Texas rangers had met the Apache chief in an engagement on the banks of the Rio Grande. Only eight Americans returned from the encounter.

Hardie took up his pursuit, and followed Victoria across the river.

The Indians had relaxed their vigilance, not expecting pursuit and despising the Mexican Rurales. Troop F caught them off guard in the mountains. The fight was one to extermination. Victoria and his entire band were slain.

This was the troop which was awaiting orders to go after the Apaches.

Colonel Hardie told Slim that the Indians were bound to head for the Lava Beds. If the men for whom he was looking were in the desert, the troops would find them more quickly than Slim and his posse.

Slim waited at Fort Grant for orders, writing back to Sage-brush, telling him of his plans.

Fort Grant followed the usual plan of all frontier posts. A row of officers' houses faced the parade-grounds. Directly opposite were the cavalry barracks fort. On one side of the quadrangle were the stables, and the fourth line consisted of the quartermaster's buildings and the post-trader's store. Small ranchmen had gathered near the fort for protection, and because of the desire of the white man for company. In days of peace garrison life was monotonous. But the Apaches needed constant watching.

As a soldier, the Apache was cruel and cowardly. He always fought dismounted, never making an attack unless at his own advantage. As infantryman he was unequalled. Veteran army officers adopted the Apache tactics, and installed in the army the plan of mounted infantry; soldiers who move on horseback but fight on foot detailing one man of every four to guard the horses. Methods similar to those used by the Apaches were put into use by the Boers in the South African War.

Indeed, the scouting of these Dutch farmers possessed many of the characteristics of the Apaches. So, too, the j.a.panese soldiers hid from the Russians with the aid of artificial foliage in the same way that an Indian would creep up on his victim by tying a bush to the upper part of his body and crawling toward him on his knees and elbows.

Mounted on wiry ponies inured to hardships, to picking up a living on the scanty herbage of the plains, riding without saddles, and carrying no equipment, the Indians had little trouble in avoiding the soldiers.

Leaving the reservation, the Apaches would commit some outrage, and then, swinging on the arc of a great circle, would be back to camp and settled long before the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by orders from the War Department, which, in turn, was molested by the sentimental friends of the Indians, soldiers never succeeded in taming the Apache Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so thoroughly in these same Lava Beds that they never recovered.

In Slim's absence, Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession of Pinal County. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas and the Strip. Slim's election for another term was by no means certain. He did not know this, but if he had, it would not have made any difference to him. He was after Jack, and, at any cost, would bring him back to face trial. The rogues of Pinal County seized upon the flight of Jack as a good excuse to down Slim. The Sheriff was more eager to find Jack and learn from him that Buck's charge was false than to take him prisoner. He knew the accusation would not stand full investigation.

Slowly the hours pa.s.sed until the order for "boots and saddles" was sounded, and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts soon picked up their trail, but that was different from finding the Indians.

Oft-times the troopers would ride into a hastily abandoned camp with the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a warrior could be had.

Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain trails, and up canons so deep that the sun never fully penetrated them, the soldiers followed the renegades.

For a day the trail was lost. Then it was picked up by the print of a pony's hoof beside a water-hole. But always the line of flight led toward an Apache spring in the Lava Beds.

Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the pursuers. The cow-punchers gave them much a.s.sistance as scouts, knowing the country, through which the Indians fled. Keeping in touch with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from any surprise.

The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one time in the chase that he was not seen for two days. Once, by lying flat on his belly, shading his eyes with his hands, and gazing intently at a mountainside so far ahead that the soldiers could scarcely discern it, he declared he had seen the fugitives climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible, until the second morning after, when the scout pointed out to the colonel the pony-tracks up the mountainside. The Apache scouts kept 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 of s.p.a.ce, one expects to hear the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure living.

The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and wind-sculptured rocks.

But a remorseful glare, blinding, sight-destroying, is thrown back from the sand and alkali of the desert. Shriveled sage-brush and shrunken cactus bravely fight for life.

A narrow pathway leads from the mesa down the canon's wall, twisting and doubling on itself to Apache Spring. The trail then moves southward between towering cliffs, a lane through which is caught a far-distant glimpse of the mountains. Little whirlwinds of dust spring up, ever and anon, twirling wildly across the sandy wastes. The air suffocates, like the breath of a furnace. Ever the pitiless sun searches and scorches, as conscience sears and stings a stricken soul.

