An Apache Princess (Illustrated Edition). Charles King

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      Chapter IV.

       A Stricken Sentry

       Table of Contents

      Sentry duty at Camp Sandy along in '75 had not been allowed to bear too heavily on its little garrison. There was nothing worth stealing about the place, said Plume, and no pawn-shop handy. Of course there were government horses and mules, food and forage, arms and ammunition, but these were the days of soldier supremacy in that arid and distant land, and soldiers had a summary way of settling with marauders that was discouraging to enterprise. Larceny was therefore little known until the law, with its delays and circumventions, took root in the virgin soil, and people at such posts as Sandy seldom shut and rarely locked their doors, even by night. Windows were closed and blanketed by day against the blazing sun and torrid heat, but, soon after nightfall, every door and window was usually opened wide and often kept so all the night long, in order that the cooler air, settling down from mesa and mountain, might drift through every room and hallway, licking up the starting dew upon the smooth, rounded surface of the huge ollas, the porous water jars that hung suspended on every porch, and wafting comfort to the heated brows of the lightly covered sleepers within. Pyjamas were then unknown in army circles, else even the single sheet that covered the drowsing soldier might have been dispensed with.

      Among the quarters occupied by married men, both in officers' row and Sudsville under the plateau, doors were of little account in a community where the only intruder to be feared was heat, and so it had resulted that while the corrals, stables, and storehouses had their guards, only a single sentry paced the long length of the eastward side of the post, a single pair of eyes and a single rifle barrel being deemed amply sufficient to protect against possible prowlers the rear yards and entrances of the row. The westward front of the officers' homes stood in plain view, on bright nights at least, of the sentry at the guard-house, and needed no other protector. On dark nights it was supposed to look out for itself.

      A lonely time of it, as a rule, had No. 5, the "backyard sentry," but this October night he lacked not for sensation. Lights burned until very late in many of the quarters, while at Captain Wren's and Lieutenant Blakely's people were up and moving about until long after midnight. Of course No. 5 had heard all about the dreadful affair of the early evening. What he and his fellows puzzled over was the probable cause of Captain Wren's furious assault upon his subaltern. Many a theory was afloat, Duane, with unlooked-for discretion, having held his tongue as to the brief conversation that preceded the blow. It was after eleven when the doctor paid his last visit for the night, and the attendant came out on the rear porch for a pitcher of cool water from the olla. It was long after twelve when the light in the upstairs room at Captain Wren's was turned low, and for two hours thereafter, with bowed head, the captain himself paced nervously up and down, wearing in the soft and sandy soil a mournful pathway parallel with his back porch. It was after three, noted Private Mullins, of that first relief, when from the rear door of the major's quarters there emerged two forms in feminine garb, and, there being no hindering fences, away they hastened in the dim starlight, past Wren's, Cutler's, Westervelt's, and Truman's quarters until they were swallowed up in the general gloom about Lieutenant Blakely's. Private Mullins could not say for certain whether they had entered the rear door or gone around under the deep shadows of the veranda. When next he saw them, fifteen minutes later, coming as swiftly and silently back, Mullins was wondering whether he ought not to challenge and have them account for themselves. His orders were to allow inmates of the officers' quarters to pass in or out at night without challenge, provided he "recognized them to be such." Now, Mullins felt morally certain that these two were Mrs. Plume and Mrs. Plume's vivacious maid, a French-Canadian damsel, much admired and sought in soldier circles at the post, but Mullins had not seen their faces and could rightfully insist it was his duty and prerogative to do so. The question was, how would the "commanding officer's lady" like and take it? Mullins therefore shook his head. "I hadn't the nerve," as he expressed it, long afterwards. But no such frailty oppressed the occupant of the adjoining house. Just as the two had reached the rear of Wren's quarters, and were barely fifty steps from safety, the captain himself, issuing again from the doorway, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and in low, but imperative tone accosted them. "Who are you?" said he, bending eagerly, sternly over them. One quick look he gave, and, almost instantly recoiling, exclaimed "Mrs. Plume! I beg—" Then, as though with sudden recollection, "No, madam, I do not beg your pardon," and, turning on his heel, abruptly left them. Without a word, but with the arm of the maid supporting, the taller woman sped swiftly across the narrow intervening space and was lost again within the shadows of her husband's home.

      Private Mullins, silent and probably unseen witness of this episode, slowly tossed his rifle from the port to the shoulder; shook his puzzled head; stared a moment at the dim figure of Captain Wren again in the starlit morning, nervously tramping up and down his narrow limit; then mechanically sauntered down the roadway, pondering much over what he had seen and heard during the brief period of his early morning watch. Reaching the south, the lower, end of his post, he turned again. He had but ten minutes left of his two-hour tramp. The second relief was due to start at 3.30, and should reach him at 3.35. He was wondering would the officer of the day "come nosin' round" within that time, asking him his orders, and was everything all right on his post? And had he observed anything unusual? There was Captain Wren, like a caged tiger, tramping up and down behind his quarters. At least he had been, for now he had disappeared. There were, or rather had been, the two ladies in long cloaks flitting in the shadows from the major's quarters to those of the invalid lieutenant. Mullins certainly did not wish to speak about them to any official visitor, whatever he might whisper later to Norah Shaughnessy, the saddler sergeant's daughter—Norah, who was nurse girl at the Trumans', and knew all the ins and outs of social life at Sandy—Norah, at whose window, under the north gable, he gazed with love in his eyes as he made his every round. He was a good soldier, was Mullins, but glad this night to get off post. Through the gap between the second and third quarters he saw the lights at the guard-house and could faintly see the black silhouette of armed men in front of them. The relief was forming sharp on time, and presently Corporal СКАЧАТЬ