Unable to listen after the third repetition, Plummer slowly retired from the corral and once more appeared at the front, just in time for a sensation.  Two troopers, two of the men who had ridden back with Donovan, came lurching into the lighted space before the main entrance.  At sight of the paymaster one of them stiffened up and with preternatural gravity of mien executed the salute.  The other, with an envelope in his hand, reeled out of saddle, failed to catch his balance, plunged heavily into the sand and lay there.  Corporal Murphy sprang eagerly forward, the first man to reach him, and turned the prostrate trooper over on his back.

“What’s the matter?” queried Plummer.  “Is he sick?”

“Sick is it?” was the quick retort, as the corporal sniffed at the tainted breath of the sufferer.  “Be the powers!  I only wish I had half his disayse.”

And then came Feeny, glaring, wrathful.

“Come down off the top of that horse, Mullan,” he ordered, fiercely.  “How—­how’d ye get here?  Which way’d ye come?  Where’s the rest?”

With the ponderous dignity of inebriety, Mullan slowly pointed up the desert under the spot where the pole-star glowed in the northern skies.

“Sarsh’nt,” he hiccoughed, “we’re—­we’re too late; ’Paches got there—­first.”

“Hwat! hwat!” thundered Feeny.  “D’ye mean there were women,—­that it wasn’t a plant?”

“Fack.”

“Hware’s your despatches, you drunken lout?  How dare you dhrink when there was fight ahead?  Hware’s your despatches? and may heaven blast the souls of you both!”

“Here, sergeant,” said Murphy, wrenching the soiled envelope from the loose grasp of the prostrate trooper.

“It’s to you, sir,” said Feeny, with one glance at the sprawling superscription.  “In God’s name read and let us know what devil’s work’s abroad to-night.”

Even Plummer’s pudgy fingers trembled as he tore open the dingy packet.  Old Moreno came forth with a light, his white teeth gleaming, his black eyes flashing from one to another of the group.  Holding the pencilled page close to the lantern, the paymaster read aloud,—­

     “Camp burned.  One man killed; others scattered; mules and
     buck-board gone.  For God’s sake help in the pursuit.  Strike
     for Raton Pass.  The Indians have run away my poor sisters.

“Edward Harvey.”

The major dropped the paper, fairly stunned with dismay.  Feeny sprang forward, picked it up, and eagerly scrutinized the page.  Mullan, standing unsteadily at the head of his wearied and dejected horse, was looking on with glassy eyes, his lips vainly striving to frame further particulars.  Leaving their supper unfinished, the other men of the little squad had come tumbling out into the summer night.  No one paid other heed to the trooper sprawling in the sand.  Already in deep, drunken slumber, he was breathing stertorously.  Feeny’s eyes seemed fastened to the letter.  Line by line, word by word, again and again he spelled it through.  Suddenly he leaped forward and clutched Mullan at the throat, shaking him violently.