“Hullo!” cried Burt, sharply. “The pack ain’t quite so big as it was.”
They ceased and looked ahead. Surely enough, the band had diminished one-half at least. The remainder still kept on, though with slackened speed. The guide stopped short.
“It’s not any use ter go much further—fust thing we know we’ll be inter a big ambuscade. Any thing but that, say I.”
“We can keep on for three or four hundred yards yet, Tim. They’ve stopped in some big gulch while the rest have gone on. They will lie there to pepper us when we come on and they won’t stir. We might get in a volley on them, too, by riding along.”
The guide cogitated for a moment. The plan seemed feasible, and accordingly he again bent his eyes to the ground, and the party glided in and out among the gulches.
“Now, fellows, and you ’specially, Robidoux, mind your eye. We ain’t on a bare plain, now, but in a devilish mean place. Keep close to Simpson and have your guns cocked and ready. Ride slow, Simpson!”
“Ay, ay!” and as the guide slackened his pace they clustered about him. Now the gulches grew narrower, deeper, and thicker. It became difficult to climb some of the sandy, yielding, and precipitous banks; the descents, too, became attended with danger. Sometimes they were forced to follow a ravine some little distance in order to find an emerging place; then again they were obliged to ride along a bank to find a safe descending spot. This irksome and dangerous task was rendered doubly dangerous by the fact that at some advanced point, they knew not where, nearly a score of bloodthirsty and cunning Apaches lay waiting for their scalps.
The foremost band still retreated, but slowly in order to stimulate them to greater haste, which would, of course, be attended with a large degree of recklessness. They were within half a mile, having lost ground, and were apparently beating the led horses to urge their lagging steps. But the sharp eyes of Scranton had given them timely warning, without which they would surely have run into a fatal trap.
They were now on a “reach” and had space for a fast trot of a hundred yards or more, when they would reach the brink of a yawning chasm, black and gloomy in its dark and serpentine shadow. Here the guide stopped, followed by the others.
“It’s no use ter go further,” he said. “Do yer see that big gulch ahead? Wal, yer may bet yer lives that in that black shadder more ’n a dozen dirty ’Patchies air watchin’ us. We’ll stop fur a change, right hyar.”