ept
track of the soldiers' movements, communicating with the main body with
blanket-signals and smoke columns.

The sign-language of the Indians of the South is an interesting field
of study. On the occasion of a raid like the one described, the
warriors who were to participate would gather at one point and
construct a mound, with as many stones in it as there were warriors.
Then they would scatter into small bands. When any band returned to the
mound, after losing a fight and the others were not there, the leader
would take from the mound as many stones as he had lost warriors.
Thus, the other bands, on returning, could tell just how many men had
fallen.

In the arid regions of the West, water-signs are quite frequent. They
usually consist of a grouping of stones, with a longer triangular stone
in the center, its apex pointing in the direction where the water is to
be found. In some cases the water is so far from the trail that four
or five of these signs must be followed up before the water is found.

Only the Indian and the mule can smell water. This accomplishment
enabled the fleeing Apaches to take every advantage of the pursuing
troopers, who must travel from spring to spring along known trails.

In the long, weary chase men and horses began to fail rapidly. Short
rations quickly became slow starvation fare. Hardie fed his men and
horses on mesquit bean, a plant heretofore considered poisonous. For
water he was forced to depend upon the cactus, draining the fluid
secreted at the heart of the plant.

With faces blistered by the sun and caked with alkali, blue shirts
faded to a purple tinge, and trousers and accouterments covered with a
gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently and determinedly.
Hour after hour the troop flung itself across the plains and into the
heart of the Lava Beds, each day cutting down the Apache lead.

CHAPTER XIII

The Atonement

False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the eastern
horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly in the brief,
darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind sweeps down canons
and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the wayfarer's bones. In the
heavens, the innumerable stars burn steadily in crystal coldness.
Shadows lie in Stygian blackness at foot of rock and valley. Soft and
clear the lights of night swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs
over the desert. Hushed and humbled by the immensity