Chapter III.
THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH
New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan. It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people. Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel – hot, barren, terrible – but others are rich with pasturage for horses and cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and antelopes.
The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or less trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick found the prairie around him swarming with them.
As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to listen to their report.
"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then go for horses in timber."
There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly obeyed.
About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all pretty well armed, whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their purpose did not require any explanation.
Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.
Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine. So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking, in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young lady wore a pair of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of Kah-go-mish?
The boy on the other pony – Well, he wore another pair of second-hand trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist, requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.
Chapter IV.
THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA
Fully six miles from the threatened home of the Evans family there was a deep, round sink-hole, shaped like a funnel. Nobody knew exactly when or how it was made, but down at the weedy bottom of it lay the body of an Indian pony, and over that there leaned a very tall man.
Up at the margin of the sink-hole were four horses, and three of them had riders.
"Well, colonel, how does it pan out?" asked one of the mounted men.
"Either Cal or Sam Herrick did it. Hit him right between the eyes. 'Tisn't two hours since it was done. The critter rolled down here. Joaquin, you and Key ride for the ranch. Tell Mrs. Evans I'll scout a little and be right there."
"All right, colonel," shouted one of the horsemen.
"Si, señor," responded the other.
The first was a brawny, freckled old fellow, with nothing to mark him for notice but a jaunty sort of roll and swagger, even in the saddle. The second speaker was an American, of the race that fought with Hernando Cortes for the road to the City of Mexico. He may or may not have been a full-blooded Tlascalan, but there was a fierce, tigerish expression on his face as he glanced at the dead pony. His white teeth showed, also, in a way to indicate the state of his mind towards the tribe the pony's owner belonged to, but the words he uttered carried a surprise with them. Who would have thought that so sweet and musical a voice could come from such a thunder-cloud face?
Key and Joaquin galloped away, and Colonel Evans climbed up out of the sink-hole.
"Somebody coming," suddenly exclaimed the remaining horseman.
"Reckon it must be Sam."
"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."
"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.
The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to lose his temper.
There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just now, but his voice was steady, as yet.
"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the dead pony in the sink-hole.
"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."
He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."
"Did they follow you?"
"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."
"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.
"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"
There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice, and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.
"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"
"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too, if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't – "
Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.
More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.
Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.
"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"
"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm lips.
"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"
"We are as safe, almost, without him as with him, and the whole valley is in danger until the army officers are warned. They believe that everything is quiet."
"How I wish they were here! And father!"
"Victoria," exclaimed Mrs. Evans, with a face that grew very pale, "he went to look at the lower drove, the one that the savages have captured."
"Sam didn't see him, or Cal would have said so. Mother, you don't believe they killed him?"
There was a strange look in the resolute face of Mrs. Evans.
"Vic," she said, "I don't believe they have touched him. He's not the man to be caught. We must work, though, for they'll be here pretty soon. We must bar the gate, first, and any prowling Indian needn't be told that there are only women behind the stockade."
Vic's quick dash for the gate expressed her feelings fairly, but she put up the bars of the gate with more strength and steadiness than might have been expected of her. But for the reddish tint of her hair she would have looked even more like Cal than she did when she turned and said: "There, mother, that's done. Now, what?"
Mrs. Evans studied the gate for a moment.
"Vic," she said, "everybody must help. I think we can hold the ranch. Come with me."
In half a minute more they were standing in the courtyard of the adobe, explaining the terrors of the situation to a group of five startled and frightened women. Seven in all, they were the only garrison of Santa Lucia, and Kah-go-mish and his warriors were coming to surprise it. How long could they hold out?
Chapter V.
CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG
"Sixty miles to Fort Craig!"
That had been the mournful exclamation of Cal Evans, a little distance from Santa Lucia. Then he made a brief calculation, and added: "Dick has had ten miles of easy going and ten miles of running. Not many horses could stand sixty more. I believe he can, but I'll take care of him, as mother said. It's awful! I don't wonder some people want to kill all the Indians, right away. I do."
