimed Mr. Bartlett, indignantly. "I hope, lieutenant,
you don't think so hard of me and my friend as to believe we'd have
allowed it if we'd suspected what the plucky miss meant to do!"

"Tell me the circumstances, Mr. Bartlett," said I.

The party moved slowly along the path from the spring to the fires,
and as they walked Mr. Arnold and the travellers gave an account of
all that had happened after Sergeant Henry left for Fort Whipple.

The burning arrows sent to the pitch-pine roof became so numerous that
the besieged found it impossible to prevent the flames from catching
in several places. Henry was hardly out of sight before the house
became untenable, and the defenders were obliged to retire to the
fort. When the house was consumed, and its timbers had fallen into the
cellar a mass of burning brands, the space about the earthwork was
clear, and the rifles at its loop-holes kept the Indians close within
the out-building they had occupied since the attack began. No one
dared to show himself to the unerring marksmen, who watched every
movement.

For a long time silence reigned among the Indians. The whites,
however, felt sure that plans were being matured which meant disaster
to them.

At last these plans were revealed in a constant and rapid flight of
arrows, directed at a point between two loop-holes--a point which
could not be reached by the besieged, and where, if a considerable
collection of burning brands could be heaped against the logs,
between the earth and the eaves, the pine walls and rafters must take
fire. Walls and roof were too solid to be cut away, and water could
not reach the outside.

The defenders, when they realized what