The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-03-19

race, and there We're few who had not
pct on the result, A mounted courier
I mad once made the round trip in four
days and four nights, but the horse had
died soon after reaching his post.
radios sweetheart a comely savage
maid who came once week to wash
Tor the post-commander's wife, SAID
Pablo would be back on the fifth dty,
And so he was. Toward evening,
| when every adobe housetop had its
watchers with field-glasses, he came IN
sight The far-off speck grew and pres
| entity Pablo--gaunt-fa faced and with an
| unaccustomed droop in his shoulders
came striding in and made for the COM
manders house.
Two minutes later he and Robertson
emerged from the house. The latter be-
gan his long journey on a run, and Pap-
10 turned across the mesa to the reser-
walton, two miles away. Bonita would
have an aboriginal feast ready against
his return And if he won-ah, II he
won, they were to wed.
| Robertson had disappeared in the
dusk The little group of watchers was
| breaking up Only a few noticed the
| dark form that came racing in and be-
labored the post-surgeon's door. A few
minutes later Pablo and the surgeon
went away together.
But next morning the story was all
over the fort. During Pablo's absence
Robertson had visited the rude home of
Bonita and her aged mother. What
fairer prey for a soldier of the United
| States than one of the Indian wards?
| When Pablo secure and exultant after
his wonderful race against time, had
entered the hut, it was to find Bonita
wreck. The cid mother told him the
awful story, and he came for the sur
geon. But it was too late.
Fully half the garrison attended the
| funeral. But Pablo was not there.
When we ask the other Indians where
he was, their only answer was a 'quien
! sabe?"
Five days-and we began to expect
Robertson. On the sixth a detachment
started In search of him.
His tracks We're plain on the desert
sands. and we followed them. Ten miles
out from the post the blurred imprint
of moccasin came in upon them and
covered them, step for step. We rode
all day, but the shoeprints never came
out from under the fiat pats of the moe
| casins.
Next morning we were in the land of
| thirst. The heat refracted from the
staring sands and was something fear
full Our horses Jagged and groaned,
and We rode in silence with cracked
lips.
Near. noon, when the heat seemed
| wholly intolerable, we noticed that the
moccasin tracks suddenly quilted Rob-
ertson's trail But a mile further on, in
i a gully they came back to 1t, Here
were tokens of a savage struggle. The
| sands were trampled, and off at one
side we found the distinct imprint of a
human form. From there only the moe
casin tracks went forward.
On through the cactus sentineled
waste we urged our limping beasts. The
trail was plain-but now the footprints
sank deep in the sand, as if their maker
bore a heavy burden.
At in the afternoon we came sud-
denly over the brink of little basin.
Mezquites sprawled about, and the gil
ant Zahuaro lifted it's vast candlestick
toward the sky. Our horses plunged
down the slope-their first trace of ami
nation In the whole day. There was
wiry grass amid the mezquites, and
yonder the precious CLEAN of water A
pure spring, bubbling from under an
outcrop ledge, had made this little GA
sis.
A pack of wolves could not have turn
ed our famished horses from the water,
but not man OF that thirsty company
thought of drinking. All sat turned Ii,
their saddles, staring with inflamed
eyes to a gigantic zahuaro a few rods
below the spring
There was what had been Robertson
Its ankles and wrists were dashed to the
thorny pillar of the zahuaro The head
Topped forward upon the breast, with
J gagged the mouth The cords had sunk
: under the flesh The hands and back
! We're black with sunbaked blood. Clear.
ly, Robertson had tried to get drink
And>his captor had diverted the rivulet
so that it chuckled and sparlsled at the
! very feet of the victim.
We buried Robertson in the little GA.
, sis, and near the water. Perhaps the
spell of the desert was on us, but il
, would not have entered any mans head
there to take the corpse far from thai
dancing ril. And not word was spo
ken.
You have heard of Renegade Pablo
of course and of the trail of blood he
left across the territory. His raid be-
gan just after the unfinished foot race
by which Uncle Sam lost an ordinary
soldier and an uneommonly good Ap.
ache scout.-F'rom the Land of Sun
shine.
EATING HIM BACK"