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"You?" and up came the troubled, beautiful eyes. "Yes. Ask yourself who else there is. The scouts are gone. Sanchez has not returned. There's but a baker's dozen of troopers and troop horses left at the post. The general needs to send a little party to explore the Mazatzal. 'Tonio can't be trusted. Harris has practically put himself out of it. Don't you know me well enough to know I've got to go?"
A new queen had come, hovering like silvery filament over the black barrier of the Mazatzal in a sky cloudless and glinting with myriad points of fire. The nights were cold and still, the days soft yet brilliant in the blaze of an unshrouded sun. An almost Sabbath-like calm hovered over the valley, for even signal smokes had ceased to blur the horizon.
Sunday morning had come, as peaceful and serene as any that ever broke on New England village, and Sunday noon, hot and still, and many an hour since early sun up anxious eyes had scanned the old McDowell trail, visible in places many a mile before it disappeared among the foothills of the Mazatzal, but not a whiff of dust rewarded the eager watchers.
He wished to shake the dust of Almy from his deerskins, get back to the mountains and the war-path, get over the Mazatzal to McDowell and 'Tonio 'Tonio, his faithful friend and fellow-scout, now languishing presumably behind prison bars, awaiting the orders of the Chief of Chieftains in his case, for all pleadings were vain.
There's enough Apaches back of us here in the Mazatzal to head off everybody from Prescott or McDowell. They've killed three parties a dozen soldiers, perhaps already, and they've cut off Prescott and Date Creek and Sandy, and murdered every courier that tried to get through.
The village overlooked a large area of low bottom land in the angle between the Verde and the East Verde, and is itself overlooked by the foothills rising behind it to the high mesas forming part of the Mazatzal mountains. The walls of this village were built of flat bowlders and slabs of limestone, and there is now practically no standing wall remaining.
It was called Mazatzal City and lay within a few miles of the Natural Bridge, which is on the lower reaches of Pine Creek before that stream joins the East Verde. A settlement was in existence at least as late as 1889 on upper Tonto Creek.
"Tell us what you can," was all she said. "The time-honored tale of Indian uprising," said Willett airily. "Something I've heard every six weeks, I should say, since they gave me a sword." "But they've doubled the guard." "Only changed it, I fancy. The general wants some few cavalrymen for a scout in the Mazatzal." Mrs. Stannard knew better, but held her peace.
Ways through this were found, however, into Tonto Basin, a great expanse, about 100 miles in length by 80 in width, lying south and southwest of the Rim, bounded on the west by the Mazatzal Mountains, and on the south and southeast by spurs of the Superstitions and Pinals. The Basin itself contains a sizable mountain range, the Sierra Ancha. The first exploration was made in July, 1876, by Wm.
And there, plainly visible, and not five miles away among the pine-bearded foothills, in little puffs, singly and distinct, thick wreaths of gray-white smoke were sailing straight aloft. The waiting Apache of the Mazatzal was signalling the coming brother from the dark clefts of the Sierra Ancha.
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