By this time, late Saturday night, acting for the department commander
now lost somewhere in the mountains, Byrne had re-enforced the guards
at the agency and the garrison at Sandy with infantry drawn from Fort
Whipple at Prescott, for thither the Apaches would never venture. The
untrammeled and sovereign citizen had his own way of treating the
obnoxious native to the soil.
By this time, too, further word should have come from some of the
field columns, Sanders's especially. But though runners had reached
the post bearing brief dispatches from the general, showing that he
and the troops from the more southerly posts were closing in on the
wild haunts of the Tontos about Chevlon's Fork, not a sign had come
from this energetic troop commander, not another line from Sergeant
Brewster or his men, and there were women at Camp Sandy now nearly mad
with sleepless dread and watching. "It means," said Byrne, "that the
hostiles are between us and those commands. It means that couriers
can't get through, that's all. I'm betting the commands are safe
enough. They are too strong to be attacked." But Byrne was silent as
to Blakely; he was dumb as to Wren. He was growing haggard with
anxiety and care and inability to assure or comfort. The belated
rations needed by Brewster's party, packed on mules hurried down from
Prescott, were to start at dawn for Sunset Pass under stout infantry
guard, and they, too, would probably be swallowed up in the
mountains. The ranch people down the valley, fearful of raiding
Apaches, had abandoned their homes, and, driving their stock before
them, had taken refuge in the emptied corrals of the cavalry. Even
Hart, the veteran trader, seemed losing his nerve under the strain,
for when such intrepid frontiersmen as Wales Arnold declared it
reckless to venture across the Sandy, and little scouting parties were
greeted with long-range shots from hidden foe, it boded ill for all
dwellers without the walls of the fort. For the first time in the
annals of Camp Sandy, Hart had sandbagged his lower story, and he and
his retainers practically slept upon their arms.
It was after midnight. Lights still burned dimly at the guard-house,
the adjutant's office, and over at the quarters of the commanding
officer, where Byrne and Plume were in consultation. There were
sleepless eyes in every house along the line. Truman had not turned in
at all. Pondering over his brief talk with the returned commander, he
had gone to the storehouse to expedite the packing of Brewster's
rations, and then it occurred to him to drop in a moment at the
hospital. In all the dread and excitement of the past two days, Pat
Mullins had been well-nigh forgotten. The attendant greeted him at the
entrance. Truman, as he approached, could see him standing at the
broad open doorway, apparently staring out through the starlight
toward the black and distant outlines of the eastward mountains.
Mullins at least was sleeping and seemed rapidly recovering, said he,
in answer to Truman's muttered query. "Major Plume," he added, "was
over to see him a while ago, but I told the major Pat was asleep."
Truman listened without comment, but noted none the less and lingered.
"You were looking out to the east," he said. "Seen any lights or
fire?"