Travisin grinned at the young officer's astonishment. 'I thought you knew Peaches. Forgot he hadn't been around for a while.'
'Peaches!'
Travisin said, 'Let's go inside.'
They gathered around his table, lighted cigarettes, and Travisin went on. 'I'd just as soon you didn't speak his name aloud around here.
You see, that young, gentle-looking Apache has one of the toughest jobs on the reservation. He's an agency spy. Only Fry and I, and now you, know what he is. Not even any of the scouts know. The Indians suspect that someone on their side is reporting to me, but they have no idea who it is. He's got a dangerous job, but it's necessary. If trouble ever breaks out, we have to be able to nip it in the bud. Peaches is the only way for us to determine where the bud is.'
'May I ask what he told you just now?'
Travisin drew hard on his cigarette before replying. 'He said that he knew much, but he would be back sometime before sunup tomorrow to tell what he knew. He made one last point very emphatic. He said, 'Watch Gatito!' '
A REAR ROOM of the agency office adobe served as sleeping quarters for both of the officers. Their cots were against opposite walls, lockers at the feet, and two large pine-board wardrobes, holding uniforms and personal gear, were flush with the wall running along the heads of their bunks.
A full moon pointed its light through the window frame over de Both's bed, carpeted the plank flooring with a delicate sheen, and reached as far as the gleaming upper portion of Travisin's body, motionless on the cot. One arm was beneath the gray blanket that reached just above his waist, the other was folded across his bare chest.
A floorboard creaked somewhere near. His eyes opened at once and closed just as suddenly. Beneath the blanket his hand groped near his thigh and quietly covered the grip of his pistol. He opened his eyes slightly and glanced across the room. De Both was dead asleep. The latch on the door leading to the front office rattled faintly, and then hinges creaked as the door began to open. Travisin quietly drew his arm from beneath the blanket and leveled the pistol at the doorway.
His thumb closed on the hammer and drew it back, and the click of the cocking action was a sharp, metallic sound. The opening-door motion stopped.
'Nantan, do not shoot.' The words were just above a whisper.
Travisin threw the blanket from his legs, swung them to the floor and moved to the doorway without a sound. Peaches backed into the office as he approached.
'Chiricahua leave.'
'How long?'
'They go maybe five mile now. Gatito go with them.' Travisin stepped back to the doorway and slammed the butt of his pistol against the wooden door. 'Hey, mister, roll out!' De Both sat bolt upright. 'Be ready to ride in a few minutes,' Travisin said, and ran out of the office toward Barney Fry's adobe across the quadrangle.
In less than twenty minutes, thirteen riders streaked out of the quadrangle westward. Behind them, orange light was just beginning to show above the irregular outline of the Pinals. The morning was cool, but still, and the stillness held the promise of the blistering heat of the day to come.
The sun was only a little higher when Travisin and his scouts rode up to four wickiups along the bank of the Gila. Travisin halted the detail, but did not dismount. He sat motionless in the saddle, his senses alert to the quiet. He said something in Apache and one of the scouts threw off and cautiously entered the first wickiup. He reappeared in an instant, shaking his head from side to side. In the third hut, the scout remained longer than usual. When he reappeared he was dragging an unconscious Indian by the legs.
Travisin said, 'That one of them, Barney?'
Fry swung down from his pony and leaned over the prostrate Indian, saying a few words in Apache to the scout still holding the Indian's legs. 'He's a Chiricahua, Captain. Dead drunk. Must have been drinking for at least two days.' He nodded his head toward the Apache scout. 'Ningun says there's a jug inside with a little tizwin in it.'
Travisin pointed to two of the scouts and then swept his arm in the direction of the fourth wickiup. They kicked their ponies to a leaping start, dashed to the hut and gave it a quick inspection. In a minute they were back.
The scouts watched Travisin intently as he studied the situation. They knew what the signs meant. They sat their ponies now with restless anticipation, fingering their carbines, checking ammunition belts, holding in the small, wiry horses that also seemed to be charged with the excitement of the moment--for there is no love lost between the Coyotero and the Chiricahua. Eric Travisin knew as well as any of them what the sign meant: sixteen drunken Apaches screaming through the countryside with blood in their eyes and a bad taste in their mouths. It was something that had to be stopped before the Indians regained their senses. Now they were loco Apaches, bloodthirsty, but a bit careless. By the next day, unless stopped, they would again be cold, patient guerrilla fighters led by the master strategist, Pillo.
FROM THE DIRECTION of the agency a scout rode into sight beating his pony to a whirlwind pace. He reined in abruptly and shouted something to Fry through the dust cloud.
'We been sleepin', Captain. He says Gatito made off with a dozen carbines and two hundred rounds of forty- fours. Must have sneaked them out sometime last night.'
In Travisin, the excitement of what lay ahead was building up continually. Now it was beginning to break through his calm surface.
'We're awake now, Barney. I figure they'll either streak south for the Madres right away, or contact their people up near Apache by dodging through the Basin and then heading east for the reservation. I know if I was going to hide out for a while, I'd sure want my wife along. Let's find out which it is.'
Chapter Four
BY MIDMORNING Travisin's scouts had followed the tracks of the hostiles to an elevated stretch of pines wedged tightly among bare, rolling hills. They halted a few hundred yards from the wooded area, in the open.
Before them the land, dotted with mesquite and catclaw, climbed gradually to the pine plateau; and the sun-glare made shimmering waves, hazy and filmy white, as they looked ahead to the contrasting black of the pines. A shallow arroyo cut its way down from the ridge past where the detail stood, finally ending at the banks of the Gila, twelve miles behind them. On both sides of the crusted edges of the arroyo, the unshod tracks they had been following all morning moved straight ahead.
Ningun, the Apache scout, rode up the arroyo a hundred yards, circled and returned. He mumbled only a few words to Fry, who glanced at the pine ridge again before speaking.
'He says the tracks go all the way up. Ain't no other place they could go.'
'Does he think they're still up there?' Travisin asked the question without taking his eyes from the ridge.
'He didn't say, but I know he don't think so.' Barney Fry pulled out a tobacco plug and bit off a generous chew, mumbling, 'And I don't either.' He moved the front of his open vest aside with a thumb and dropped the plug into the pocket of his shirt. 'I figure it this way, Captain,' he said. 'They know who's followin' 'em, and they know we ain't about to get caught in a simple jackpot like that one up yonder without flushin' it out first. So they ain't goin' to waste their time settin' a trap that we won't fall right into.'
'Sounds good, Barney, only there's one thing that's been troubling me,' Travisin said. 'Notice how clean the sign's been all the way? Not once have they tried to throw us off the track--and they've had more than one opportunity to at least make it pretty tough. No Apache, no matter if he's drunker than seven hundred dollars, is going to leave a trail that plain--that is, unless he wants to.' He looked at the scout, suggesting a reply with his expression, and added, 'Now why do you suppose old Pillo would want us to follow him?'
Fry pushed his hat from his forehead and passed the back of his hand across his mouth. It was plain that the
