Slim entered the canon at the head of the scouts, driving the Apaches before him. Both Jack and Dick had fallen. Across the bodies a wave of the battle flowed.
Once the Indians rallied, but so sudden was the attack, so irresistible the forward dash of the cavalrymen, that they became discouraged, and broke and fled toward their horses, with the soldiers in pursuit.
Slim hurried to Dick's side, seeing he was the worst hurt. As he knelt beside him, the dying man opened his eyes and smiled. Leaning over him, Slim heard him gently whisper: "Tell her I know she was true, and not to mind."
With a deep sigh, his eyelids fluttered, and all was still.
The scouts had taken charge of Jack, who was unconscious, and bleeding freely.
From the spring the fighting had drifted southward. Few of the Indians reached the horses, and fewer still got away. Scattering shots showed the hunt for those who fled on foot was still on.
Then soft and mellow over canon and mesa and butte floated the bugle-call, recalling the cavalrymen to the guidon. Back they came, cheering and tumultuous, only to be silenced by the presence of their dead.
They buried Dick's body near the spring, and carved his name with a cavalry saber on a boulder near-by.
At dawn the next day they began the long march back to Fort Grant.
Slim took charge of Jack, nursing him back to life.