He had some lessons yet to learn about Indians, but now he reined in the red mustang to a steady-going gallop instead of the free gait that Dick was inclined to take.
An hour went by, and it was a trying hour to Cal Evans, crowded as his mind was with fears and with imaginations concerning what might be doing at Santa Lucia.
"Wasn't mother beautiful!" was one thought that came to him. "Vic, too, and they're brave enough, and they both know how to shoot, but what can they do against Indians?"
He felt that he was doing his duty. He was, at all events, obeying his mother. He was a boy who wished to be in two places, but his mind grew calmer with the regular beat of Dick's hoofs. A sharp appetite came, too, and put him in mind of his haversack. He ate as best he could, and the next stream of water he came to invited him to dismount and get some, and to let Dick do the same and rest a little. It was very hard work to stand still and eat cold meat and bread, and pat Dick and think about Santa Lucia.
After that the red mustang was pulled in for a breathing-spell at the end of every half-hour, or a little more, but every minute expended in that way seemed like an hour to Cal Evans.
Noon came and went, as the long miles went by. Groves, tree-lined sloughs, gangs of deer to the right and left, hardly attracted a glance from the sore-hearted young messenger. Mountain-tops, easterly, that had been cloudy in the morning, were showing more distinctly against the sky, when Cal at last pulled the red mustang suddenly in.
"A smoke!" he exclaimed. "It can't be Indians. No danger of their being away up here. I'll find out."
Courageously, but warily, he rode some distance nearer, and he was just about to dismount when a loud voice hailed him.
"Hullo! What are you scouting around for? What are you afraid of?"
"Hurrah!" shouted Cal, for the hitherto unseen horseman, who now came out from behind a clump of mesquit trees, wore the yellow-trimmed uniform of the United States cavalry.
Explanations followed fast, and were made more full in front of the camp-fire, where rations were cooking for a score or more of what Cal thought were the best-looking men he ever saw. That is, they were the very men he wanted to see, and the bronzed, gray-bearded captain in command of them was really a fine-looking veteran.
"So," he said, "my young friend, we ought to have set out a day earlier. Colonel Sumner had heard that a band had been seen near El Paso, days ago, and we were coming your way. Your father isn't the man to be taken by surprise. He can hold the ranch."
"Father isn't there, Captain Moore!" exclaimed Cal.
"I'll trust him to get there, then. That's a splendid fellow you're riding. What did you say? Twenty miles and more before you left Santa Lucia? Forty odd, since, to this place. Pretty near seventy miles. That's enough for him or you for one day."
It was in vain for Cal to plead the peril of his family. The cavalry had made a long push and must rest their horses. One tough fellow was given only time to eat before he was again mounted, on a spare horse fresher than the rest, with despatches for the commander at Fort Craig.
Dick was provided with ample rations, and so was his master; but Cal Evans needed all the cheerful encouragement of Captain Moore to keep his heart from sinking under his heavy forebodings concerning the fate of Santa Lucia.
The nearer the sun sank to the horizon the more strongly he felt that it was impossible for him to spend that night in the cavalry camp. He said so to Captain Moore, stoutly denying that his day of hard riding had wearied him.
"I know how you feel," said the kindly veteran at last. "There'll be a good moon, and you know the way. I'll let you have one of our led horses. You mustn't ride to death that red beauty of yours. We'll bring him on. Tell your father we shall start at sunrise, and that I've sent word to the fort."
Cal was sincerely grateful, but while a soldier was saddling for him a good-looking black, he went to say good-bye to Dick, praising and caressing him in a manner that brought from him whinny after whinny of good-will.
His master had not known how tired he was himself until he mounted the black – so stiff, so sore, so almost without any spring left in him; but he felt better the moment the horse began to move under him.
