g end of the Civil War, when the volunteers from
the "Coast" kept a lookout on the point, a practice that yielded more
scalps to the Indians than security to the inmates. The system,
therefore, fell into disuse, and the post became unpopular because of
the mutilated condition in which the pickets were twice found by the
relief, and the amount of reliable information received from the point
never quite paid for the cost. With the disappearance of the Tontos,
who were not such fools as their Spanish name implied, the practice of
stationing outlying sentries was dropped. The Tontos seemed to have
abandoned the valley to their distant cousins, the Apache-Mohaves,
whose presence there, in small, itinerant parties, was objected to less
by the few scattered settlers than by the one badgered agent at the
distant reservation.

This, at least, was the case at first. Bennett and Sowerby, from above
Camp Almy, and two others from below, found them friendly and
peaceable. But presently complaints were heard from settlers over at
McDowell, in the Verde Valley to the west, and other settlers away up
the Verde toward Camp Sandy. Then Sowerby swore his stock was run off,
and Bennett presently remained the only ranchman to stand up for them.
The agent declared them contumacious and tricky. Other whites--Arizona
white was then a reddish-brown--added their evil word to the
official's. It was the old adage over again: "Give a dog a bad name,"
etc., and the department commander had sent for scouts to coax them in,
before despatching troops to enforce their coming, and Harris had found
nobody--nothing but abandoned _rancherias_ and unsavory relics.

And then had come the tidings of a clash--the killing of Comes Flying,
son of a chief, and brother to a tribal leader, and then in reprisal,
probably, the burning of Bennett's home and the butchery of Bennett.
Then Harris had stayed not a moment, but, acting on the understanding
of the previous evening, had gone forth at once.

It is well to be prompt, yet oftentimes wise to be prompted. Post
commanders like to be able to say in their reports, "I ordered" this,
or "By my direction" that, and Harris had gone at the word of alarm
without other word with the general.

That Harris was to choose his own time was the understanding between
them when they parted, almost affectingly, at night, for between the
snake episode and the successive toddies the good old gentleman was
quite effusive. There woul