With women and children crowding about him, and men running to the scene from every side, by the light of a lantern held in a soldier's shaking hand, he read aloud the contents:
"BIVOUAC AT PICACHO, 9 P. M.
"C. O. CAMP SANDY:
"Reached this point after hard march, but no active opposition, at 8 P. M. First party sent to build fire on ledge driven in by hostiles. Corporal Welch shot through left side—serious. Threw out skirmishers and drove them off after some firing, and about 9.20 came suddenly upon Indian boy crouching among rocks, who held up folded paper which I have read and forward herewith. We shall, of course, turn toward Snow Lake, taking boy as guide. March at 3 A. M. Will do everything possible to reach Wren on time.
(Signed) "STOUT, Commanding."
Within was another slip, grimy and with dark stains. And Truman's voice well-nigh failed him as he read:
"November —th.
"C. O. CAMP SANDY:
"Through a friendly Apache who was with me at the reservation I learned that Captain Wren was lying wounded, cut off from his troop and with only four of his men, in a cañon southwest of Snow Lake. With Indian for guide we succeeded reaching him second night, but are now surrounded, nearly out of ammunition and rations. Three more of our party are wounded and one, Trooper Kent, killed. If not rushed can hold out perhaps three days more, but Wren sorely needs surgical aid.
(Signed) "BLAKELY."
That was all. The Bugologist with his one orderly, and apparently without the Apache Yuma scouts, had gone straightway to the rescue of Wren. Now all were cut off and surrounded by a wily foe that counted on, sooner or later, overcoming and annihilating them, and even by the time the Indian runner slipped out (some faithful spirit won by Blakely's kindness and humanity when acting agent), the defense had been reduced just one-half. Thank God that Stout with his supplies and stalwart followers was not more than two days' march away, and was going straightway to the rescue!
It was nearly two when Plume and his half-hundred came drifting back to the garrison, and even then some few of the watchers were along the bluff. Janet Wren, having at last seen pale-faced, silent Angela to her room and bed, with Kate Sanders on guard, had again gone forth to extract such further information as Major Plume might have. Even at that hour men were at work in the corrals, fitting saddles to half a dozen spare horses,—about all that were left at the post,—and Miss Wren learned that Colonel Byrne, with an orderly or two, had remained at Arnold's ranch,—that Arnold himself, with six horsemen from the post, was to set forth at four, join the colonel at dawn, and together all were to push forward on the trail of Stout's command, hoping to overtake them by nightfall. She whispered this to sleepless Kate on her return to the house, for Angela, exhausted with grief and long suspense, had fallen, apparently, into deep and dreamless slumber.
But the end of that eventful night was not yet. Arnold and his sextette slipped away soon after four o'clock, and about 4.50 there came a banging at the major's door. It was the telegraph operator. The wire was patched at last, and the first message was to the effect that the guard had been fired on in Cherry Creek cañon—that Private Forrest was sorely wounded and lying at Dick's deserted ranch, with two of their number to care for him. Could they possibly send a surgeon at once?
There was no one to go but Graham. His patients at the post were doing fairly well, but there wasn't a horse for him to ride. "No matter," said he, "I'll borrow Punch. He's needing exercise these days." So Punch was ordered man-saddled and brought forthwith. The orderly came back in ten minutes. "Punch aint there, sir," said he. "He's been gone over half an hour."
"Gone? Gone where? Gone how?" asked Graham in amaze.
"Gone with Miss Angela, sir. She saddled him herself and rode away not twenty minutes after Arnold's party left. The sentries say she followed up the Beaver."
