For several hours
before high noon the wires from Prescott had been hot with demand for
news, and with messages from Byrne or Plume to department
headquarters. At meridian, however, there came a lull, and at 2 P. M.
a break. Somewhere to the west the line was snapped and down. At 2.15
two linesmen galloped forth to find and repair damages, half a dozen
"doughboys" on a buckboard going as guard. Otherwise, all day long, no
soldier left the post, and when darkness settled down, the anxious
operator, seated at his keyboard, was still unable to wake the spirit
of the gleaming copper thread that spanned the westward wilderness.
All Sandy was wakeful, out on the broad parade, or the officers'
verandas, and gazing as one man or woman at the bold, black upheaval a
mile behind the post, at whose summit twinkled a tiny star, a single
lantern, telling of the vigil of Plume's watchers. If Stout made even
fair time he should have reached the _picacho_ at dusk, and now it was
nearly nine and not a glimmer of fire had been seen at the appointed
rendezvous. Nine passed and 9.15, and at 9.30 the fifes and drums of
the Eighth turned out and began the long, weird complaint of the
tattoo. Nobody wished to go to bed. Why not sound reveille and let
them sit up all night, if they chose? It was far better than tossing
sleepless through the long hours to the dawn.
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