Apache Indians sometimes stopped their ears,
and always looked impolite, when the brazen trumpets sounded close at hand;
whereas they would squat on the sun-kissed sands and listen in stolid,
unmurmuring bliss to every note of the fife and drum. Members of the guard
were always sure of sympathetic spectators during the one regular
ceremony--guard-mounting--held just after sunset, for the Apache prisoners
at the guard-house begged to be allowed to remain without the prison room
until a little after the "retreat" visit of the officer of the day, and,
roosting along the guard-house porch, to gaze silently forth at the little
band of soldiery in the center of the parade, and there to listen as
silently to the music of the fife and drum. The moment it was all over they
would rise without waiting for directions, and shuffle stolidly back to
their hot wooden walls. They had had the one intellectual treat of the day.
The savage breast was soothed for the time being, and Plume had come to the
conclusion that, aside from the fact that his Indian prisoners were better
fed than when on their native heath, the Indian prison pen at Sandy was not
the place of penance the department commander had intended. Accessions
became so frequent; discharges so very few.
Then there was another symptom: Sentries on the north and east front,
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