Chapter XIX - Besieged
*
Deep down in a ragged cleft of the desert, with shelving rock and giant bowlder on every side, without a sign of leaf, or sprig of grass, or tendril of tiny creeping plant, a little party of haggard, hunted men lay in hiding and in the silence of exhaustion and despond, awaiting the inevitable. Bulging outward overhead, like the counter of some huge battleship, a great mass of solid granite heaved unbroken above them, forming a recess or cave, in which they were secure against arrow, shot, or stone from the crest of the lofty, almost vertical walls of the vast and gloomy cañon. Well back under this natural shelter, basined in the hollowed rock, a blessed pool of fair water lay unwrinkled by even a flutter of breeze. Relic of the early springtime and the melting snows, it had been caught and imprisoned here after the gradually failing stream had trickled itself into nothingness. One essential, one comfort then had not been denied the beleaguered few, but it was about the only one. Water for drink, for fevered wounds and burning throats, they had in abundance; but the last "hardtack" had been shared, the last scrap of bacon long since devoured. Of the once-abundant rations only coffee grains were left. Of the cartridge-crammed "thimble belts," with which they had entered the cañon and the Apache trap, only three contained so much as a single copper cylinder, stopped by its forceful lead. These three belonged to troopers, two of whom, at least, would never have use for them again. One of these, poor Jerry Kent, lay buried beneath the little cairn of rocks in still another cavelike recess a dozen yards away, hidden there by night, when prowling Apaches could not see the sorrowing burial party and crush them with bowlders heaved over the precipice above, or shoot them down with whistling lead or steel-tipped arrow from some safe covert in the rocky walls.
Cut off from their comrades while scouting a side ravine, Captain Wren and his quartette of troopers had made stiff and valiant fight against such of the Indians as permitted hand or head to show from behind the rocks. They had felt confident that Sergeant Brewster and the main body would speedily miss them, or hear the sound of firing and turn back au secours, but sounds are queerly carried in such a maze of deep and tortuous clefts as seamed the surface in every conceivable direction through the wild basin of the Colorado. Brewster's rearmost files declared long after that never the faintest whisper of affray had reached their ears, already half deadened by fatigue and the ceaseless crash of iron-shod hoofs on shingly rock. As for Brewster himself, he was able to establish that Wren's own orders were to "push ahead" and try to make Sunset Pass by nightfall, while the captain, with such horses as seemed freshest, scouted right and left wherever possible. The last seen of Jerry Kent, it later transpired, was when he came riding after them to say the captain had gone into the mouth of the gorge opening to the west, and the last message borne from the commander to the troop came through Jerry Kent to Sergeant Dusold, who brought up the rear. They had passed the mouths of half a dozen ravines within the hour, some on one side, some on the other, and Dusold "passed the word" by sending Corporal Slater clattering up the cañon, skirting the long drawn-out column of files until, far in the lead, he could overtake the senior sergeant and deliver his message. Later, when Brewster rode back with all but the little guard left over his few broken-down men and mounts in Sunset Pass, Dusold could confidently locate in his own mind the exact spot where Kent overtook him; but Dusold was a drill-book dragoon of the Prussian school, consummately at home on review or parade, but all at sea, so to speak, in the mountains. They never found a trace of their loved leader. The clefts they scouted were all on the wrong side.