"Take your bearings by the north star," shouted Captain Moore. "Go easy and you'll get there. Then I think you'll want to go to bed."
Cal thanked him and cantered away. He was glad enough of the glorious moonlight and of the stars, especially the north star. He was carrying news of help found quicker than he had expected. What then? Would he find Santa Lucia as he had left it? Would it be besieged? How many Apaches might he not fall in with before getting there? He knew that they never rode around after dark, and that was something.
"If I don't get too tired and tumble off," he said to himself, "and if the black holds out, I'll get home before daylight, and I'll ride through to the gate if the Apaches are camped all around the ranch."
The black galloped steadily. He was a good horse, but he lacked the easy swing of the red mustang, and there was more weariness in riding him. He was allowed to rest, at intervals, and Cal tried hard not to ask too much of him.
"Captain Moore said about forty miles to the ranch," remarked the young rider to his horse, at last. "You must have done about half of them. You're doing well enough, but I never felt so tired in all my life. I'm going to make a good, hard push of about ten miles, if it's only to keep me from going to sleep."
The push was made and the black stood it well enough, but it grew harder and harder on Cal. At the end of it he knew that he could not be more than ten miles from the ranch, but he found that the black was disposed to walk. It might be unwise to urge him any more. At the same time every mile was probably bringing Cal and his news within more or less danger of Apache interruption. Oh, how he longed for a glimpse of the Santa Lucia stockade! Oh, how sleepy he was, and how hungry and how sick at heart!
As the black plodded onward he caught himself nodding heavily, and he recovered his senses in the middle of a half-waking dream in which he had seen the cavalry arriving and chasing away Indians.
"I may fall off," he said, "if I try that again. I'm afraid if I did fall I couldn't climb into the saddle again. I'm stiff and numb all over."
Plod, plod, plod, on went the very good-natured black, and Cal did not know how long it was before he had another dream.
It seemed to him as if the red mustang came and walked along with the black, and as if he himself had said: "Hullo, Dick. Glad you've come. You can carry me easier, and you know where to go."
Then, in the dream, Cal rode the red mustang.
Chapter VI.
THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA
After Cal rode away from the cavalry camp on the black, Captain Moore made a number of remarks about him.
"Plucky boy," he said. "Tough as whipcord, but he'll be pretty well used up before he gets to the ranch."
The other officers and the men agreed with their commander in all he had to say about Cal Evans or about his horse.
The red mustang was in the corral. He had been tethered, by a long lariat, to the same pin with a mean-looking, wiry little pack-mule, and he had given early tokens that he did not like his long-eared company.
Dick had travelled fast and far since sunrise of that day. Cal had given him a friendly rubbing down after supper, and he felt pretty well. One admiring cavalryman had given him a full army ration of corn, and another had brought him some nice pieces of hard-tack, while several more had said things about his shape and color and the miles he had travelled, all in a way to rouse the jealousy of a sensitive mule. After the men went away, Dick considered himself entitled to lie down and did so, but the mule did not. There was moonlight enough to kick by, and it was not long before the red mustang was suddenly stirred up. He was not hurt, for that first kick had been seemingly experimental, as if the mule were getting the exact range of Dick's ribs. A low squeal expressed his satisfaction at his success, but it was followed by a disappointment, for his own lariat was several feet shorter than the brand-new one given to the red mustang, and the latter had stepped almost out of danger. It was almost, but not quite, and Dick was compelled to keep in motion to get out of harm's way. It was too bad not to have quiet, after so hard a day's work, but that mule was a bitter-hearted fellow. Dick moved along, backing away and watching, and the mule slowly, sullenly, followed him. Santa Lucia was a better place than this, Indians or no Indians. Dick had seen Cal depart, and he had felt deserted and lonely then, but his homesickness increased rapidly under the treatment he was receiving from the wickedly perverse beast he was tied up with.
