Whatever might have been his other moral attributes, Pasqual Morales had borne a name for desperate courage that seemed justified in this supreme moment of surprise and stampede. What he saw as he leaned out of the bounding vehicle was certainly enough to disgust a bandit and demoralize many a leader. Scattering like chaff before the gale his followers were scudding out across the desert, every man for himself, as though the very devil were in pursuit of each individual member of the gang. Eight or ten at least, spurring, lashing their horses to the top of their speed, were already far beyond reach of his voice. Close at hand, however, six or seven of the fellows, desperadoes of the first water, had unslung their Henry rifles and, blazing away for all they were worth, showed evidence of a determination to die game. Behind them, screaming at the tops of their shrill, strident voices, SeÑora Moreno and her daughter were clinging stoutly to the iron rail of their seats as the buck-board was whirled and dashed across the plain. Already both the wounded men had been flung helplessly out upon the sands, and, even as he looked, the off fore wheel struck a stout cactus stump; flew into fragments; the tire rolled off in one direction, and Moreno's luckless family shot, comet-like, into space and fetched up shrieking in the midst of a plentiful crop of thorns and spines. The husband and father, gazing upon the incident from over his shoulder and afar, blessed the saints for their beneficence in having landed his loved ones on soft soil instead of among the jagged rocks across the plain. But for himself the sooner he reached the rocks the better. A tall Gringo, who cast aside a dark-blue blouse as he rode, stooping low over his horse's neck, seemed bent on racing the late ranch-owner to the goal where both would be, and there was none to dispute with them the doubtful honor. Even those who had stampeded at the first yell of alarm were now reining back in broad, sweeping circle, unslinging the ready rifle and pouring in a long-range fire on the distant rank of cavalry, just bursting into the triumph of the charge. Here, there, and everywhere across the plain little puffs of blue-white smoke were shooting up, telling of the leaden missiles hurled at the charging line. But on like the wind came the troopers in blue, never pausing to fire a shot, their leader at racing speed.

Wounded though he was, Pasqual Morales was not the man to fail in the fight. Yelling orders and curses at his driver, he succeeded in getting him to control his frantic team just long enough to enable the outlaw captain to tumble out. Then away they dashed again, the stiffening body of Ramon and the weighty little safe being now sole occupants of the interior. In the mad excitement of the first rush two or three horses had broken loose, leaving their owners afoot, and believing that no quarter would be the rule, these abandoned roughs were fighting to the last, selling their lives, as they called it, as dearly as possible. From their rifles and from others the shots rained fast upon the troopers, but never seemed to check the charge. The rush was glorious. Drawing their revolvers now, for they carried no sabres, the soldiers fired as they rode down those would-be obstructers, and two poor wretches were flattened out upon the plain when the main body of the troop dashed by, making straight for the fleeing Concord with the white canvas top. Drummond had not fired at all. Every thought was concentrated on the occupants of the wagon. Every shot might be needed when he got to them. "Chester" was running grandly. The designated four who were to follow the lieutenant were already over a hundred yards behind when, from the trail of the ambulance, from a little patch of cactus, there came a flash and report, and the beautiful horse swerved, reeled, but pushed gamely on. Noting the spot, two of the following troopers emptied a cartridge into the clump, but left the lurking foe to be looked after later. They were too close to the Concord to think of anything else,—so close they could hear the cries and pleadings of a woman's voice, the terrified scream of another, and then, all on a sudden, "Chester" pitched heavily forward, and, even as the wagon came to a sudden stand, the gallant steed rolled over and over, his rider underneath him.

When Lieutenant Drummond regained his senses he found himself unable to believe them. Conscious at first only of being terribly bruised and shaken, he realized that he was being borne along in some wheeled vehicle, moving with slow and decorous pace over a soft yet unbeaten and irregular trail. Conscious of fierce white light and heat about him on every side, he was aware of a moist, cool, dark bandage over his eyes that prevented him from seeing. Striving to raise a hand to sweep the blinding cloth away, he met rebellion. A sudden spasm of pain that made him wince, the quick contraction of his features, the low moan of distress, were answered instantly by a most surprising wail in a sweet girlish voice.

"Oh, Fanny, see how he suffers! Can't something be done?"

And then—could he be mistaken?—soft, slender fingers were caressing the close-cropped hair about his temples. A glow of delight and rejoicing thrilled through his frame as he realized that the main object of the fierce and determined pursuit was accomplished, that the precious freight was rescued from the robber band, and that somehow—somehow he himself was now a prisoner.

