That proved an exciting day. The adjutant's message had temporarily awed and quieted the man, but toward three P. M. the mail carrier arrived from the Gila with his sack of letters and papers. He reported having been stopped only five miles out from Sancho's by masked men who quickly examined his big leather bag, silently pointed to a curious mark, a dab of paint that must have gotten on it while he was there at the ranch, and sent him ahead without a word being spoken. He saw other men, but they passed him by in wide circuit. He met Lieutenant Blake and the troop, and the lieutenant bade him hurry, so the letters were delivered nearly two hours earlier than usual. In the mail were a dozen missives for Captain Nevins, two in dainty feminine superscription postmarked San Francisco, several that might be bills, others that were local, one postmarked Tucson, and one slipped in at Sancho's. The major himself looked these envelopes over as though he thought their contents ought to be examined, but even a convicted man had his rights, and the letters were sent to him. In less than three minutes thereafter the hot, breathless air of the long afternoon was suddenly burdened with another eruption of oaths and ravings. One or two women sitting in the shade of their canvas shelters across the parade clapped their hands to their ears and ran indoors, and the major's orderly dashed full tilt for the guard. Half an hour later Captain Nevins was escorted to a new abode, a tent pitched just outside, not within, the corral, and there he was left to swear at will, with the sentry on No. 4 warned to call the corporal of the guard if the gentleman for one moment quit the seclusion of his solitary quarters. And this was the status of affairs when the sun went down at the close of the third day after adjournment. When it rose upon the fourth all was quiet about the impetuous captain's canvas home--too quiet, thought the officer of the day after his visit to the guard at reveille, and therefore did he untie the cords that fastened the flaps in front and peer within. Five minutes later two new prisoners were placed in charge of the guard, of which they had been members during the night--Privates Poague and Pritzlaff, of the first and second reliefs, respectively. But the aggregate gain in the column of "in arrest or confinement" was only one, for Captain Nevins had disappeared.