irregularities, hiding outlines until the tallest thickets were
but deeper shadows merging into the lesser shades of the open places.
Only one object showed, a Sibley tent glowing from the light within.

Under the flaming yellow stars it stood out luminous, marking the
exact center of an enormous circle; a circle roofed by the radiantly
flecked heavens, bounded by mountains which rose against the sky-line,
abrupt as a wall, black as ink. In the different segments of this
far-flung ring the peaks of the Chiracahuas, the Grahams, the
Dragoons, and the Galiuros betrayed their ranges by varying outlines.

But to the eye they all formed portions of one huge circumference,
whose center was a glowing point, the Sibley tent.

On the translucent walls of canvas there was a weird design of black
shadows, a design which was constantly shifting and taking on new
shapes. And as the shadows moved, sometimes with grotesque effect and
swiftly, sometimes slowly, voices filtered through the gleaming cloth
to mingle with the whispering of the night wind in the bear-grass, the
dull stamping of tethered horses, the intermittent jingling of
bitt-chains and the steady soft footfalls of two sentries.

The voices changed as often as the shadows on the tent-wall; now it
was the abrupt, clipping speech of a white man and now the deep,
inflectionless bass of an Indian. But most often it was the droning
monotone of the post interpreter, uttering his translations in English
or in the tongue of the Apache.

Of what was taking place within those luminous walls of canvas,
official records still exist; and of what followed there are whole
volumes of further records in Washington. Dry reading in themselves,
they hold the meat of a remarkable story, a story whose colorful
narration has been given by its own main characters and thus has come
down among the true chronicles of the old-timers.

On that evening in 1859 two groups of men faced one another, and the
lantern which hung on the center-pole of the Sibley tent shone down on
their faces, revealing the growing passion in their eyes. One of the
groups was composed of soldiers, wearing the blue uniforms, the queer
straight-visored caps, and the huge wide-topped boots which our
cavalry used during those times; a guard of sunburnt troopers under a
hard-bitten nom-com.; and standing a pace or so ahead of them, a young
second lieutenant fresh from West Point: Lieutenant Bascom, a stranger
in a strange,