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[1] Pronounced Hwar-car-hál-yar. This story is a sequel to "Captured by the Navajos," contained in the Christmas Extra of Vol. XV. Frank and Henry Burton were the sons of a Colonel in the army, and had been appointed honorary corporals in Santa Fe, and attached to headquarters. On the march to Arizona they distinguished themselves by gallant conduct, and were promoted to the rank of sergeants.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES A. CURTIS, U. S. A.
I.
"Here, Frank, come and help push this gate. I can't start it alone."
"Wait a moment, Henry. Don't be in such a rush. I think I hear a horse coming down the Prescott road. I want to see if it's the express from La Paz."
The younger boy ceased his efforts to close the gates, and advancing a few steps before the entrance of the fort, looked up the valley to where the road from Prescott appeared from behind a spur of the foot-hills. The two boys, aged respectively fourteen and sixteen, were dressed in the army uniform, and wore gold-lace sergeant's chevrons upon their sleeves. Their white stripes were piped with red, and their cap cords and regimental badges were of the officers' pattern and quality.
A beautiful white setter, with liver-colored spots and ears, and mottled nose and paws, followed the boys and stood between them, nestling her delicate muzzle against the younger boy's hip, and responding to his caresses with waves of a plumy tail.
"Do you think we shall hear from father, Frank?"
"We ought to. He said, in his last letter, he was getting settled at the Presidio, and would soon send for us."
"Takes twelve days to bring a letter from San Francisco. I suppose it would take us longer to go there. Seems to me he might get ready for us while we are on the road," said Henry, lugubriously. "I'm getting mighty tired of opening and shutting these gates."
"You forget father has to visit all the posts where companies of his regiment are stationed. That will probably take him a month longer."
"And we must go on opening and closing gates and running errands in Arizona. Santa Fe was a good place for boys. But this is the pokiest place we've struck yet. But come; let's shut the gates, and watch for the expressman afterwards. We haven't much time before retreat."
The gates closed a stockaded post near Prescott, Arizona. Pine logs ten feet long had been set up vertically in the ground, two feet of them below the surface and eight above, enclosing an area of a thousand square feet, in which were store-rooms, offices, and quarters for two companies of soldiers and their officers. At corners diagonally opposite each other were two large block-house bastions commanding the flanks of the fort. The logs of the walls were faced on two sides, set close together, and were slotted every four feet for rifles. At one of the bastionless corners were double gates, also made of logs, bound by cross and diagonal bars, dove-tailed and pinned firmly to them. Each hung on huge triple hinges of iron.
The two boys went back to the gates, and setting their backs against one of them and digging their heels in the earth, swung it ponderously and slowly until its outer edge caught on a shelving log set in the middle of the entrance to support it and its fellow. Then, as the field music began to play, and the men to assemble in line for retreat roll-call, they swung the second gate in the same way, and braced the two with heavy timbers.
As the companies broke ranks, the boys went to the fifth log on the left of the gates and swung it back on its hinges. This was one of two secret posterns. On the inside of the wall, when closed, its location was easily noticeable on account of the hinges, latches, and braces; on the outside it looked like any other log. It had been sawed off close to the ground, and being over three feet in diameter, afforded a convenient night entrance to the fort. Their work being completed, the boys went to the Adjutant's office to report.
"Very well, sergeants," said the commanding officer; "no further duty will be required of you to-day."
Frank and Henry ran through the postern, and arrived on the crest of the bluff overlooking the Prescott road just as a horseman turned up the height. The news that the La Paz courier had arrived spread quickly through the quarters, and every man not on duty appeared outside the walls.
"I wonder if Samson could pack those gates off as easily as he did the gates of Gaza?" said Henry, seating himself on a log which had been rejected in the building, and taking Vic's head in his hip and fondling her silken ears.
"They are the heaviest gates I ever saw," said Frank.
"Then stop straining at them. Captain Bayard has several times suggested that you be relieved of the duty."
"We have swung them since they were hung, and we want to do it until we leave," continued Frank. "We can't remain here much longer. I think this express will bring an order for us to go to San Francisco."
"Very likely. It will be an agreeable change for you. Life here is not very enjoyable for boys."
"I should say not," said Henry. "At Santa Fe there was plenty of fun. Of course we had to study there; but that made play all the more pleasant. Then we could go hunting now and then, or gathering piñons; but here we can't look outside of the fort unless a dozen soldiers are along, for fear the Apaches will get us."
"But you can go to Prescott."
"Prescott!" in a tone of great contempt. "Twenty-one log cabins and stores, and not a boy in the place--only a dozen Pike County, Missouri, girls."
"And we can't go there with any comfort since Texas Dick and Jumping Jack stole Sancho and Chiquita," added Frank.
Further conversation was temporarily interrupted by the arrival of the expressman. A roan bronco galloped up the slope bearing a youthful rider wearing a light buckskin suit and a soft felt hat with a narrow brim. He was armed with a breech-loading carbine and two revolvers, and carried, attached to his saddle, a roll of blankets and a mail-pouch.
Dismounting, he detached the pouch, at the same time answering questions and giving us items of news later than any contained in his despatches.
After handing his pouch to the quartermaster-sergeant, his eyes fell upon the boy sergeants.
"I saw Texas Dick and Juan Brincos at Cisternas Negras," he said, addressing them.
"My! Did you, Mr. Baldwin?" exclaimed Henry, springing to his feet and approaching the courier. "Did they have our ponies?"
"You know I never saw your ponies; but Dick was mounted on a black, and Juan on a cream-color."
"Sancho!" said Frank.
"Chiquita!" said Henry.
"Do you know where they were bound?" asked Captain Bayard.
"I did not speak to them, nor did they see me. I dared not hold communication in a lonely place with such desperate characters. I learned from a friend of theirs at Date Creek that they were going to open a monte bank at La Paz."
"Then they are likely to stay there some time."
"Can't something be done, sir, to get the ponies back?" asked Frank.
"Perhaps so. I will consider the matter."
The mail was taken to the office of the Quartermaster, and soon distributed through the command. Among my letters was one from Colonel Burton, the father of the boy sergeants. He said he had expected to send for his sons by this mail, but additional detached service had been required of him which might delay their departure from Whipple for another month, if not longer. He informed me that a detail which I had received to duty as professor of military science and tactics in a boys' military school had been withheld by the Department Commander until my services could be spared at Fort Whipple, and that he thought the next mail or the one following it would bring an order relieving me and ordering me East. This would enable me to leave for the coast the first week in November.
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