All the same he heard the click of lock and was prompt to draw his own
Colt, as did likewise the little squad riding ahead of the creaking
ambulance. The two leaders of the mules whirled instantly about and
became tangled up with the wheel team, and the paymaster was pitched
out of a dream into a doubled-up mass on the opposite seat. To his
startled questions the driver could only make reply that he didn't
know what was the matter; the sergeant had gone ahead to see.
Presently Feeny shouted "Forward!" and on they went again, and not
until Ceralvo's was a mile behind could the major learn the cause of
the detention. "Some of Ceralvo's people," answered Feeny, "damn their
impudence! They thought to stop us and turn us in there by stories of
Indian raids just below us,--three prospectors murdered twenty-four
miles this side of the Sonora line. Cochises's people never came this
far west of the Chiricahua Range. It's white cut-throats maybe, and
we'll need our whole command."

And yet in the glaring sunshine of that May morning, after they had
unsaddled at Moreno's, after the sergeant, wearied with the vigils of
two successive nights, had gone to sleep in the coolest shade he could
find, there came riding across the sun-baked, cactus-dotted plain at
the west a young man who had the features of the American and the
grave, courteous bearing of the Mexican.

"My name is Harvey," said he. "My sisters, who have been in San
Francisco at school, are with me on the way to visit our parents in
Tucson. Father was to have met us at the Bend with relays of mules. We
have waited forty-eight hours and can wait no longer. For God's sake
let half a dozen of your men ride out and escort them down here.
There is no doubt in the world the Apaches are in the mountains on
both sides, and I'm trembling for fear they've already found our camp.