alles Grandes, Laguna,
and the Rio Carizo. She saved our lives, helped recover Chiquita, and
she helped rescue Manuel, Sapoya, and Henry from the Navajos."

"Yes; but for her I might have lost my brother at La Roca Grande,"
remarked Henry. "That was probably her greatest feat. Nice little
doggie--good little Vicky--are you really to go to San Francisco and
the East with us?"

"I believe if I only had Sancho back, and Henry had Chiquita, I should
be perfectly happy," observed the elder brother.

After a slight pause, during which the boy seemed to have relapsed
into his former depression, Henry asked:

"Do they have cavalry drill at that school?"

"Yes, the superintendent keeps twenty light horses, and allows some of
the cadets to keep private animals. All are used in drill."

"And if we get our ponies back, I suppose we shall have to leave them
here. Do you think, sir, there is any chance of our seeing them
again?" asked Frank.

"Not unless some one can go to La Paz for them. Captain Bayard is
going to see me after supper about a plan of his to retake them."

"I wonder what officer he will send?"

"Perhaps I shall go."

"Father could never stand the expense of sending them to the States, I
suppose," said Henry, despondently.

"They could easily be sent to the Missouri River without cost," I
observed.

"How, please?"

"There is a quartermaster's train due here in a few weeks. It would
cost nothing to send the ponies by the wagon-master to Fort Union, and
then they could be transferred to another train to Fort Leavenworth."

"Frank, I've a scheme!" exclaimed the younger boy.

"What is it?"

"If Mr. Duncan finds Sancho and Chiquita, let's send them to Manuel
Perea and Sapoya on the Rio Grande. When they go to the military
school they can take our horses and theirs, and we'll join the
cavalry."

"That's so," said Frank. "Manuel wrote that if he went to school he
should cross the plains with his uncle, Miguel Otero, who is a
freighter. He could take the whole outfit East for nothing. There
would remain only the cost of shipping them from Kansas City to the
school."

"Yes, but before you cook a hare you must catch him," said I.

"And our two hares are on the other side of the Xuacaxella[1] Desert,"
said Frank, despondently. "I suppose there is small chance of our ever
seeing them again."

[Footnote 1: Pronounced Hwar-car-hal-yar.]

Our two boy sergeants had found life in Arizona scarcely monotonou