El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-11-13
CHAPTER III.


I kept his counsel and thereafter made
practice of riding out to his jacale
once or twice a week.
He always welcomed me as if glad to
see me, and think he really came to
like me. But made no advance in his
confidence. The smallest allusion to the
past turned him cold and stern in an in
slant. I gathered from his talk that he
had once been well to do, had occupied
some station in the world and was not
ignorant of the customs of good society.
But beyond that could not lead him by
my most cautious and skillful diplo-
macy.
Once indeed caught glimpse of his
secret, though so vague that it revealed
nothing. through an outbreak of passion
which really deepened the mystery.
1 had been pressing him to give up
his unsocial habits and to visit the post
We had small contingent of ladies
there, l told him, wives and relatives of
the officers, who would be pleased to
add him to the number of their friends
He smiled, but shook his head in his
obstinate way.
" You will find yourself favorite, as
sure you. Besides, we have just instl-
tuted tennis club, and you would be
exactly the man.
stopped short, literally appalled, by
the change in his features. His face be-
came livid, he started to his feet and
stared at me with an expression of min
gled rage and misery.
"Tennis!' he rather shrieked than
said. lyon invite me to take part in
that Internal pastime, which has made
me what I am, an outcast, a homeless
wanderer on the face of the earth, which
has deprived me of everything I held
dear on earthp'
"But tennis!" I replied in utter
amazement. Surely so innocent and
harmless an amusement
Innocent! Harmlessr' he repeated.
Man, it has made me a criminal worse
than a murderer. 1t has devoted me
while I live to endless, hopeless re-
morse.
I could do nothing but gaze at him
in helpless wonder. He saw the effect
of his raving upon me, for he controlled
himse with great effort and sank
back into his seat. wiping the drops of
sweat from his forehead.
Pardon me-" he said family. 81
must seem mailman to you, but I
have associations of the most painful
kind with that amusement. I saw
that he could not bring himself to utter
the name. "Please forget what have
said and do not mention tbat-that sub
ject again.
promised and left him, considerably
upset by my experience.
On my return to the fort found the
garrison in state of unwonted excite
ment. runner had brought in the
news that Chief Colorado and his
Apaches had again broken out from
their mountain businesses and were
burning. destroying and numbering in
their customary fashion. Within the
hour another courier had arrived from
the eastward with the information that
our colonel, with his wife and daugh- |
ter, was on his way to the post.
A messenger on the back Of feet
had been dispatched to warn
him of the danger, SO that he might not |
undertake the journey from the station |
at Guadalupe over region sure to be |
infested by the Indians before he could |
reach the fort. But those of us who |
Knew Colonel Montgomery had little |
that our warning would |
affect him, except indeed to confirm him
IN his determination to make the trip,
or in plain truth there was not a more
obstinate, pigheaded old fellow in the
service. He had but to receive a word
# advice, howsoever respectfully word
I'd, from an inferior to decide him i'm
novably against it. Moreover. he knew
lothing of Indian warfare, his new ap-
,ointment to our post being his first
command beyond the mississippi, but
or that very reason he would be the
more certain to resent suggestions from
hose whose experience might have
au0ht him something.