Harvey could not long have lain unconscious. No bones were broken, no severe concussion sustained in the rapid drag over the sandy surface, and the awful sense of the calamity that had befallen him and the dread and doubt as to the fate of his beloved ones seemed to rally his stunned and bewildered faculties and bring him face to face with the horror of the situation. Barely able to breathe, he found himself rudely gagged. Striving to raise his hand to tear the hateful bandage away, he found that he was pinioned by the elbows and bound hand and foot by the very riata, probably, that had dragged him thither. No doubt as to the nationality of his unseen captors here. The skill with which he had been looped, tripped, whisked away, and bound,—the sharp, biting edges, even the odor of dirty rawhide rope,—all told him that though Americans were not lacking in the gang, his immediate antagonists hailed from across the Sonora line. Who and what they were mattered little, however. The fact that after hours of repulse in open attack, the foe had all on a sudden carried their castle by a damnable ruse was only too forcibly apparent. Writhing, struggling in miserable effort to free himself from his bonds, poor Harvey's burning eyes were maddened by the picture before him only a couple of hundred yards away. There in the fierce light of the flames now bursting from every window and roaring and shooting high in air from the brush-heaped roof of Moreno's ranch,—there stood the Concord wagon, stalwart men clinging to the heads of the plunging and excited mules, a big ruffian already in the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand; there beside it was the paymaster's ambulance, into which three of the gang were just shoving the green-painted iron safe,—the Pandora's box that had caused all their sorrows; there Moreno's California buck-board, pressed into service and being used to carry the wounded, drawn by the extra mules; and then—God of heaven! what a sight for brother's eyes to see and make no sign!—then one big brute lifted from the ground and handed up to a fellow already ensconced within the covered wagon the senseless, perhaps lifeless, form of pretty little Ruth, his father's idol. The poor child lay unresisting in the ruffian's arms, but not so Paquita. It took two men, strong and burly, to lift and force her into the dark interior, and one of those, to the uttermost detail of his equipment, was to all appearance a trooper of the United States cavalry. There stood his panting horse with hanging head and jaded withers, the very steed whose rush they had welcomed with such exceeding joy, saddled, bridled, blanketed, saddle-bagged, lariated, side-lined, every item complete and exactly as issued by the Ordnance Department. The trooper himself wore the field uniform of the cavalry,—the dark-blue blouse, crossed by the black carbine sling, whose big brass buckle Ned could even now see gleaming between the broad shoulders, and gathered at the waist by the old-fashioned "thimble belt" the troop saddlers used to make for field service before the woven girdle was devised. Even more: Harvey in his misery remembered the thrill of joy with which he had noted, as the splendid rider reined in and threw himself from the saddle, the crossed sabres, the troop letter "C," and the regimental number gleaming at the front of his campaign hat. Who—who could this be, wearing the honorable garb of a soldier of United States, yet figuring as a ringleader in a band of robbers and assassins now adding rapine to their calendar of crime? Edward Harvey's heart almost burst with helpless rage and wretchedness when he saw his precious sisters dragged within the canvas shelter,—saw the tall, uniformed brigand leap lightly after them, and heard him shout to the ready driver, "Now, off with you!"

Crack! went the whip as the men sprang from the heads of the frantic mules, and with a bound that nearly wrenched the trace-hooks from the stout whippletree, the Concord went spinning over the sands to the south, whirling so near him that over the thud of hoofs and whirl of wheels and creak of spring and wood-work he could hear poor Fanny's despairing cry,—the last sound he was aware of for hours, for now in dead earnest Harvey swooned away.

Half an hour later, the rafters of the ranch having by this time tumbled in and turned the interior into a glowing furnace, there came riding from the west a slender skirmish line of horsemen in the worn campaign dress of the regular cavalry. With the advance there were not more than six or eight, a tall, slender lieutenant leading them on and signalling his instructions. With carbines advanced, with eyes peering out from under the jagged hat-brims, the veteran troopers came loping into the light of the flames, expectant every instant of hearing the crack of outlaw's rifle, or perhaps the hiss of feathered arrow of unseen foe. Though some of the steeds looked hot and wearied, the big raw-boned sorrel that carried the young commander tugged at his bit and bounded impatiently as though eager for the signal—"charge." Straight into the circle of light, straight to the southern entrance, now a gate of flame, the soldier rode and loudly hailed "Moreno!"