Striving to move his head, he found it softly, warmly pillowed; but as he attempted to turn, it was held in place by two little hands, one on each side. Then as he found his voice and faintly protested that he was all right and wanted to look about him, another hand quickly removed the bandage, and Fanny Harvey's lovely face, pale and framed with much dishevelled hair, was bending anxiously over him; but a smile of hope, even of joy, was parting the soft lips as she saw the light of returning reason in his eyes. At this same instant, too, the hands that supported his face were suddenly drawn away, and his pillow became unstable. One quick glance told him the situation. The seats of the Concord had been lifted out, blankets had been spread within; he was lying at full length, his aching head supported in Ruth Harvey's lap. Fanny, her elder sister, was seated facing him, but at his side. No wonder Jim Drummond could not quite believe his senses.

It was Fanny who first recovered her self-poise. Throwing back the hanging curtain at the side, she called aloud,—

"Mr. Wing, come to us! He's conscious."

And the next instant the slow motion of the wagon ceased, the door was wrenched open, and there in the glowing sunshine stood the tall sergeant whom he last had seen when scouting through Picacho Pass.

"Bravo, lieutenant! You're all right, though you must be in some pain. Can you stand a little more? We're close to the caves now,—cool water and cool shade not five hundred yards ahead."

"How did you get here, sergeant?" Drummond weakly questioned. "Where are the others?"

"Followed on your trail, sir, Private Pike and I. Most of the men are gathering up prisoners and plunder. You've made the grandest haul in all the history of Arizona. I got up only just in time to see the charge, and Pike's now on his way back already with the good news. We are taking you and the ladies to the refuge in the rocks where Morales and all his people have hid so long. Old Moreno, with a lariat around his neck, is showing the way."

"Got him, did you? I'm glad of that. There was another,—a deserter from my troop; did you see anything of him?"

"I haven't heard yet, sir. One thing's certain, old Pasqual is with his hopeful brother in another if not a better world. 'Twas he that killed poor 'Chester,' the worst loss we've met. Not a man is hit, and by daybreak to-morrow Dr. Day from Stoneman will be here to straighten you out, and these young ladies' father here to thank you."

"Thank you, Mr. Drummond? Ah, how can he or I ever begin to thank you and your brave fellows half enough? I had lost all hope until that disguised bandit suddenly leaped from the wagon, and Ruth was swooning again, but she heard your voice before I did. 'Twas she who saw your charge." And Fanny Harvey's lips quivered as she spoke, and the voice that was so brave at the siege became weak and tremulous now.

Drummond closed his eyes a moment. It was all too sweet to be believed. His right hand, to be sure, refused to move, his left stole up and began groping back of his head.

"May I not thank my nurse?" he said. "The first thing I was conscious of was her touch upon my forehead."

But the hands that were so eager, so active when their patient lay unconscious, seemed to shrink from the long, brown fingers searching blindly for them, and not one word had the maiden vouchsafed.

"I heard your voice a moment ago, Ruthie. Can't you speak to me now?" he asked, half chiding, half laughing. "Have you forgotten your friend Jim Drummond and the long, long talks we used to have on the 'Newbern'?"

Forgotten Jim Drummond and those long talks indeed! Forgotten her hero, her soldier! Hardly. Yet no word would she speak.

"The little lady seems all unstrung yet, lieutenant. Miss Fanny will have to talk for her, I fancy." And Wing's clear, handsome eyes were raised to Miss Harvey's face as he spoke in a look that seemed to tell how much he envied the soldier who was the object of such devoted attention. "Shall we move ahead? The others will join us later on."

But when a few minutes later strong arms lifted the tall lieutenant from the wagon and bore him to a blanket-covered shelter in a deep rocky recess where the sun's rays seemed rarely to penetrate, and a cup of clear, cool water was held to his lips, Drummond's one available hand was uplifted in hopes of capturing the ministering fingers. There was neither difficulty nor resistance. It was Sergeant Wing's gauntlet, and Wing's cordial voice again accosted him.

"Glad to see you so chipper, lieutenant. Now, I have some little knowledge of surgery. Your right arm is broken below the elbow, and you're badly shocked and bruised. I have no doubt the surgeon will be with us by this time to-morrow, but I can set that arm just as soon as I have looked the ground over and disposed of ourselves and our prisoners to the best advantage."

"How many prisoners have we?" asked Drummond.

