“The trail we oughter take for the ole mine passes clost by it, cap’n. To the south’art o’ yon snowy, thur’s a pass; it’s the way I got clur myself.”
“Very well; the party can take the mountain for their guide. I will despatch them at once.”
About twenty men, who rode the poorest horses, were selected from the band. These, guarding the atajo and captives, immediately set out and rode off in the direction of the snowy mountain. El Sol went with this party, in charge of Dacoma and the daughter of our chief. The rest of us prepared to defend the pass.
Our horses were tied in a defile; and we took our stands where we could command the embouchure of the cañon with our rifles.
We waited in silence for the approaching foe. As yet no war-whoop had reached us; but we knew that our pursuers could not be far off; and we knelt behind the rocks, straining our eyes down the dark ravine.
It is difficult to give an idea of our position by the pen. The ground we had selected as the point of defence was unique in its formation, and not easily described; yet it is necessary you should know something of its peculiar character in order to comprehend what followed.
The stream, after meandering over a shallow, shingly channel, entered the cañon through a vast gate-like gap, between two giant portals. One of these was the abrupt ending of the granite ridge, the other a detached mass of stratified rock. Below this gate the channel widened for a hundred yards or so, where its bed was covered with loose boulders and logs of drift timber. Still farther down, the cliffs approached each other, so near that only two horsemen could ride between them abreast; and beyond this the channel again widened, and the bed of the stream was filled with rocks, huge fragments that had fallen from the mountain.
The place we occupied was among the rocks and drift, within the cañon, and below the great gap which formed its mouth. We had chosen the position from necessity, at at this point the bank shelved out and offered a way to the open country, by which our pursuers could outflank us, should we allow them to get so far up. It was necessary, therefore, to prevent this; and we placed ourselves to defend the lower or second narrowing of the channel. We knew that below that point beetling cliffs walled in the stream on both sides, so that it would be impossible for them to ascend out of its bed. If we could restrain them from making a rush at the shelving bank, we would have them penned up from any farther advance. They could only flank our position by returning to the valley, and going about by the western end, a distance of fifty miles at the least. At all events, we should hold them in check until the atajo had got a long start; and then, trusting to our horses, we intended to follow it in the night. We knew that in the end we should have to abandon the defence, as the want of provisions would not allow us to hold out for any length of time.
At the command of our leader we had thrown ourselves among the rocks. The thunder was now pealing over our heads, and reverberating through the cañon. Black clouds rolled along the cliffs, split and torn by brilliant jets. Big drops, still falling thinly, slapped down upon the stones.
As Seguin had told me, rain, thunder, and lightning are rare phenomena in these regions; but when they do occur, it is with that violence which characterises the storms of the tropics. The elements, escaping from their wonted continence, rage in fiercer war. The long-gathering electricity, suddenly displaced from its equilibrium, seems to revel in havoc, rending asunder the harmonies of nature.