CHAPTER XX.ALARMING NEWS.
Dress parade at Fort Grant!
Five troops were engaged—all of the gallant Tenth—and the dying rays of the Arizona sun fell upon waving plumes, flashing sabers, the shimmering satin bodies of the horses, the fluttering guidons, offering a sight that stirred the pulses in unison with the strains of the regimental band.
At last the troops formed in a long line, and their officers rode forward on prancing chargers and lifted their sword-points in salute of the officer in command.
The sun went down, and theboomof the sunset-gun rattled the windows of barracks and officers’ row. The band struck up the Star Spangled Banner. As the inspiring air echoed and reechoed across the parade-ground, Old Glory came fluttering down from its tall staff, was caught in the arms of a waiting “non-com,” and transferred to the guard-house for the night.
The soldiers trotted away, the dust settled, and the shadows began to lengthen. Dress parade was over for that day.
In front of the officers’ quarters children were playing. On the veranda of Colonel Grayson’s house was a little group of ladies.
Grayson, the colonel in command of the post, was just climbing the veranda steps to Mrs. Colonel, in command of the colonel.
The colonel was hot and dusty, but he slapped hisclothes in a good-natured way and plumped down in an easy chair.
“What do you think of it, Miss Dauntless?” he asked, his eyes wandering to one of the group of young women who surrounded his wife.
“Fine!” cried the girl addressed. “Such a sight makes one proud to think that he or she is an American. Oh, I wish I were a man! I’d be a soldier, sure thing.”
“My dear Dell!” breathed Mrs. Colonel, horrified. “What are you saying?”
“Tut, tut!” said the colonel. “Why shouldn’t she wish to be a soldier? I’m a soldier, and I take it as an honor that such a pretty American girl should envy me.”
“You know what I mean, colonel,” cried Mrs. Colonel. “Such a pretty girl as Dell Dauntless ought to be content with her sex.”
“Gad, yes!” exclaimed the colonel. “Dell can do more havoc with those blue eyes of hers than a whole squadron with sabers.”
“Now it’s my turn to say ‘tut, tut!’” flashed Dell Dauntless, with a dazzling smile. “I’m the sort of girl that clamors for action, colonel.”
She looked off through the clear evening to where some of the officers and some of the post young ladies were thumping a ball over a net with rackets.
“For instance”—and she waved her hand toward the tennis-court—“I couldn’t behiredto play that.”
“Don’t blame you,” chuckled the colonel; “I couldn’t be hired to play it myself.”
“You’re too fat, dad,” laughed his daughter Mamie.
“Fat! And I only weigh two hundred. If you can catch a man of my size, miss, you can be thankful.”
“There’s going to be a hop to-night,” went on Mrs.Colonel, “and I’ve been trying to get Dell to say she’ll go.”
“Dancing is also off my sky-line,” explained Dell calmly. “I didn’t bring any clothes for that sort of thing, anyhow. Look at me!” and she stood out in front of the colonel. “I’d be a fright on a ballroom floor, wouldn’t I?”
The colonel did look at her, and there was admiration in his eyes.
Tall, lithe, and fair-haired, the girl was clad in her fringed and beaded buckskin shirt, knee-length buckskin skirt, tan shoes and leggings, and a rakish little brown sombrero.
She wore about her waist the belt with the diminutive revolver-holsters and a knife-sheath swinging from it. The pearl handle of a knife showed over the top of the sheath, but the holsters were empty, Dell having laid aside the six-shooters out of regard for Mrs. Colonel’s feelings.
Trave Dauntless, Dell’s father, had been a hard and fast friend of Colonel Grayson’s. When Trave Dauntless died, the colonel had felt himself instinctively drawn toward Mrs. Dauntless and Dell. When the colonel came to Grant, he had expressed a desire for Dell to come and visit him; and, for that reason, the girl had been at the post for a few days.
“’Pon my soul, Dell,” said the colonel, “that costume ofyours is mighty fetching!”
“Colonel!” rebuked Mrs. Colonel; “how can you talk so? You’re giving Dell a lot of wrong ideas. Now, if she would only go to the hop to-night, Mamie would let her take one of her dresses——”
“And I’d take Dell’s,” spoke up Mamie mischievously. “It’s perfectly stunning.”