But hissing, snapping wood-work alone replied. Guided by an experienced sergeant, some of the troopers, never halting, rode on into the eastward darkness, and there were stationed as videttes to guard against surprise. Returning to where he had passed his lieutenant, the sergeant dismounted, allowing his weary horse to stand, and then began minute examination. Following the freshest hoof-tracks, he found the young officer riding about through the thick smoke within the corral.

"Any sign of Moreno or his people, sir?" he hailed.

"Not yet. Just see what's beyond that door-way. My horse is frightened at something there and I can't see for the smoke."

Obedient, the sergeant pushed ahead, bending low to avoid the stifling fumes. Between the tumbled-down heap of barley-sacks and the crumbling wall lay some writhing objects in the sand, and his stout heart almost failed him at the moan of agony that met his ear.

"Help! water! Oh, for Christ's sake, water!"

One bound carried him out of sight of his superior. The next instant, dragging by the foot a prostrate form, he emerged from the bank into the fresher air of the centre of the corral. Off came his canteen and was held to the parched lips of a stranger in scorched civilian dress, his beard and hair singed by the flames, his legs and arms securely bound.

"Who are you and what's happened? Whose work is this?" demanded the lieutenant, leaping from saddle to his side. The man seemed swooning away, but the sergeant dashed water in his face.

"Quick!—the others!—or they'll burn to death."

"What others? Where, man?" exclaimed the soldiers, springing to their feet.

"Oh! somewhere in there,—the far end of the corral—or Moreno's west room," was the gasping reply.

Another rush into the whirling, eddying smoke, another search along under the wall, and presently in the flickering light the rescuing pair came upon a barrier of barley-sacks, burning in places from huge flakes of fire falling from the blazing rafters of the overhanging shed, and behind this, senseless, suffocated, helplessly bound, two other forms. Thrusting the sacks aside, the troopers seized and dragged forth their hapless fellow-creatures. Jarred by sudden pressure, a burning upright snapped. There was a crackling, crashing sound, and down came the rafters, sending another column of flame to light up the features of men rescued not an instant too soon from the death that awaited them.

"My God!" cried Sergeant Lee, "this is old Feeny,—and yet alive."

Together the two raised the senseless form, bore it out into the open space, laid it gently beside their first discovery, and ran back for the next, a big, heavy, bulky shape in loose and blood-stained garments. It took all their strength to lug it forth. Then the lieutenant bent by the side of the slowly recovering civilian.

"Are there any more we can reach?" he questioned eagerly, his heart beating madly.

"No,—too late!—others were inside when the roof fell in. More water,—more water!"

Sergeant Lee sprang to the ollas, gleaming there in the fire-light, and brought back a brimming dipper, holding it to the poor fellow's parched lips until he could drink no more, then slashing away the thongs with which he was bound.

"This is Greaser work," he cried. "How could they have left you alive? Where are Moreno's people? Who's done this, anyhow?"

"Pasqual Morales. Moreno was in it, too. 'Twas the paymaster they were laying for; but they've killed Ned Harvey and got his sisters,—old Harvey's children—from Tucson."

"What?" cried the officer, leaping to his feet. "Harvey's daughters here?—here? Man, are you mad?"

"It's God's truth! Oh, if I had a drop of the whiskey that's being burned in there! I'm nigh dead."

"Run to my saddle-bags, Lee; fetch that flask, quick; then call in the men and send one back to hurry up the rest. Where have they gone? What have they done with their captives?"

"God knows! I could hear them screaming and praying,—those poor girls! Mullan and the pay-clerk picked up Feeny after he was stunned and they rushed him back through here, where the paymaster had dragged himself, to where you found him. That—that's the paymaster you've got there. Then they tried to save a drunken soldier while all the gang seemed crowding after the safe and the girls, but they were shot down inside, and must have burned to death if they wasn't killed. Oh, God, what a night!" And weak, unstrung, unmanned, the poor fellow sobbed aloud.

