“While Swico and the others have taken another direction?”
“Exactly, and carried the women and children with them; and if so, we might as well turn back to Fort Adams ag’in.”
But the scout, as he uttered these chilling words, set his teeth, and rode his mustang harder than ever toward Dead Man’s Gulch.
CHAPTER XI. THE VALLEY OF DEATH.
The wagon containing the females and the children was that which carried the provisions—the others being piled up with the luggage belonging to the different members of the party, and which they had formed into rude barricades from which they fired out, with such deadly effect, upon the Comanches, who, from the nature of the case, were unable to make any kind of approach without exposing themselves to that same unerring fire.
One of the men, at stated periods, visited the provision wagon, and brought forth lunch for his comrades, who felt no suffering in that respect—their great trial being the lack of water. But for the providential supply, secured in the manner already narrated, human endurance would not have permitted the whites to have held out longer than the beginning of this terrible, and what was destined to prove the last, day—the one following the departure of Gibbons, the messenger, for Fort Adams.
It should be made clear at this point also that, of the half-dozen women, and the same number of children, not one had husband, or father, or blood-relative among the defenders, so that, while their situation could scarcely have been more trying, it was deprived of the poignant anguish of seeing the members of their own household shot down in cold blood before their eyes.
No pen can depict the gratitude and love they felt for these men, who, it may be said, were giving up their lives to protect them; for, at the first appearance of the dreaded Comanches, every one of them could have secured their safety by dashing away at full speed, upon their fleet-footed mustangs, and leaving the helpless ones to their fate.