The Long Dim Trail

by Forrestine C. Hooker

"Don't be afraid, dear. They won't find us."

He tried to smile, but his lips quivered. In her desperation a thought was born. It would be impossible to reach the Springs, but up on the side of the cañon was a large cave. She and the child had often gone there pretending they were explorers. The entrance was concealed by heavy brush and surrounded by huge boulders. It had been a place of refuge many times for the child when his father's irascible temper awakened.

"We'll go to our cave," she said, "and you know we're the only ones who can find it."

Donnie's hand gripped hers tightly, and with a sharp survey of the trail to Jackson, she started the climb up the steep cañon side, always keeping in the thickest part of the mesquite. Down the cañon they had to cross the bed of the dry creek, but once that was passed the boulders stood thickly. Slowly they made their way, for the rarefied Arizona air, the sharp pitch of the incline, the almost dead weight of the stumbling child, the fear of those who rode back of them made the climb doubly hard.

At last they reached the entrance of the cave, and sinking to her knees, she half-pushed, half-dragged the terrified child into their place of refuge. With her arm about the boy, she sat huddled against the side of the cave, but through the brush at the mouth, she could discern the Indians riding down the trail that ended at the corral. They circled cautiously about the ranch, then growing bolder broke into three bunches. Two groups approached the house from front and rear, while the third party dashed into the corral where the milk calf was kept, and in a few minutes it was dead. The Apaches, apparently in frenzied haste, slaughtered and quartered the calf, not taking time to skin the carcass which was tied in sections to the ponies. Others chased and captured all the chickens possible, wringing their necks and adding them to other plunder, until the leader, whom Katherine recognized as Geronimo, gave a command which was reluctantly obeyed. The entire cavalcade mounted and dashed down the cañon, following the road toward the Hot Springs ranch.

Katherine knew that the real danger now confronted her. Though the cañon was a mass of rocks, the roadbed where she had crossed was sandy, making it possible that her footprints might be discovered by the sharp-eyed hostiles, who were constantly on the alert for signs. A short distance from the spot which might betray her steps, several of the Indians halted suddenly, whirling their ponies and gesticulating to the others. The woman in the cave gripped the revolver more tightly.

"They will have to come up single file," she thought, then wondered why she no longer feared.

Carefully she calculated her chances, grateful for the obstructing brush, the gloom of the cave and its projecting sides which would protect her so long as her ammunition held out. One by one, she counted the cartridges in the belt, without taking her eyes from the figures in the cañon below. The distance across the cañon was so narrow, that the call of a quail on the other side of the Apaches could be distinctly heard by the woman.

"Six, seven, eight," the pitifully few cartridges slipped through her hands until the last two lay in her upturned palm.

She looked at them, then her eyes travelled to the child, and she knew that she would not flinch at the last moment. It was the only thing for a mother to do in Arizona, miles away from any living being except 'bronco' Apaches.