"Well, as yet, only Moreno and his interesting family and two of their gang, who are very badly wounded. Some of the others were neither prompt nor explicit about surrendering, and the men seem to have been a trifle impatient in one or two cases. You should hear the old woman protesting to Miss Harvey her innocence and her husband's spotless character. You understand Spanish, do you not?"

"No, only the smattering we pick up at the Point and what 'broncho' Spanish I have added to it out here. Where did you learn it, sergeant? They tell me you speak it like a native."

Wing's sunburned face—a fine, clear-cut, and manly one it was—seemed to grow a shade or two redder.

"Oh, I have spoken it many years. My boyhood was spent on the Pacific slope. Pardon me, sir, I want to look more carefully after your injuries now."

"But the ladies, where are they?" asked Drummond, uneasily.

"Occupying the sanctum sanctorum, the innermost shrine among the rocks. This is a wonderful spot, sir. We might eventually have starved these people out if once they got here, but ten determined soldiers could hold it against ten hundred. I've as yet had only a glance, but the Morenos have been here before, it is most evident, for the seÑorita herself showed Miss Harvey into the cave reserved for the women. There they have cool water, cool and fresh air, and complete shelter."

And now, as with experienced hands the sergeant stripped off Drummond's hunting-shirt and carefully exposed the bruised and lacerated arm and shoulder, he plied his patient with questions as to whether he felt any internal pain or soreness. "How a man could be flattened out and rolled over by such a weight and not be mashed into a jelly is what I can't understand. You're about as elastic as ivory, lieutenant, and you have no spare flesh about you either. That and the good luck of the cavalryman saved you from worse fate. You've got a battered head, a broken arm, and had the breath knocked out of you, and that's about all. But we'll have you on your feet by the time the fellows come from Stoneman."

"But how about the young ladies?" again asked Drummond, wearily and anxiously, for his head was still heavy and painful and his anxiety great. He was weak, too, from the shock. "Won't they suffer meantime?"

"Well, they might,—at least Miss Ruth, the younger, might in the reaction after their fearful experience; but I'm something of a doctor, as I said, and I shall be able to prevent all that."

"How?"

"Well, by giving her something to do. Just as soon as they've had a chance to rest, both young ladies will be put on duty. Miss Ruth is to nurse you."

"Suppose she doesn't want to?"

"The case isn't supposable, lieutenant. She would have gone into hysterics this morning, I think, had she not been detailed, as a preventive, to hold your head. At all events, she quieted down the instant she was told by her sister to climb into the wagon again and sit still as a mouse and see that your face was kept cool and moist and shaded from the glare." And now Sergeant Wing's lips were twitching with merriment, and Drummond, hardly knowing how to account for his embarrassment, asked no more. His amateur surgeon, however, chatted blithely on.

"There's an abundant store of provisions here, dried meat, frijoles, chile, chocolate.—You shall have a cup in a moment.—There's ammunition in plenty. There's even a keg of mescal, which, saving your presence, sir, as I am temporary commander, shall be hidden before the men begin coming in with their prisoners. There's barley in abundance for horses and mules; water to drink and water to bathe in. We could hardly be better off anywhere."

Drummond looked curiously about him, so far as was possible without moving his pain-stricken head. He was lying in a deep recess in some dark and rocky caÑon whose sides were vertical walls. Tumbling down from the wooded heights above—rare sight in Arizona—a little brook of clear, sparkling water came brawling and plashing over its stony bed at his feet and went on down the gorge to its opening on the sandy plain. There, presumably, it burrowed into the bosom of the earth, for no vestige of running stream could the Cababi Valley show. The walls about him were in places grimy with the smoke of cook fires. Overhead, not fifty feet away, a gnarled and stunted little cedar jutted out from some crevice in the rocks and stood at the edge of the cliff. A soldier was clinging to it with one hand and pointing out towards the east with the other. Drummond recognized the voice as that of one of his own troop when the man called out,—

"Two of our fellers are coming with the old yellow ambulance, sergeant; but I can't see the others."

"All right, Patterson. Try to see where the rest have gone and what they're doing. I'll send the glass up to you presently. What I'm afraid of, lieutenant, is that in their rage over Donovan's death, and Mullan's, and all the devil's work done there at Moreno's, and your mishap, too, the men have become uncontrollable, and will never let up on the pursuit until they have killed the last one of that gang. These two who are coming in with the bodies of the Morales brothers probably have worn-out horses, or perhaps Lee ordered them to stay and guard the safe. The last I saw of any of the gang they were disappearing over the desert to the south, striking for Sonora Pass."