Back, back, back, until both lariats were tightly wound once more around the pin. They were shortened eight inches by that twist, and the next wind around shortened them nine inches more. The mule grew wickeder and made a dash that did not cease until three more twists had shortened the lariats. Meantime there had been all sorts of jerks and counter-jerks upon the wooden pin, and it was getting loosened in the soft ground. Winding up the lariats, the game went on until both tethers were short indeed, and that of the mule was less than three yards long. The strain of it disgusted him, and he gave a plunge and pull against it just as Dick was drawing hard in the opposite direction. Up came the pin, but once more the mule was disappointed. The next dash he made brought him and Dick to a stand, for they were on opposite sides of the trunk of an oak that caught the lariats in the middle. They could bring their heads and shoulders together, but the tree protected Dick from his enemy's heels. The tree and the knotted lariats held hard, and the red mustang could not prevent that ugly head from coming close to his own.
Would he bite?
No, he was a bad mule, but the mischief in him, except such as naturally settled in his heels, was of another kind. He preferred to gnaw a hide lariat around a horse's neck rather than the neck itself. Dick was compelled to stand still while the gnawing proceeded, and it was very unpleasant.
The mule had good teeth, and he knew something about lariats. It was remarkable how short a time elapsed before, as Dick gave a sudden start, he found himself free.
Liberty was a good thing, but that camp was not an attractive place for a horse which had seen his master ride away from it. Besides, it contained the tormenting mule, and all of the red mustang's thoughts and inclinations turned towards Santa Lucia.
Notable things had occurred there since Dick and Cal came away, and after Mrs. Evans made her courageous appeal to her five servants. Four of these were evidently Mexicans, and the fifth declared her own nationality in the prompt reply that she made to her mistress.
"Wud I foight, ma'am? 'Dade'n I'll not be skelped widout foighting. I want wan of thim double goons, and the big wash toob full of b'ilin' wather and the long butcher knife and the bro'd axe. I'll make wan of thim 'Paches pale like a potaty. There's plinty of good blood in Norah McLory."
Evidently there was, but Mrs. Evans did not feel so sure of the others. Anita, Manuelita, Maria, and a very old woman spoken to as Carlotta, seemed at first disposed to call upon an immense list of saints rather than listen to a plan which their mistress tried to explain, but Norah succeeded in shutting them up.
It was a remarkable military plan, and, when it was all told, "Oh, mother!" exclaimed Vic, and in a moment more she added: "Splendid!"
"'Dade, an' I'm ready, ma'am," said Norah, as she made a dash for the boiler, and heaped the stove with fuel. "Faith, I'd rather bile thim than ate thim."
A bustling time of it followed, and courage grew with work. Weapons were plentiful, and the stockade had been regularly pierced for rifle practice. All that was needed there or in the adobe was a supply of riflemen. There was a tall flagstaff at one corner of the adobe, but its halliards had swung emptily for many a day.
"Mother," said Vic, at the end of about twenty minutes, "what will they say?"
"The Indians?" said Mrs. Evans, "They may not come at all. Take your father's field-glass and go up to the roof. We must keep a sharp lookout. I'll tend to things down here."
Up went Vic, her bright young face all aglow with excitement, and she carried Cal's repeating rifle with her, as well as the double field-glass with which to sweep the prairie for Indians.
"Not one in sight," she shouted down to her mother. "Guess Cal's safe, anyhow. I don't believe they're coming."
She should have questioned Kah-go-mish about that. While she was nervously patrolling the roof of the old hacienda and watching for him, the prudent leader of the now well-mounted Mescaleros was pushing steadily forward. He had given out a careful set of orders, which proved his right to be considered an uncommon Apache.
"Ugh!" he said. "No kill. Borrow! Make pale-face lend poor Mescalero gun, horse, mule, blanket, knife, cartridges, kettle. Keep 'calp on head. No want 'calp now."