And so it happened that relief came not, that one after another the five horses fell, pierced with missiles or crushed and stunned by rocks crashing down from above, that Kent himself was shot through the brain, and Wren skewered through the arm by a Tonto shaft, and plugged with a round rifle ball in the shoulder. Sergeant Carmody bound up his captain's wound as best he could, and by rare good luck, keeping up a bold front, and answering every shot, they fought their way to this little refuge in the rocks, and there, behind improvised barricades or bowlders, "stood off" their savage foe, hoping rescue might soon reach them.<
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But Wren was nearly wild from wounds and fever when the third day came and no sign of the troop. Another man had been hit and stung, and though not seriously wounded, like a burnt child, he now shunned the fire and became, perforce, an ineffective. Their scanty store of rations was gone entirely. Sergeant Carmody and his alternate watchers were worn out from lack of sleep when, in the darkness of midnight, a low hail in their own tongue came softly through the dead silence,—the voice of Lieutenant Blakely cautioning, "Don't fire, Wren. It's the Bugologist," and in another moment he and his orderly afoot, in worn Apache moccasins, but equipped with crammed haversacks and ammunition belts, were being welcomed by the besieged. There was little of the emotional and nothing of the melodramatic about it. It was, if anything, rather commonplace. Wren was flighty and disposed to give orders for an immediate attack in force on the enemy's works, to which the sergeant, his lips trembling just a bit, responded with prompt salute: "Very good, sir, just as quick as the men can finish supper. Loot'nent Blakely's compliments, sir, and he'll be ready in ten minutes," for Blakely and his man, seeing instantly the condition of things, had freshened the little fire and begun unloading supplies. Solalay, their Indian guide, after piloting them through the woodland southwest of Snow Lake, had pointed out the cañon, bidden them follow it and, partly in the sign language, partly in Spanish, partly in the few Apache terms that Blakely had learned during his agency days, managed to make them understand that Wren was to be found some five miles further on, and that most of the besieging Tontos were on the heights above or in the cañon below. Few would be encountered, if any, on the up-stream side. Then, promising to take the horses and the mules to Camp Sandy, he had left them. He dared go no farther toward the warring Apaches. They would suspect and butcher him without mercy.
But Solalay had not gone without promise of further aid. Natzie's younger brother, Alchisay, had recently come to him with a message from her, and should be coming with another. Solalay thought he could find the boy and send him to them to be used as a courier. Blakely's opportune coming had cheered not a little the flagging defense, but, not until forty-eight hours thereafter, by which time their condition had become almost desperate and the foe almost daring, did the lithe, big-eyed, swarthy little Apache reach them. Blakely knew him instantly, wrote his dispatch and bade the boy go with all speed, with the result we know. "Three more of our party are wounded," he had written, but had not chosen to say that one of them was himself.
A solemn sight was this that met the eyes of the Bugologist, as Carmody roused him from a fitful sleep, with the murmured words, "Almost light, sir. They'll be on us soon as they can see." Deep in under the overhang and close to the pool lay one poor fellow whose swift, gasping breath told all too surely that the Indian bullet had found fatal billet in his wasting form. It was Chalmers, a young Southerner, driven by poverty at home and prospect of adventure abroad to seek service in the cavalry. It was practically his first campaign, and in all human probability his last. Consciousness had left him hours ago, and his vagrant spirit was fast loosing every earthly bond, and already, in fierce dreamings, at war with unseen and savage foe over their happy hunting grounds in the great Beyond. Near him, equally sheltered, yet further toward the dim and pallid light, lay Wren, his strong Scotch features pinched and drawn with pain and loss of blood and lack of food. Fever there was little left, there was so little left for it to live upon. Weak and helpless as a child in arms he lay, inert and silent. There was nothing he could do. Never a quarter hour had passed since he had been forced to lie there that some one of his devoted men had not bathed his forehead and cooled his burning wounds with abundant flow of blessed water. Twice since his gradual return to consciousness had he asked for Blakely, and had bidden him sit and tell him of Sandy, asking for tidings of Angela, and faltering painfully as he bethought himself of the last instructions he had given. How could Blakely be supposed to know aught of her or of the household bidden to treat him practically as a stranger? Now, he thought it grand that the Bugologist had thrown all consideration of peril to the wind and had hastened to their aid to share their desperate fortunes. But Wren knew not how to tell of it. He took courage and hope when Blakely spoke of Solalay's loyalty, of young Alchisay's daring visit and his present mission. Apaches of his band had been known to traverse sixty miles a day over favorable ground, and Alchisay, even through such a labyrinth of rock, ravine, and precipice, should not make less than thirty. Within forty-eight hours of his start the boy ought to reach the Sandy valley, and surely no moment would then be lost in sending troops to find and rescue them. But four days and nights, said Blakely to himself, was the least time in which they could reasonably hope for help, and now only the third night had gone,—gone with their supplies of every kind. A few hours more and the sun would be blazing in upon even the dank depths of the cañon for his midday stare. A few minutes more and the Apaches, too, would be up and blazing on their own account. "Keep well under shelter," were Blakely's murmured orders to the few men, even as the first, faint breath of the dawn came floating from the broader reaches far down the rocky gorge.
