Now and then these redskins, a number of Comanches, sent in a rifle ball or two by way of reminding the cavalry that they were accustomed to that business. The lieutenant commanding permitted his men to reply occasionally, but no thought of pursuit was entertained. None of the soldiers were injured by these shots, although a number passed uncomfortably close, and the ambulance was pierced several times.
At one time Corporal Hugg checked his horse, and pointing his gun out of the stage, took deliberate aim at the nearest redskin, who was displaying his horsemanship by shooting from beneath the neck and belly of his mustang, and then, as the latter wheeled, flopping upon the other side of the animal, and firing as before. The corporal held his fire until he attempted one of these turn-overs, when he pulled the trigger and "took him on the wing." The result was a whoop, a beating of the air with a pair of moccasined feet, and the mustang galloped away without a rider.
This skillful shot was a good thing for the party, as it taught the Comanches the very lesson they needed. They instantly retreated to a further point upon the prairie, and finally vanished from view altogether.
The company had been on the road for nearly a week. Six of them, including the lieutenant, were riding at the head, and the remainder were in the rear of the ambulance. Corporal Hugg was holding the reins of his horse, who was stepping along with his heavy, ponderous tread, while the driver was drowsy and indolent from the long, monotonous ride in which he had been engaged for so many days, and for so many hours during this last day. It was near the middle of the afternoon, and Ned Chadmund was the only one of the company that seemed to be full of life and spirits. He had run along by the side of the vehicle, until he was pretty well jaded; he had crawled in again, and was chatting away to the corporal in a fashion that left no room for his giving way to drowsiness. The men sat like statues upon their horses, indifferent and silent, and wishing, in a general way, that the day were over and the time had come for going into camp, where they might stretch out their legs and smoke their pipes to their hearts' content.
"Yes, that 'ere is the place they call Devil's Pass," said the corporal in reply to a question from the boy. "You see that it was so wide back there at the beginning that you couldn't see how wide it was, and it keeps geting narrower and narrower till it reminds me of the canyon of the upper Yellowstone."
"How is that?" was the question that came when he paused to take breath.
"So narrow that you could toss a ball from one side to the other, and a thousand feet from the top to bottom, clean and square, and there are some places where it is all of a half mile."
"But this don't seem as narrow as that."
"I don't s'pose it is; but don't you notice ahead, yonder, that it ain't more than a hundred yards broad? Well, it keeps it up for all of two miles just like that."
"Why do they call it Devil's Pass, corporal?"