And so at midnight, with steeds panting and jaded, with the pass and the Picacho only four miles ahead, the little detachment was tripping noiselessly through the darkness, and, all alert and eager, Drummond was riding midway between his scouts and the main body so that no sound close at hand might distract his attention from hails or signals farther out.  Suddenly he heard an exclamation ahead, the snort of a frightened horse, then some muffled objurgations, a rider urging a reluctant steed to approach some suspicious object, and, spurring his own spirited charger forward, Mr. Drummond came presently upon the corporal just dismounting in the darkness and striving to lead his boon companion, whom he could not drive, up to some dark object lying on the plain.  This, too, failed.  A low whistle, however, brought one of the other scouts trotting in to the rescue.

“Hold him a minute, Burke,” said the corporal, handing up the reins.  “There’s something out here this brute shied at and I can’t get him near it again.”  With that he pushed out to the front while the others listened expectant.  A moment later a match was struck, and presently burned brightly in the black and breathless night.  Then came the startled cry,—­

“My God! lieutenant.  It’s Corporal Donovan and his horse,—­both dead.”

And even there Mr. Drummond noted that Bland was about the first of the column to come hurrying forward to the scene.

Ten minutes’ investigation threw but little light upon the tragedy.  Some stumps of candles were found in the saddle-bags and packs, and with these the men scoured the plain for signs.  Spreading well out from the centre, they closely examined the sandy level.  From the north came the trail of two cavalry horses, shod alike, both at the lope, both draggy and weary.  From the point where lay Donovan and his steed there was but one horse-track.  Whirling sharply around, the rider had sent his mount at thundering gallop back across the valley; then a hundred yards away, in long curve, had reined him to the southeast.  The troopers who followed the hoof-marks out about an eighth of a mile declared that, unwounded, both horse and rider were making the best of their way towards Moreno’s ranch.  Farther search, not fifty yards to the front, revealed the fact that at the edge of a little depression and behind some cactus-bushes three human forms had been lying prone, and from this point probably had sped the deadly bullet.

“Apaches, by God!” muttered one of the men.

“Apaches, your grandmother!” was the sergeant’s fierce reply.  “Will you never learn sense, Moore?  When did Apaches take to wearing store clothes and heeled boots?  There’s no Apache in this, lieutenant.  Look here, sir, and here.  Move out farther, some of you fellows, and see where they hid their horses.  Corporal Donovan was with ‘C’ troop down the Gila last week, sir.  They were to meet and escort the paymaster most like.  It’s my belief he was one of the guard, and that the ambulance has been jumped this very night.  These are road agents, not Apaches, and God knows what’s happened if they’ve got away with Patsy.  Sure he was one of the nerviest men in the whole troop, sir.”