Captured by the Navajos

by Charles A. Curtis

The next evening I marched all the company, except the guard, including the boy corporals, by way of the reserved trail into the valley of St. Anthony, and entered La Puerta from the western end. This was done for fear some advance-guard of the redmen might witness our movement if we went by the usual way, and because so large a party might leave a trail visible to the keenly observant enemy even by starlight, and there would be moonlight before we could cross the valley.

It was my intention to make an ambush in La Puerta. In the narrowest part of that cañon, where it was barely fifty yards wide, the walls rose perpendicularly on each side. A hundred yards east and west of this narrowest portion of the pass were good places of concealment. I placed Sergeant Cunningham and thirteen men at the western end, and took as many and the boys with me to the eastern.

The sergeant was instructed to keep his men perfectly quiet until the head of the herd had passed their place of concealment, and then, under cover of the noise made by the moving animals, to slip down into the cañon, and when the rear of the herd came up make a dash across the front of the Indians and begin firing, taking care not to hit us.

For myself, I intended to drop into the pass with my detachment when the Navajo rear had passed, deploy, and bag the whole party and the booty.

It was a long and tiresome wait before the raiders appeared. The men had been told that they might sleep, and many of them had availed themselves of the permission.

The moon rose soon after ten o'clock, and made our surroundings plainly visible in the rarefied atmosphere peculiar to the arid region of the plains and Rockies. I sat on a bowlder and watched through the tedious hours until three o'clock, when Corporal Frank approached from the direction of the place where his brother was sleeping.

"What sound is that, Mr. Duncan?" he whispered.

I listened intently, and presently heard the distant bleating of sheep, and soon after the deeper low of an ox.

"The Indians must be approaching," I replied. "You may stir up the men. Be careful that no noise is made."

I continued to listen, and after a long time noticed a sound like the rushing of wind in a pine forest. It was the myriad feet of the coming flocks and herds, hurrying along the grassy valley. The men began to assemble about me, all preserving perfect silence, listening for the approaching Indians.