There was just a suspicion of satire, of humor, of possible malice in the answer, yet every one familiar with the traditions and the vocabulary--the nomenclature--of the old army of the old days, knew well the sergeant was well within his rights. Respect and regret intermingled were in tone and word as in his answer, all unwittingly, Malloy furnished the missing motive for 'Tonio's crime: "It wasn't one of the men, sir. It was Lieutenant--Lieutenant Willett." Then for a moment there was another silence. Bonner, Briggs and Strong exchanged quick glances. Archer's fine, clear-cut face took on a deeper shade, then he turned his chair to squarely face the sergeant. "Did he explain--how it came about?" "'Tonio said that he wished to go, and ought to go, with Lieutenant Harris--the lieutenant was his chief. Lieutenant Willett forbade, as I understand, and ordered him to stay, and he had to get Lieutenant Harris himself to explain the order before 'Tonio would obey. Then 'Tonio says the lieutenant ordered him to do something, I could not tell what. 'Tonio answered by telling Lieutenant Willett not to step on some moccasin tracks, and the lieutenant surely couldn't have understood him, for he grew very angry and--but, indeed, general, it's more than I know that I've been telling----" But Archer had one more question to ask, and asked it, and when it was answered the council broke up with no man dissenting from the general belief in 'Tonio's attempted, yet baffled, revenge. "Did 'Tonio tell you of what happened later--of his attempt to shoot at Lieutenant Willett?" "Not a word or sign of that, sir!" And yet it was 'Tonio's people who kept the faith as to bearing messages and giving safe conduct to Archer's people in the field. It was all past Archer's comprehension and that of the officers present. There was no Gray Fox there who knew Indians as they knew themselves. There was no genial, straightforward "Big Chief Jake," the fearless soldier leader from the lower reservation, from Camp Apache and the San Carlos, the man on whom the Gray Fox leaned, the man whom the hostiles dreaded, the "friendlies" trusted, and all frontiersmen, soldier or civilian, swore by. They could have fathomed it. Even blunt old Stannard, had he been there, could have thrown some needed light on the vexed and gloomy question. But in all Camp Almy that night there was only one officer who, knowing few of these facts, nevertheless knew 'Tonio so well, and so repented him of his own brief suspicion, that he would have called a halt to the order given Captain Turner within the hour--to send Sergeant Malloy, with a dozen men, as soon as the coast was clear of the hostile Apaches, to run down 'Tonio wherever he might be, to secure and bring him in, a prisoner bound, and if he sought to escape, to shoot him dead. CHAPTER XIX.