At this instant there rode into the corral a couple of troopers.

"Lieutenant Drummond here?" cried one of them. "We've found a man out on the plain to the southeast, gagged and bound. Shall we fetch him in?"

"You go, Quinn, but get some one else to help you. Patterson, your horse is fresh, gallop back on the trail. Tell Sergeant Meinecke to come ahead for all he's worth. Let the packs take care of themselves. Send Sergeant Lee in here to me again." Then with trembling hands the young officer turned his attention to his other patients. Severing the cords with his hunting-knife, he freed them from their bonds, then dashed water over their scorched and blackened faces, meantime keeping up a running fire of questions. Between his sobs, the young civilian told him that the outlaws had hitched in both teams and taken also the spare mules and the buck-board. They had lifted the Harvey girls into the Concord, the safe and Pasqual Morales into the paymaster's ambulance, while the wounded men and Moreno's people probably were put on the open wagon. Then they had all driven furiously away to the south, leaving only two or three men to complete the work at the ranch. Finding the paymaster and sergeant well-nigh dead, they had contented themselves with binding and leaving them to their fate, to be cremated when the roof of the shed came down. Then one of the gang whom he had once befriended in Tucson pleaded with his fellows to spare the life of the only one of the party left to tell the tale. Pasqual and the Mexicans were gone. Those who remained were Americans, judging by their speech, though two of them were still masked. "My name is Woods," said the poor fellow. "But that bandit had to beg hard. They were ready to murder anybody connected with the defence, for Ramon was killed and Pasqual shot through the leg. I did that, though they didn't know it. They bound and left me here, but made me swear I would tell Harvey and his friends when they got back that it was no use following; they had thirty armed men and three hours' start. They never thought of any one else getting here first. Oh, my God! who can break it to Mr. Harvey when he does come?"

And then Sergeant Lee came hurrying back, one or two men with him, and together they labored to restore to consciousness the paymaster, breathing feebly, and old Feeny, bleeding from a gash in the back of the skull and a bullet-hole through the body. For nearly quarter of an hour their efforts were vain. Meantime Drummond, well-nigh mad over the delay, was pacing about like a caged tiger. He set two of the men to work to hitch the bewildered little burros to the well-wheel and get up several huge bucketfuls of water against the coming of the troop. He ordered others to rub down his handsome sorrel, Chester, and the mounts of two of the advanced party. At last after what must have seemed an age, yet could not have been over thirty minutes from the time of their arrival, a soldier running in, said he could hear hoofs out on the plain, and at the same instant two men appeared lugging between them, bleeding and senseless, the ragged form of Edward Harvey.

Scratched, torn, covered with blood and bruises, and still unconscious though he was, Drummond knew him at a glance. They had met the previous year, and though only once it was enough. Men with young and lovely sisters are not soon forgotten. Kneeling by his side, the lieutenant sought anxiously for trace of blade or bullet. Rents there were many and many a bloody scratch and tear, but, to his infinite relief, no serious wound appeared. Still in deep swoon, his friend seemed to resist every effort for his restoration. The dash of water in his face was answered only by a faint shivering sigh. The thimbleful of whiskey forced between his lips only gurgled down his throat, and Drummond felt no responsive flutter of pulse. The shock to his system must indeed have been great, for Harvey lay like one in a trance. Drummond feared that he might never again open his eyes to light and home.

And then the weary troop came trotting into view, old Sergeant Meinecke in command. Halting and dismounting at his signal, the men stood silent and wondering at their horses' heads, while their leader went in to report to his commander. Drummond barely lifted his eyes from the pallid features before him.

"Unsaddle, sergeant; rub down; pick out the best and likeliest horses. I want twenty men to go on a chase with me. How soon can the packs get up?"

"They must be fully half an hour behind, sir."

"Sorry for that, sergeant. We've got to take at least four of them; load them up with barley, bacon, hardtack, ammunition. Kick off everything else. We'll feed and water here before starting, then we've got to ride like the devil. Send Trooper Bland here as soon as he has unsaddled. I want him to ride with me. He knows all the roads to the south."

