Patron Jack expected to make Camp Bowie in five days easy, which would bring the pack-train and the cavalry through in good condition. The first two nights out, the mules were herded, to graze; but on the third day the road crossed the Dragoon Mountains by way of Dragoon Pass. This night the mules were tied along a stretched picket-rope, for the Dragoon Mountains were Chiricahua country, and contained Cochise’s Stronghold. “He’s off yonder at this very minute, an’ mebbe lookin’ for us,” declared Cargador Frank Monach. “I’ll bet a cooky those hills south’ard are plumb full o’ Chiricahua.” “That’s where they killed pore Bob Whitney, all right enough,” mused Jim O’Neill. “Down at Dragoon Springs, in the Stronghold. Yes, an’ many another man has left his scalp there. That range westward is the Whetstones, or Mustangs, where they got Cushing; and on west of the Whetstones is Davidson’s Canyon south of Tucson, where Lieutenant Stewart and Corporal Black went under. By ginger, a fellow doesn’t look out on a very pleasant view, from up here!” From the open Dragoon Pass of the stage road the Dragoon Mountains, low and rolling but very rough, with much brush and stunted timber, extended southward to the Mexican line; and separated from them by yellow deserts, west and east and north rose other low ranges――all chosen hiding-places of the fierce Chiricahuas. “Anyhow,” remarked Jack Long, with a sly wink, “we got a young chi-kis-n o’ theirs hyar――reg’lar member o’ the Cochise fam’ly――to talk for us; an’ if ary Chiricahua appear we’ll send him in to ’em.” Jimmie grinned and scratched his head; whether Cochise and Geronimo would wait and listen to him, he wasn’t certain. But he’d rather like to see Nah-che and Nah-da-ste, and explain why he had run away. The stage and the mail riders had been attacked in this very pass. However, nothing alarming happened, to-night. And the probable reason why, they learned the next day. Dragoon Pass was about half-way between Tucson and Bowie, so that Bowie now lay some fifty miles east. The Chiricahua Mountains and their Apache Pass might be seen, in the eastern horizon. The Chiricahuas had been so bad during the last two months that the stage road was being little traveled. And when, in the morning, on the way down from the pass a cloud of dust was sighted before, everybody stared, suspicious. Horsemen! Injuns? No, cavalry! Good! A scouting detachment from Bowie, as like as not; or from Crittenden or Lowell, behind. Lieutenant Almy met them first, and both parties stopped, to talk. Patron Jack, at the head of the pack-train, spread his two arms as signal for “Halt!” and he trotted on, to join. There was a lengthy confab. “Wall, wonder what’s up?” drawled Frank Monach. “Reckon I’d better go an’ see.” “Send the boy, an’ save yore mule,” suggested Blacksmith John Cahill. “He’s fairly itchin’ to sit in.”