Down the narrow trail, past the spring, ride in single file the Apaches, slowly, on tired horses, for the pursuing soldiers have given them no halting s.p.a.ce. Naked, save for a breech-clout, with a narrow red band of dyed buckskin about his forehead, in which sticks a feather, each rides silent, grim, cruel, a hideous human reptile, as native to the desert as is the Gila monster. The horse is saddleless.

For a bridle, the warrior uses a piece of gra.s.s rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his rifle, resting the b.u.t.t on the knee. The only sound to break the stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs of the ponies.

Creeping down the canon wall, they cross the bottom, pa.s.s the spring, and disappear at a turn in the canon walls. Nature and Indian meet and merge in a world of torture and despair.

d.i.c.k had fared badly in the Lava Beds. One spring after the other he found dry. His horse fell from exhaustion and thirst; he ended the sufferings of his pack-mule with a revolver-bullet.

d.i.c.k staggered on afoot across the desert, hoping to find water at Apache Spring. His blue shirt was torn and faded to a dingy purple.

Hat and shoulders were gray with alkali dust. Contact with the rocks and cactus had rent trousers and leggings. His shoes, cut by sharply pointed stones, and with thread rotted by the dust of the deserts, were worn to shreds. Unshaven and unshorn, with sunken cheeks and eyes bright with the delirium of thirst, he dragged his weary way across the desert. He reached Apache Spring shortly after the pa.s.sage of the Indians, but craving for water was so great that he did not observe their trail.

Reeling toward the spring, he cast aside his hat and flung down his rifle in his eagerness to drink. Throwing himself on his face before the hollow in the rock from which the water trickled, he first saw that the waters had dried up. With his bony fingers he dug into the dry sand, crying aloud in despair. Stiffly he arose and blundered blindly to a rock, upon which he sank in his weakness.

"Another day like this and I'll give up the fight," he moaned. "Apache Spring dry--the first time in years; Little Squaw Spring, nothing but dust and alkali; it is twenty miles to Clearwater Spring--twenty miles--if I can make it."

d.i.c.k trembled with weakness. His swollen tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. His lips were cracked and blackened. Bits of foam flickered about the corners of his mouth. The glare blinded his eyes, which were half-closed. At times fever-waves swept over him; again he shuddered with cold.

Sounds of falling waters filled his ears. The sighing of the wind through the canon walls suggested the trickling of fountains. Rivers flowed before his eyes through green meadows, only to fade into the desert as he gazed.

"What a land! what a land! It is the abode of the G.o.d of thirst! He tempts men into his valley with the lure of gold, and saps the life-blood from their bodies--drop by drop. Drop by drop I hear it falling. No, it is water I hear! There it is! How cool it looks!"

d.i.c.k rose and staggered toward the cliff. In his delirium of thirst he saw streams of water gush down the mountainside. Holding out his arms, he cried: "Saved, saved!"

His hands fell limply by his sides as the illusion faded. He then doubled them into fists, and shook them at the cliff in a last defiance of despair. "You sha'n't drive me mad!"

He seized his empty canteen, pressing it to his lips.

"No, I drained that two days ago--or was it three?" he whispered in panic, as he threw it aside.

Picking up his gun, he falteringly attempted the ascent. "I won't give up--I won't," he shouted huskily. "I've fought the desert before and conquered. I'll conquer again--I'll--"

His will-power ebbed with his failing strength. Blindness fell upon him. Oblivion swept over him. He sank, dying of thirst, in the sands of the desert.

As the buzzard finds the dead, so an Apache crept upon d.i.c.k as he lay prostrate. But as the Indian aimed, he heard footsteps from a draw.

He saw a man approaching the spring. Silently he fled behind the rocks.

It was Jack. He had entered the Lava Beds from the east, closely following the man for whom he had searched for so many weary months.

Others of the Apaches had marked him already. Knowing he would go to the spring, they waited warily to learn if he were alone. The band had scattered to surround him at the water-hole.

Jack's horse and burro, which he had left at the head of the canon, were already in the Indians' possession. With him he carried his rifle and a Colt revolver. A canteen of water was slung over his shoulder.

The desert had placed its stamp upon him, turning his clothes to gray.

The tan of his face was deepened. Lines about the eyes and mouth showed how much he had suffered physically and mentally in his search for the man he believed was his successful rival in love. Reaching the spring, he looked about cautiously before he laid down his Winchester.

He tugged at the b.u.t.t of his revolver to make certain that it could be pulled quickly from the holster. Taking off his hat, he knelt to drink. He smiled, and confidently tapped his canteen when he found the spring dry. He was raising his canteen to his lips when he spied d.i.c.k's body.