“These are my working clothes, Mame,” said Dell demurely. “I wear them all the time at the ranch. When I ride, you see, I ride like a man, and the short skirt——”
“Horrors!” gulped Mrs. Colonel. “My dear child, I wish you and your mother would sell that ranch and come to live with the colonel and me.”
“I’d smother,” averred Dell. “I’m so full of action, you see, that I’ve got to have room—and plenty of it.”
The colonel laughed delightedly.
“She’s Trave Dauntless, over and over again,” said he. “It makes my old heart pound just to hear her talk. By the way,” he added, “I found out something about you to-day, Dell. One of our ’Pache scouts was telling me.”
“What’s that?” queried the girl.
“Why, you’re a friend of my old comrade, Cody—as gallant and true a man as ever followed a trail.”
“I’m more than that, colonel,” returned Dell, with a touch of quiet pride, “for I’m Buffalo Bill’s girl pard.”
“Better and better!” cried the colonel, and Mrs. Colonel shook her shoulders despairingly and retreated into the house. “I understand that you helped the scout in his fight with renegade Apaches in the vicinity of the Three-ply Mine, and that you were of considerable assistance in capturing Slocum, otherwise Bascomb, the murderous deserter from Fort Apache.”
“I was with Buffalo Bill and his pards, old Nomad and Little Cayuse, colonel, but I wasn’t of much real service.”
“That’s your word for it. I’d like to hear what Cody has to say. Bascomb, I’m told, was captured on an islandin Quicksand Lake, and a girl, the daughter of the owner of the Three-ply Mine, was rescued——”
“By the king of scouts, single-handed!” said Dell, her admiration fiery and vehement.
“I’m willing to believe that,” went on the colonel. “A braver man than Cody never stepped; and his bravery is of the best and most telling kind, for he always couples head-work with it. I reckon that’s what makes him so successful. The last I heard of Bascomb he had been landed in the Phœnix jail, and a guard of troopers from Fort Apache was going after him. That was several days ago, and I presume the villainous deserter is safely lodged in the strong room at Apache by now. Sit down here, Dell, and tell me about it.”
Dell Dauntless took her place obediently in the chair by the colonel’s side, and launched into the story. The king of scouts, as Dell recited the thrilling incidents connected with the deserter’s capture, received ample eulogy and credit.
Just as the recital was finished, an orderly hurried up the veranda steps, drew himself up in front of the colonel and saluted. The hand that went to his cap held a folded paper.
“An important message, sir,” announced the orderly, “just wired from Bowie.”
“Very well, Bryce,” said the colonel, taking the message; “just wait a minute.”
Excusing himself to Dell, Mamie, and the others, the colonel retired into the house to read his message by the lamplight.
While the young women were talking and laughing on the veranda, the colonel’s voice was heard from within:
“Dell! See here a moment.”
The girl hastened to answer the call.
She found Colonel Grayson standing beside a swinging lamp, the message in his hand and an exceedingly grave look on his face.
“What—what is wrong?” whispered Dell, her thoughts leaping to her mother and the Double D Ranch.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the colonel. “This news by military telegraph is to the effect that Geronimo, with a hundred and fifty bucks, has jumped the reservation at Fort Apache——”
“I felt sure it would be only a matter of time until Geronimo broke out again,” said Dell.
“But that isn’t all,” pursued the colonel, in a low voice. “The renegades attacked the guard escorting that deserter from Phœnix to Fort Apache, killed them all, and rescued the deserter!”
Dell gasped, and fell back, her blue eyes wide and staring in the lamplight. For an instant she stood thus, speechless and without movement.
“Do you understand, Dell?” went on the colonel. “Geronimo and his renegades have——”
“I understand,” said the girl, drawing a quick breath and groping her way to a chair, “but there must be some mistake, theremustbe.”
“It is here, plain enough,” and the colonel shook the message.
“Why,” murmured Dell, “Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Little Cayuse were traveling with Bascomb’s escort—and that message says thatall were killed.”
The colonel started forward, and every muscle grew rigid.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, passing one hand dazedly across his forehead, “can it be that Cody and hispards have reached the end of their trails? Is it possible that——”
He did not finish. Without pausing to get his hat he rushed out of the room, clattered across the veranda and toward the telegraph-office.
Dell, in the sitting-room, was gazing listlessly into space, thinking of the brave and chivalrous scout, the redoubtable old trapper, and the loyal little Piute, Cayuse.