"I wonder they didn't all come in here," said Drummond.

"Well, hardly that, lieutenant. They knew they would be followed here, penned up, where their capture would only be a question of time. A hundred cavalrymen would be around them in a very few hours, and we could send to Lowell for those old mountain howitzers and just leisurely shell them out. Then, when they surrendered,—as they'd have to,—the civil authorities would immediately step in and claim jurisdiction, claim the prisoners, too. We'd simply have to turn them over to justice as a matter of course, and you know, and they know, that the only judge apt to sit on their case would be that of our eminent frontiersman and fellow-citizen,—Lynch. They are scattering like Apaches through the mountains and will reassemble and count noses later on. Thanks to you and 'C' troop, they have lost all they had gained and their leaders besides. No, sir, they won't stop this side of the Mexican line."

"There's one, Wing, I hope to heaven they'll never lose sight of till they run him down."

"Who's that, sir?"

"The fellow who was enlisted in 'C' troop last winter at Tucson and who deserted last night to join this gang. He drove for the stage company last year and was discharged. He gave his name as Bland."

"Bland! Henry Bland!" exclaimed Sergeant Wing, leaping to his feet in uncontrollable excitement. "Do you mean it, sir? Had he enlisted? Do you mean that he was the man Miss Harvey spoke of,—the disguised soldier she called him?"

And Drummond, amazed at Wing's emotion, gazed up to see the sergeant's features working almost convulsively, his face paling, his eyes full of intense anxiety.

"Why, I cannot doubt it, sergeant. He ran away from us on the discovery of Donovan's body and rode straight for Moreno's, beating us there probably by an hour or so, for no one happened to miss him."

Wing's hands were raised on high in a gesture almost tragic, then dropped helplessly by his side. With a stifled groan the tall soldier turned abruptly away and went striding towards the opening of the caÑon, leaving Drummond wondering and perplexed.

When, quarter of an hour later, the sergeant returned, bringing with him some improvised splints and bandages, and Drummond believed it his duty to make inquiry as to whether he knew Bland and what was the cause of his excitement, Wing turned his grave, troubled face and looked his young superior straight in the eye.

"Mr. Drummond, I have known that man for good and for ill many a long year. If our fellows have killed him, let his crimes die with him. If he is brought in alive,—brought to trial,—I may have to speak, but not now, sir. Bear with me, lieutenant,—not now."

Was Drummond dreaming? He could have declared that tears were starting in the sergeant's eyes as he turned hastily away, unable for the moment to continue the setting and bandaging of the broken arm.

"Take your own time, Wing," said the young officer, gently. "Speak or keep silent as you will. You have earned the right." And the sergeant mutely thanked him.

The primitive surgery of the frontier took little time, and, with his arm comfortably and closely slung, Drummond lay impatient for the coming of his men, impatient perhaps to hear a softer voice, to feel again the light touch of slender fingers, yet in his weakness and exhaustion dropping slowly off to sleep. All efforts to keep awake proved vain. His heavy eyelids closed, and presently he was in dreamland.

Meantime Sergeant Wing had busied himself in many a way. First he had gone to loosen old Moreno's bonds,—enough, at least, to relieve his pain yet hold him securely. The soldier sitting drowsily on the rock beside the prisoner gladly accepted permission to put aside his carbine and go to sleep.

"I'll watch him, Mat," said Wing. "You lie down there, Moreno, and see to it that you make no effort to slip a knot while I'm at work here. How far away is that ambulance now, Patterson?" he called to the man on lookout.

"Halted down at the edge of the plain, sergeant. That's where they struck water first, and I reckon they couldn't make up their minds to come farther. I can make out one or two of the fellows coming back far down the desert to the south. Horses played out probably."

"Anything to be seen across the valley along the trail we came?"

"Nothing, sir; not a puff of dust. But here's something I don't understand—off here in the range south of us—well up towards the top."

"What's that?" asked Wing, dropping the coil of lariat he held in his hand and looking quickly up.

"Well, it's more like signal-smoke than anything else. Just exactly such smoke as we have seen in the Chiricahua and Catarinas and —— Well, just come up here with your field-glass, if you can, sergeant. I believe there's an answer to it way down to the southeast,—t'other side of the valley."

