Then came whispered pleadings from the unfortunate "number four men" doomed to remain behind to guard the horses and the rear while the others went on into the darkness to—what? Perhaps death, perhaps a wound from a poisoned arrow; in any event plenty of hardship and suffering.
How those cavalrymen begged for the privilege of getting a hole shot through them. They urged the officers to cut down the rearguard and leave but a couple of men to look after the packs and horses.
"Very well, Sergeant," the commanding officer replied, well pleased when told of the men's desire to go with the fighting force, "leave three or four men to guard the animals and let the rest come on; God knows we are very likely to need them."
Then the Sergeant, knowing his men as a schoolmaster his pupils, left behind: fat Corporal Conn whose asthmatic wheezings and puffings had already brought forth many a muttered curse upon his head; Private Hill who couldn't see an inch beyond his nose in the dark and who had fallen over every bush and rock in the trail since they entered the cañon; and two other men whose physical condition was such that he doubted their ability to make the climb which he knew was ahead of them.
Not one of these accepted the detail without as vigorous a protest as soldierly duty made possible. Bless you no! Each of them felt himself an object of especial pity, fat Conn even claiming that the higher he climbed the less the asthma troubled him.
Then the command once more drove into the blackness ahead, following the lithe Apache up a mountain side which seemed almost perpendicular.
Each man carried two belts of cartridges about his waist with a third swung from his shoulder. Most of them wore the Apache moccasin which gave forth no sound as they moved along.
At last they reached the summit of the mountain breathless and tired. Before them was a mighty cañon, the cañon of the Salt River. To their left four granite peaks, the "Four Peaks" of the maps, pierced the skyline like videttes on guard over the cañon.
From its bed, two thousand feet below, the dull murmur of the river, as it dashed along its rocky way, came softly to the soldiers' ears.
It was the dawning of December 27, 1872. The soldiers were a detachment of the Fifth United States Cavalry, Major Brown in command.