Three days later the infantry guard of the garrison were in sole
charge. Wren and Sanders, with nearly fifty troopers apiece, had taken
the field in compliance with telegraphic orders from Prescott. The
general had established field headquarters temporarily at Camp
McDowell, down the Verde Valley, and under his somewhat distant
supervision four or five little columns of horse, in single file, were
boring into the fastnesses of the Mogollon and the Tonto Basin. The
runners had been unsuccessful. The renegades would not return. Half a
dozen little nomad bands, forever out from the reservation, had
eagerly welcomed these malcontents and the news they bore that two of
their young braves had been murdered while striving to defend Natzie
and Lola.
It furnished all that was needed as excuse for instant
descent upon the settlers in the deep valleys north of the Rio Salado,
and, all unsuspecting, all unprepared, several of these had met their
doom. Relentless war was already begun, and the general lost no time
in starting his horsemen after the hostiles. Meantime the infantry
companies, at the scattered posts and camps, were left to "hold the
fort," to protect the women, children, and property, and Neil Blakely,
a sore-hearted man because forbidden by the surgeon to attempt to go,
was chafing, fuming, and retarding his recovery at his lonely
quarters. The men whom he most liked were gone, and the few among the
women who might have been his friends seemed now to stand afar off.
Something, he knew not what, had turned garrison sentiment against
him.
For a day or two, so absorbed was he in his chagrin over Graham's
verdict and the general's telegraphic orders in the case, Mr. Blakely
never knew or noticed that anything else was amiss. Then, too, there
had been no opportunity of meeting garrison folk except the few
officers who dropped in to inquire civilly how he was progressing. The
bandages were off, but the plaster still disfigured one side of his
face and neck. He could not go forth and seek society. There was
really only one girl at the post whose society he cared to seek. He
had his books and his bugs, and that, said Mrs. Bridger, was "all he
demanded and more than he deserved." To think that the very room so
recently sacred to the son and heir should be transformed into what
that irate little woman called a "beetle shop"! It was one of Mr.
Blakely's unpardonable sins in the eyes of the sex that he found so
much to interest him in a pursuit that neither interested nor included
them.