In an instant Wing turned. "Sorry for you, SeÑor Moreno," he grimly muttered. "But as only two men are with me and both are otherwise engaged, I'll have to secure you temporarily. It isn't pleasant, but it serves you right."

In vain the Mexican pleaded and protested. A rawhide riata was wound and looped about him in a few scientific turns and he was left reclining against the rock, conquered yet inwardly raging, while Wing stole in to Drummond's rude couch, slipped the field-glass from its case, then, with a longing look into the darker depths beyond, and a moment's hesitation, he stepped to the projecting rock that seemed to divide the cave into two apartments and called in lower tone, "Miss Harvey."

"Here, Mr. Wing. What is wanted?"

And at the instant, prompt, alert, even smiling, Fanny Harvey appeared before him. The pallor was gone. The dishevelled hair had been twisted into shape. Food, rest, relief from dread and misery, and that little appreciated beautifier, fresh water, had wrought their transformation here. Wing's handsome eyes glistened as he removed his hat.

"I have to go up to that point yonder a few minutes, leaving old Moreno alone, bound, to be sure, but his wife or daughter might slip out and release him. Will you have the goodness—to take this—and shoot him if they should make the attempt?" And he handed her his pistol.

"I'll see to it that no one interferes with him, Mr. Wing. What has happened? Are the others coming?" And she took the revolver, balancing it in her accustomed and practised hand. The admiration deepened in Wing's gaze.

"I see you handle a pistol as though you had used one. You're a true frontiersman's daughter. I'll have to be away for a few minutes. I'm going up to look from our rock above there. Some of our men, they say, are in sight slowly returning, and the paymaster's ambulance is only a mile away, probably waiting for the rest of the party. How is Miss Ruth?"

"Sleeping like a baby, bless her heart."

"Well, I have promised Mr. Drummond that she should be his nurse. I hope you will consent. He is sleeping, too. No fever yet, I am thankful to say."

"Ruth will be ready, and so will I, to help in any way we can. But when are you to have a rest, may I ask?"

"O-oh—by and by. Lee and the others must have theirs first. They have been in saddle much longer and farther than I. When is Miss Harvey to have her rest, may I ask?"

"We-l-l, I don't know. I'll say, 'perhaps by and by' too. Look! that man is calling you."

Whirling about, Wing saw his sentinel beckoning, and in a moment he went clambering up the rocky trail, active as a mountain Apache.

"What is it, Patterson?"

"It is signal-smoke, sir, across the valley. That ain't more than eight miles away, and down here in the range ain't more than six. What Indians could be out here, I would like to know? Do they grow everywhere in this infernal country?"

Wing took his glasses and long and earnestly studied the bluish-white clouds rising in puffs, faint and barely distinguishable in the opposite heights, then fixed his gaze upon the filmy column soaring up among the dark pines at the heart of the range to the southward. His face grew graver every minute.

"Stay here and watch," he said. "I must go and get those other men in with the ambulance. Of course if it is Apaches, they've sighted that party and the few men straggling back, and those signals mean, 'close on them.' I'll send the team right in and then ride and hurry the other fellows out."

The sun was retiring behind the Cababi Range as Wing went leaping down the trail.

"Sorry for you, Dick, old boy," he said to his horse, who was drowsing in the shade. "More work for us both now."

Never stopping to saddle, he leaped upon the bare, brown back and went clattering down the caÑon.

"Keep your eye on Moreno, there!" he shouted up to the lookout. "If he tries to slip away, shoot him."

Ten minutes' brisk gallop through the windings of the gorge brought him to the edge of the sandy plain. There, under a little clump of willows, was the ambulance, its mules unhitched and hoppled securely, nibbling placidly at such scant herbage as they could find. The horses of the two guards, unsaddled, were drooping in the shade, too tired to hunt for anything to eat.

"Saddle up, men. Hitch in and get that team to the head of the caÑon, lively now," was his brief order to the sleepy trooper who greeted him, carbine in hand.

"What's up, sergeant?" queried another, springing out from the willows. "Lee told us to wait here, or wherever we could find shade and water."

"Wait? How long and what for?"

"Blessed if I know how long. None of 'em ain't in sight from here coming back; but 'what for' is easy to answer. The paymaster's chest."

"The paymaster's chest?" cried Wing. "Why, isn't that here in the ambulance?"

"Not a hinge of it. Those Greasers swapped it onto an apparejo while we were all running for Harvey's daughters. The money's half-way to Sonora by this time."