green his eyes seemed devoid of any expression. His attitude remained
unchanged, thumbs in the low-cut pockets of his wide-flapping
trousers, shoulders meek and drooping.

"W-e-ll," he finally drawled, "you understood I wanted to get on to
Camp Stoneman by sunrise, didn't you? Didn't my clerk, Mr. Dawes, tell
you?"

"He did, yes, sir, and you don't want to get there no more than I do,
major. But I told you flat-footed if you let Donovan and those other
men go back on the trail they'd find some excuse to stop at
Ceralvo's, and, damn 'em, they've done it."

"Don't you s'pose they'll be along presently?"

"S'pose?" and the sun-blistered face of the cavalryman seemed to grow
a shade redder as he echoed almost contemptuously the word of his
superior. "S'pose? Why, major, look here!" And the short, swart
trooper took three quick strides, then pointed through the western gap
in the adobe wall to the gilded edge of the range where the sun had
just slipped from view. "It's ten mile to that ridge, it's ten minutes
since I got the last wig-wag of the signal-flag at the pass. They
hadn't come through then. What chance is there of their getting here
in time to light out at dark? You did tell me to have everything ready
to start, and then you undid it by sending half the escort back.
You've been here in hell's half-acre three days and I've been here
three years. You've never been through Cañon Diablo; I've been through
a dozen times and never yet without a fight or a mighty good chance of
one. Now you may think it's fun to run your head into an ambuscade,
but I don't. You can get 'em too easy without trying here. I'm an old