Meinecke saluted in his methodical German fashion, turned away, and presently could be heard ordering "Unsaddle" and then shouting for Private Bland.

"Are there any of our men besides the farrier who have any knowledge of surgery?" asked the lieutenant of Sergeant Lee.

"They say Bland has, sir. I don't know any one else."

"Well, I've just sent for him. Mr. Harvey here doesn't seem to be wounded, yet it's impossible to bring him to. Give Woods a little more whiskey and see if you can get a word out of the major or Feeny."

But efforts with the half-suffocated men had no effect. The whiskey with Woods had better results. He presently ceased his shivering sobs and could answer more questions. Drummond begged for particulars of the capture, and these the man found it difficult to give. He was stationed at the back door, the corral side, he said, and hardly saw the final rush. But there was something so queer about it. There had been a few minutes' lull. Then Harvey and Feeny both began to talk excitedly and to call out that the "road agents" were running away, and then presently there came sound of galloping hoofs and cheering, and both the sergeant and Mr. Harvey had shouted that the troops were coming and rushed out to meet them,—"And the next thing I knew," said Woods, "was seeing Feeny flattened out on the ground and crawling on his hands and knees and the room filled with roughs, some Mexicans, some Yanks, and I slipped into the corral and saw one of them shoot Feeny as he was trying to crawl after me; and while they were swearing and searching for the safe and carrying it out, Mr. Dawes and Mullan managed, somehow, to help the paymaster out, and then went in after the other man." Then Woods could tell little more. One thing, he said, amazed and excited him so he couldn't believe his eyes, but he was almost ready to swear that the fellow Feeny ran to shake hands with was a soldier in uniform, and that he held Feeny's hand while another man came up behind and "mashed" him with the butt of his pistol, and that this fellow in soldier clothes was the man who afterwards shot Feeny as he was trying to crawl away.

Drummond looked around at the man incredulous,—almost derisive. The story was improbable, too much so to deserve even faint attention. Just then Meinecke came back and, precise as ever, stood attention and saluted.

"Herr Lieutenant, Private Bland is not with my party at all, sir."

"Did you leave him back with the packs?"

"No, sir; the men say he wasn't with us all night. He rode ahead with the lieutenant until we came to Corporal Donovan's body."

"He's not been with me since," exclaimed the lieutenant. "Sergeant Lee, ask if any of the men have seen him."

Lee was gone but a moment, then came back with grave face and troubled eyes, bringing with him a young trooper who was serving his first enlistment.

"Private Goss, here, has a queer story to tell, sir."

"What do you know? What have you seen?" asked Drummond.

"Why, sir, right after Sergeant Lee caught sight of the fire and sung out that it was Moreno's I was back about a couple of rods looking for my canteen. I was that startled when they found Corporal Donovan dead that I dropped it, and all of a sudden somebody comes out past me leading his horse, and I asked him what he had lost, and he said his pipe, and passed me by, and I thought nothing more about it,—only no sooner did he get out into the dark where I couldn't see him than I heard all of a sudden a horse start at full gallop right over in this direction, and now I think of it it must have been Bland, for it was him that passed me, sir,—sneaking out like."

Drummond sprang to his feet.

"What say you to this, sergeant? Do you believe,—do you think it possible that Bland has deserted and joined these outlaws?"

"I don't know what to think, sir, but I haven't forgotten what Feeny said of him."

"What was that?"

"That he had too smooth a tongue to have led a rough and honest life; that if he was a Texan as he claimed, Texas people had learned to talk a different lingo since he was stationed among them with the old Second Cavalry before the war, and that he wished he'd been there at Lowell when the adjutant accepted those letters from former officers of the regiment as genuine. Bland would never show them to Feeny. Said he had sent 'em all to his home in Texas. That was what made bad blood between them."

"By heaven! and now to think that one of our troop—'C' troop—should have been engaged in this outrage! But we'll get them, men," said Drummond, straightening up to his full height and raising his gauntleted hand in air. "They can't go fast or far with those wagons such a night as this. They'll strike the foot-hills before they've gone ten miles, then they'll have to go slow. We'll catch them before the sun is up, and, by the God of heaven, if Bland is with them, I'll string him to the highest tree we can find."

