The hunters did not insist further, they knew with what religious exactness Indians keep oaths they make to each other, and the good faith and loyalty they display in the accomplishment of this duty. The Chiefs answer consequently convinced them that they had nothing to apprehend from the Apache Sachem, and, in truth, he had gone off in a direction diametrically opposite to that where his companions were hidden.
The horses were immediately lifted on their legs, the cords removed, and the party set out. They followed a narrow path running between two ravines covered with thick grass. This path, after running for a mile and a half, debouched on a species of cross roads, where the adventurers had halted for an instant. This spot, called by the Indians the Elk Pass, had been selected by Black-deer as the gathering place of some forty picked warriors, who were to join the white men and act with them. This junction was effected as the Sachem arranged. The hunters had hardly debouched at the crossroads, ere the Comanches emerged from behind the thicket which had hitherto concealed them, and flocked up to Black-deer.
The band was formed in close column, and flankers went ahead, preceding it but a few yards, and attentively examining the thickets. For many an hour they marched on, nothing attracting their attention, when suddenly a shot was fired in the rear of the band. Almost simultaneously, and as if at a given signal, the fusillade broke out on both sides of the war path, and a shower of bullets and arrows hurtled upon the Comanches and white men. Several men fell, and there was a momentary confusion, inseparable from an unforeseen attack.
By assent of Black-deer, Loyal Heart assumed the supreme command. By his orders, the warriors broke up into platoons, and vigorously returned the fire, while retreating to the crossroads, where the enemy could not attack them without discovering themselves; but they had committed the imprudence of marching too fast—the crossroads were still a long way off, and the fire of the Apaches extended along the whole line. The bullets and arrows rained on the Comanches, whose ranks were beginning to be thinned.
Loyal Heart ordered the ranks to be broken, and the men to scatter, a manoeuvre frequently employed in Europe during the Vendean war, and which the Chouans unconsciously obtained from the Indians. The cavalry at once tried to leap the ravines and ditches that bordered the path behind which the Apaches were hidden; but were repulsed by the musketry and the long barbed arrows, which the Indians fired with extreme dexterity. The Comanches and Whites leaped off their horses, being certain of recovering them when wanted, and retreated, sheltering themselves behind trees, only giving way inch by inch, and keeping up a sustained fire with their enemies, who, feeling certain of victory, displayed in their attack a perseverance far from common among savage nations, with whom success nearly always depends on the first effort.
Loyal Heart, so soon as his men reached the clearing, made them form a circle, and they offered an imposing front to the enemy on all sides. Up to this moment, the Apaches had maintained silence, not a single war yell had been uttered, not a rustling of the leaves had been heard. Suddenly the firing ceased, and silence once again brooded over the desert. The hunters and Comanches looked at each other with a surprise mingled with terror. They had fallen into the trap their enemies had laid for them, while fancying they could spoil it.
There was a terrible moment of expectation, whose anxious expression no pen could depict. All at once the conches and chichikouès were heard sounding on the right and left, in the rear and front! At this signal, the Apaches rose on all sides, blowing their war whistles to excite their courage, and uttering fearful yells. The Comanches were surrounded, and nothing was left them but to die bravely at their posts! At this terrible sight, a shudder of fear involuntarily rose along those intrepid warriors, but it was almost instantaneously quelled, for they felt that their destruction was imminent and certain.
Loyal Heart and Black-deer, however, had lost none of their calmness; they hoped then, still, but what was it they expected?