XI.
Ten o'clock on a blazing Arizona morning. The hot sun is pouring down upon the jagged front of a range of heights where occasional clumps of pine and cedar, scrub oak and juniper, seemed the only vegetable products hardy enough to withstand the alternations of intense heat by day and moderate cold by night, or to find sufficient sustenance to eke out a living on so barren a soil. Out to the eastward, stretching away to an opposite range, lies a sandy desert dotted at wide intervals with little black bunches of "scrub mezquite" and blessed with only one redeeming patch of foliage, the copse of willows and cottonwood here at the mouth of a rock-ribbed defile where a little brook, rising heaven knows how or where among the heights to the west, comes frothing and tumbling down through the windings of the gorge only to bury itself in the burning sands beyond the shade. So narrow and tortuous is the cañon, so precipitous its sides, as to prove conclusively that by no slow process, but by some sudden spasm of nature, was it rent in the face of the range. And here in its depths, just around one of the sharpest bends, honey-combed out of the solid rock are half a dozen deep lateral fissures and caves where the sunbeams never penetrate, where the air is reasonably cool and still, where on this scorching May morning, far away from home and relatives, two young girls are sheltered by the natural roofs and walls against the fiery sunshine and by a little band of resolute men against the fury of the Apaches.
Down in the roomiest of the caves Fanny and Ruth Harvey are listening in dread anxiety to the sounds of savage warfare echoing from crag to crag along the range, while every moment or two the elder turns to moisten the cloth she holds to a wounded trooper's burning, tossing head. Sergeant Wing is fevered indeed by this time, raging with misery at thought of his helplessness and the scant numbers of the defence. It is a bitter pill for the soldier to swallow, this of lying in hospital when every man is needed at the front. At nine o'clock this morning a veteran Indian fighter, crouching in his sheltered lookout above the caves and scanning with practised eye the frowning front of the range, declared that not an Apache was to be seen or heard within rifle-shot, yet was in no wise surprised when, a few minutes later, as he happened to show his head above the rocky parapet, there came zipping a dozen bullets about his ears and the cliffs fairly crackled with the sudden flash of rifles hidden up to that instant on every side. Indians who can creep upon wagon-train or emigrant camp in the midst of an open and unsheltered plain find absolutely no difficulty in surrounding unsuspected and unseen a bivouac in the mountains. Inexperienced officers or men would have been picked off long before the opening of the general attack, but the Apaches themselves are the first to know that they have veteran troopers to deal with, for up to this moment only one has shown himself at all. At five minutes after nine o'clock Lieutenant Drummond, glancing exultingly around upon his little band of fighters, had blessed the foresight of Pasqual Morales and his gang that they had so thoroughly fortified their lair against sudden assault. Three on the southern, two on the northern brink of the gorge and behind impenetrable shelter, and two more in reserve in the cañon, his puny garrison was in position and had replied with such spirit and promptitude to the Apache attack that only at rare intervals now is a shot necessary, except when for the purpose of drawing the enemy and locating his position a hat is poked up on the muzzle of a carbine. The assailants' fire, too, is still, but that, as Drummond's men well know, means only "look out for other devilment."
Out on the eastward desert, still far over towards the other side, a little party of Apaches is hurrying to join the fray. Two are riding. Where got they their horses? The others—over half a dozen—come along at their tireless jog-trot. It was this party that, seen but dimly at first, gave rise to such ebullition of joy among the defenders and defended. It was this party that, closely scanned through his field-glass, occasioned Lieutenant Drummond's moan of distress. With all his heart he had been hoping for the speedy coming of relief over that very trail,—had counted on its reaching him during the day. He was sure it could be nothing else when the corporal reported something in sight, and so when he discovered the approaching party to be Apaches no words could describe the measure of his disappointment and dismay. Not for himself and his men; they were old hands and had a fine position to defend. His thoughts are all for those in whose behalf he has already made such gallant fight and for poor Wing, whose feeble moaning every now and then reaches his ear.
At ten o'clock he is able through his glasses to distinctly make out the number and character of the coming party. Nine Apaches, all warriors, but one of them apparently wounded or disabled, for they have to support him on the horse, and this it is that hampers their advance and makes it slower. They are heading for the oasis at the mouth of the cañon. There they will leave their horses and their wounded, and then come creeping up the winding gorge or crouching among the bowlders from the east to join in the attack on the hated pale-face. Drummond can have no doubt of that. New dispositions are necessary.
"Stay where you are!" he shouts to his men. "You take charge up here, Costigan; I want to post a man or two below at the bend." And down he goes, sliding and scrambling until he reaches the edge of the brook. Moreno, squatted against a rock, glances up at him appealingly.
"Señor Teniente, I pray you unloose me and let me help. The Apache is our common enemy," he pleads.
An idea comes to Drummond. Wing's carbine can be utilized. He can post Moreno down the gorge at the second bend to command that approach and put little McGuffey, the recruit, at the next bend to command Moreno and send a bullet through him if he shirk or swerve.
"I declare, I believe I will, you old scoundrel," he says. "Here, McGuffey, untie this fellow. I've got to look around a minute."