He hoped to find the ranch almost if not quite undefended and to take it by surprise, getting what he wanted without doing anything to provoke the altogether unforgiving vengeance of the military authorities.
Half an hour more went by that was very long to the watchers in the adobe.
"Four Indians, mother," shouted Vic, at last, from her station on the roof. "'Way off there, eastward. I can't see anything of father or the men."
"They will come, Vic. Watch!" replied Mrs. Evans.
"If they were near enough," said Vic, "I'd fire at them. They've halted."
They had done so, on a roll of the prairie, for they were a mere scouting-party, and they quickly hurried away as if they had an unexpected report to make concerning the state of things at Santa Lucia. Five minutes later Vic laid down her field-glass and took up Cal's rifle.
"More Indians, mother!" she shouted, and the loud report which followed testified strongly to the condition of Vic's fighting courage.
Nobody seemed to be hit by that bullet; but the warning shot, long as was the range, compelled one Indian to remark:
"Ugh! Kah-go-mish is a great chief! Pale-face heap wide-awake."
"They've halted, mother, but I didn't hit anybody. Hurrah! Hurrah!"
"What is it, Vic?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Evans. "Do you see anybody else?"
"Not Indians, this time. On the other side. Key and Joaquin. Perhaps they won't dare to ride in."
"Nothing could stop your father."
That was very true, and nothing did. Key and Joaquin had had somewhat the start of him, but had been delayed on the way, repeatedly, by the necessity of keeping out of sight of a dangerous-looking squad of Apaches, so that they were but a little in advance of three more white men who quickly rode up.
"Colorado!" exclaimed one of these. "What's lit on to the ranch?"
It was a fair question for Sam Herrick or any other man to ask. A wide-winged American flag floated proudly from the flagstaff, at the foot of which stood what seemed to be an army officer in very full uniform, cocked hat, epaulets, sword, and all. Another flag fluttered at the gate, and in front of it paced up and down a sentry in uniform, while outside of him, at regular intervals, were ostentatiously stacked a complete company's allowance of muskets, bayonets fixed, ready for service.
"Colorado!" again exclaimed Sam Herrick; but the angry look was fading from the face of his employer. It did not return, even when a score or so of yelling Apaches came out in full view at the right.
"Boys," he shouted, "give 'em a volley and ride in. The drove is gone, but the ranch is all right."
Crack went the rifles; but the range was long, and not one of the red men was harmed. A whoop, a yell, and they wheeled away, for they had no idea of storming a stockade defended by an infantry company in addition to Colonel Abe Evans and his cowboys.
"Hurrah!" roared the deep voice of the colonel. "There's fun coming!"
Loud rang the answering cheers of the cowboys, but at that instant the sentry at the gate threw away his musket, exclaiming: "Howly mother!"
The army officer on the roof made a quick motion as if he were gathering his skirts to go down a ladder, and he disappeared, while four soldiers inside the stockade dropped their muskets also, and their commander ceased a remarkable use she was making of an old drum. The garrison of Fort Santa Lucia had been seized with a sudden panic and had disappeared, leaving the gate open for the colonel and his men to ride in and take possession.
Mrs. Evans had not been in uniform. She had put down her drum, and she was now in the doorway ready to meet her husband. Norah had dashed past her, exclaiming: "'Dade, ma'am, I'd not let the owld man and the byes see me wid the like o' this on me bones."
Reports were quickly exchanged between the colonel and his wife.
"Nothing lost but the horses and a few cattle," he said. "It was just like you, Laura. You did the best thing, all around. Cal is safe, but if the cavalry come, he and I are going to ride after the redskins with 'em, far as they go."
"Of course," she quietly responded.
"Laura," said he, "I'm glad all that old army stuff was in the storeroom; but I shall not take Major Victoria Evans along. I shall leave her here to garrison Santa Lucia, with General Laura Evans as commander-in-chief."
Sam Herrick and the other cowboys brought in the stacks of muskets and closed the gate.