In front of their cavelike refuge, just under the shelving mass overhead, heaped in a regular semicircle, a rude parapet of rocks gave shelter to the troopers guarding the approaches. Little loopholes had been left, three looking down and two northward up the dark and tortuous rift. In each of these a loaded carbine lay in readiness. So well chosen was the spot that for one hundred yards southeastward—down stream—the narrow gorge was commanded by the fire of the defense, while above, for nearly eighty, from wall to wall, the approach was similarly swept. No rush was therefore possible on part of the Apaches without every probability of their losing two or three of the foremost. The Apache lacks the magnificent daring of the Sioux or Cheyenne. He is a fighter from ambush; he risks nothing for glory's sake; he is a monarch in craft and guile, but no hero in open battle. For nearly a week now, day after day, the position of the defenders had been made almost terrible by the fierce bombardment to which it had been subjected, of huge stones or bowlders sent thundering down the almost precipitous walls, then bounding from ledge to ledge, or glancing from solid, sloping face diving, finally, with fearful crash into the rocky bed at the bottom, sending a shower of fragments hurtling in every direction, oft dislodging some section of parapet, yet never reaching the depths of the cave. Add to this nerve-racking siege work the instant, spiteful flash of barbed arrow or zip and crack of bullet when hat or hand of one of the defenders was for a second exposed, and it is not difficult to fancy the wear and tear on even the stoutest heart in the depleted little band.
And still they set their watch and steeled their nerves, and in dogged silence took their station as the pallid light grew roseate on the cliffs above them. And with dull and wearied, yet wary, eyes, each soldier scanned every projecting rock or point that could give shelter to lurking foe, and all the time the brown muzzles of the carbines were trained low along the stream bed. No shot could now be thrown away at frowsy turban or flaunting rag along the cliffs. The rush was the one thing they had to dread and drive back. It was God's mercy the Apache dared not charge in the dark.
Lighter grew the deep gorge and lighter still, and soon in glorious radiance the morning sunshine blazed on the lofty battlements far overhead, and every moment the black shadow on the westward wall, visible to the defense long rifle-shot southeastward, gave gradual way before the rising day god, and from the broader open reaches beyond the huge granite shoulder, around which wound the cañon, and from the sun-kissed heights, a blessed warmth stole softly in, grateful inexpressibly to their chilled and stiffened limbs. And still, despite the growing hours, neither shot nor sign came from the accustomed haunts of the surrounding foe. Six o'clock was marked by Blakely's watch. Six o'clock and seven, and the low moan from the lips of poor young Chalmers, or the rattle of some pebble dislodged by the foot of crouching guardian, or some murmured word from man to man,—some word of wonderment at the unlooked for lul
l in Apache siege operations,—was the only sound to break the almost deathlike silence of the morning. There was one other, far up among the stunted, shriveled pines and cedars that jutted from the opposite heights. They could hear at intervals a weird, mournful note, a single whistling call in dismal minor, but it brought no new significance. Every day of their undesired and enforced sojourn, every hour of the interminable day, that raven-like, hermit bird of the Sierras had piped his unmelodious signal to some distant feathered fellow, and sent a chill to the heart of more than one war-tried soldier. There was never a man in Arizona wilds that did not hate the sound of it. And yet, as eight o'clock was noted and still no sight or sound of assailant came, Sergeant Carmody turned a wearied, aching eye from his loophole and muttered to the officer crouching close beside him: "I could wring the neck of the lot of those infernal cat crows, sir, but I'll thank God if we hear no worse sound this day."
An Apache Princess Page 16