Three anxious, watchful days went by, with anxious, watchful nights intervening, with no further tidings of 'Tonio or Stannard or Turner, of friend or foe from the outside world, and with only one attempt on part of the invisibly, yet perceptibly, surrounded garrison to communicate with the field columns. "Hualpai 21," the only designation he would own to (the real name, in the absence of some tribesman to speak for him, one could rarely learn from an Indian), was given his fill of food and rest, then, with a despatch to Turner, was sent forth Monday night south-eastward, the way he came, and bidden if he reached the rugged height known as El Caporal, some twelve miles to the south-east, and deemed it safe to do so, to send at sunrise three quick mirror flashes toward the flagstaff, repeating twice or thrice to be sure of its attracting attention. Hualpai 21 took with him one of those cheap little disks of looking-glass, cased in pewter, at that time found at every frontier store. He took also the injunction to give his despatch to Captain Turner or one of his men, but to no Indian whomsoever--'Tonio in particular. It was the last attempt of the week. For, from dawn until the sun was an hour high, the watchers watched in vain. Three signal glasses, telescope and binocular, were trained upon the heights and no one of them caught the faintest spark of reflected light. The nearest approach to a signal was seen by a corporal of the guard and sentry Number Six an hour after midnight, when, in quick succession, two faint, firefly flashes, unrepeated, were visible afar out due east of the Picacho, and they could have been caused in only two ways--somebody experimenting with a mirror and the moonbeams, the moon being then about three hours high and three-quarters full, or else, as they were ruddier than moonshine, somebody taking two quick shots, probably at somebody else. The corporal counted seconds up to twenty and more, and even in that breathless silence, heard not a sound to warrant the belief.