"There's more than him that'll be strung up," growled a grizzled old trooper in an undertone. "The gang that murdered Pat Donovan will find scant mercy in this crowd."

"Ay, ay," said another, "and there's more than Pat Donovan to be scored off. Look yonder." For at the instant one of the packers came leading into the corral a resisting mule, at sight of whose burden many of the horses started in fear. It was the lifeless body of Donovan's companion, the soldier who had escaped the assassin's bullet when "Patsy" fell only to be overtaken and cut down half-way to Moreno's.

"It's the bloodiest night I've known even in Arizona," said Lee to his young leader. "The paymaster and Mr. Harvey about as good as dead, old Feeny dying, most like, the clerk and Mullan and some other trooper of the escort burned to ashes in that hell-hole there, and Donovan and this last one—some of our fellows think is Flynn, from 'F' troop—shot to death. It's worse than Apache, lieutenant, and there'll be no use trying to restrain our fellows when we catch the blackguards."

Quarter of an hour later, leaving half a dozen soldiers under an experienced sergeant to guard the packs, the wounded, and the non-combatants at the smouldering ruins of the ranch, with barely a score of seasoned troopers at his back, Lieutenant Jim Drummond rode resolutely out towards the southern desert, towards the distant line of jagged mountains that spanned the far horizon. The false and fatal blaze at the Picacho had utterly disappeared, and all was darkness at the west. The red glow of the smouldering embers behind was no longer sufficient to light their path. Straight away southward led the wheel-tracks, first separate and distinct, but soon blending, as though one wagon had fallen behind and followed the trail of the bolder leader in the first. Straight away after them went the ruck of hoof-tracks, telling plainly that for a time at least the gang had massed and was prepared to guard its plunder. Stop to divide it was evident they dared not, for they had not with them the implements to break into the safe, and all their searching and threatening had failed to extract from the apparently dying paymaster any clue as to what he had done with the key. Stick together, therefore, they undoubtedly would, reasoned the lieutenant, and all their effort would be to reach some secure haunt in the Sierras, and there send back their demand for ransom. Twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and George Harvey's precious daughters! It was indeed a rich haul,—one that in all the dread history of the Morales gang had never been equalled. Even had they failed to secure the safe the richer booty was theirs in having seized the girls. But few people in Arizona—as Arizona then was constituted—would make great effort to overhaul a gang of robbers whose only victim was Uncle Sam and "his liveried hirelings." Nobody in Sonora would fail to regard them with envious eyes; but in the deed of rapine that made them the captors and possessors of those defenceless sisters each man had put a price upon his head, a halter round his neck, for "Gringo" and "Greaser," American and Mexican alike, would spring to arms to rescue and avenge.

As the rearmost of the little party of pursuers disappeared in the darkness and the wearied pack-mules went jogging sullenly after, urged on by the goad of their half-Mexican driver, the sergeant left in charge of the detachment at the corral looked at his watch and noted that it was just half-past two o'clock. The dawn would be creeping on at four.

Wearied as were his men he did not permit them all to rest. The condition of his wounded and the instructions left him by Lieutenant Drummond made it necessary that they should have constant attention. It was sore trouble for him to look at the old paymaster, whose life seemed ebbing away, lying there so pallid and moaning at times so pitifully, but Feeny lay torpid, breathing, yet seeming to suffer not at all. Both were in desperate need of surgical attendance, but where could surgeon be found? The nearest was at Stoneman, the little cantonment across the Christobal, thirty miles to the east; and though a gallant fellow had volunteered to make the ride alone through the Apache-infested pass and carry the despatch that Drummond had hurriedly pencilled, there was no possibility of doctors reaching them before the coming night, and the thought of all they might have to suffer through the fierce white heat of the intervening day was one that gave the sergeant deep concern. Then, too, who could say whether the solitary trooper would succeed in running the gauntlet and making his way through? He was a resolute old frontiersman, skilled in Indian warfare, and well aware that his best chance was in the dark, but speed as he might the broad light of day would be on him long before he could get half-way through the range. The stage from the west would probably come along about sunset, but nothing could be hoped for sooner. No troops were nearer than the Colorado in that direction except the little signal-post at the Picacho. Corporal Fox and two men had been sent thither to inquire what the signal meant, and it would soon be time for them to come riding in with their report. How he wished Wing were here! Wing knew something about everything. He was an expert veterinarian, something of a doctor, knew more of mineralogy than all the officers put together, and could speak Spanish better than any man in the regiment. When it became necessary to have a signal-station at the peak and it was found that no one knew anything about the business, Wing got one of the old red manuals, studied the system, and inside of a week was signalling with the expert sent down from San Francisco.

