Watching him in silence a moment, a quiet smile of amusement on his lips, Sergeant Wing sauntered over and placed a friendly hand on the broad blue shoulder.

“Well, Pikey, are you wishing yourself back in Frisco?”

“I’m wishing myself in Tophet, sergeant; it may be hotter, but it isn’t as lonely as this infernal hole.”

“No, it’s populous enough, probably,” was the response, “and,” added he, with a whimsical smile, “no doubt you’ve lots of friends there, Pike.”

“Maybe I have, and maybe I haven’t.  At all events, I’ve none here.  Why in thunder couldn’t you let me look into that business over at Ceralvo’s instead of Jackson?—­he gets everything worth having.  I’m shelved for his sake day after day.”

“Couldn’t send you, Pike, on any such quest as that.  Those Greasers have sharp eyes, and one look at your face would convince them that we’d lost our grip or were in for a funeral.  Jackson, now, rides in as blithe as a May morning,—­a May morning out of Arizona, I mean.  They never get the best of him.  The only trouble is he stays too long; he ought to be back here now.”

“Humph! he’ll be apt to come back in a hurry with Pat Donovan and those ‘C’ troop fellows spending their money like water at Ceralvo’s.”

“You still insist they’re over there, do you, Pike?  I think they’re not.  I flagged old Feeny half an hour ago that they hadn’t come through here.”

“Who was that fellow who rode back here with the note?” asked Pike.

“I don’t know his name.  ‘Dutchy’ they call him in ‘C’ troop.  He’s on his second enlistment.”

“More fool he!  The man who re-enlists in this Territory must be either drunk or Dutch.”  And Pike relapsed into gloomy silence again, his eyes fixed upon the faint flicker of the bar lights at Ceralvo’s miles away; but Wing only laughed again, and, still puffing away at his pipe, went on down the winding trail to where in the deep shelter of the rocky walls a pool of water lay gleaming.  Here he threw himself flat and, laying aside his precious pipe, drank long and eagerly; then with sudden plunge doused his hot face in the cooling flood and came up dripping.

“Thank the Lord I have no desert march to make to-day,—­all on a wild-goose chase,” was his pious ejaculation.  “What on earth could have induced the paymaster to send a detachment over to the Gila?” He took from his pocket a pencilled note and slowly twisted it in his fingers.  It was too dark to read, but in its soldierly brevity he almost knew it by heart.  “The major sent Donovan with half the escort back to the Gila on an Apache scare this morning.  They will probably return your way, empty-handed.  Signal if they have passed.  Latham knows your code and we have a good glass.  Send man to Ceralvo’s with orders for them to join at once if they haven’t come, and flag or torch when they pass you.  It’s my belief they’ve gone there.”  This was signed by Feeny, and over and again had Wing been