The interior of the ranch was still a smouldering furnace as four o'clock drew nigh. Woods, weak and exhausted, had fallen into an uneasy sleep. The trooper detailed to watch over old Plummer and Feeny and bathe their faces with cool water was nodding over his charge. Here and there under the shed on the north side which the flames had not reached the men were dozing, or in low, awe-stricken tones, talking of the tragic events of the night. Near the east gate, reverently and decently covered with the only shroud to be had, the newest of the saddle-blankets, lay the stiffening remains of poor Donovan and his comrade. Lurking about the westward end of the enclosure, their beady eyes every now and then glittering in the fire-light, the Mexicans, men and boy, were smoking their everlasting papellitos, apparently indifferent to the fate that had deprived them of home and occupation. One of the troopers had burrowed a hole in the sand, started a little cook fire, and was boiling some coffee in a tin quart mug. Overhead and far down to the horizon, on every side the stars shone and sparkled through the vaporless skies. Eastward towards the Christobal they were just beginning to pale when a faint voice was heard pleading for water. Sergeant Butler sprang from his seat and hastened to where he had left Mr. Harvey but a few minutes before, still in deep and obstinate swoon.

"Water is it, sir? Here you are! I'm glad to see you picking up a little. Mr. Drummond left this for you, too, sir. He said you would maybe need it." And the sergeant raised the dizzy head and held a little flask to Harvey's lips.

"Where is he?" at last the sufferer was able to gasp.

"Overhauling the outlaws, hand over fist, by this time, sir. He has twenty good men at his back, and we'll have the ladies safe to-night,—see if we don't."

"Oh, God!" groaned the stricken brother, burying his face in his arms as the recollection of the fearful events of the night came crowding upon him. For a moment he seemed to quiver and tremble in every limb, then with sudden effort raised his head and turned again, the blood trickling anew from a gash in his face as he did so.

"Give me more of that," he moaned, stretching forth a trembling hand. "More water, too. Lend me a horse and your carbine. I must go! I must go!" But there his strength failed him, and grasping wildly at empty air, poor Harvey fell heavily back before the sergeant could interpose an arm to save.

"Don't think of it, sir; you're far too weak, and you're not needed. Never fear, the lieutenant and 'C' troop will do all that men can do. They'll bring the ladies safely back as soon as they've hung what's left of that murdering gang.—Hello! That you, Fox?" he shouted, springing up as two or three horsemen came spurring in.

"It's I,—Wing," was the answer in ringing tones. "Fox is coming slower. Quick now. Is it so that that gang has run off the young ladies?"

"It's God's truth. Here's Mr. Ned Harvey himself."

In an instant Wing was kneeling by the side of the prostrate man.

"Merciful heaven, my friend, but they've used you fearfully! They only bound and held me till Jackson got back from Ceralvo's a couple of hours ago. Are you shot,—injured?"

"No, no," groaned Harvey. "But I am broken, utterly broken, and my sisters are in the hands of those hounds."

"Never worry about that, man. I know young Drummond well. There isn't a braver, better officer in the old regiment if he is but a boy. He'll never drop that trail till he overtakes them, and by the time he needs us, old Pike here and I will be at his side. Thank the Lord, those louts were frightened off and never took our horses. They're fresh as daisies both of 'em. Cheer up, Mr. Harvey. If hard riding and hard fighting will do it, we'll have your sisters here to nurse you before another night.—Come, Pike," he cried, as he vaulted into saddle. "Now for the liveliest gallop of your lazy, good-for-nothing life. Come on!"