An Apache Princess Part 13

"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 canon 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 G.o.d 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 s.e.xtette 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 canon--that Private Forrest was sorely wounded and lying at d.i.c.k'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 gra.s.s, 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 battles.h.i.+p, a great ma.s.s 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 canon. 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 sc.r.a.p 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 canon 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 s.h.i.+ngly rock. As for Brewster himself, he was able to establish that Wren's own orders were to "push ahead" and try to make Sunset Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed the mouths of half a dozen ravines within the hour, some on one side, some on the other, and Dusold "pa.s.sed the word" by sending Corporal Slater clattering up the canon, 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 Pa.s.s, 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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.

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 canon, 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 canon 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 pa.s.sed 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 canon 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.d's mercy the Apache dared not charge in the dark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIGHT IN THE CAnON]

Lighter grew the deep gorge and lighter still, and soon in glorious radiance the morning suns.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.d, and from the broader open reaches beyond the huge granite shoulder, around which wound the canon, 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 lull 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 a.s.sailant 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 G.o.d if we hear no worse sound this day."

Blakely rose to his feet and wearily leaned upon the breastworks, peering cautiously over. Yesterday the sight of a scouting hat would have brought instant whiz of arrow, but not a missile saluted him now.

One arm, his left, was rudely bandaged and held in a sling, a rifle ball from up the cliff, glancing from the inner face of the parapet, had torn savagely through muscle and sinew, but mercifully scored neither artery nor bone. An arrow, whizzing blindly through a southward loophole, had grazed his cheek, ripping a straight red seam far back as the lobe of the ear, which had been badly torn. Blakely had little the look of a squire of dames as, thus maimed and scarred and swathed in blood-stained cotton, he peered down the deep and shadowy cleft and searched with eyes keen, if yet unskilled, every visible section of the opposite wall. What could their silence mean?

Had they found other game, pitifully small in numbers as these besieged, and gone to butcher them, knowing well that, hampered by their wounded, these, their earlier victims, could not hope to escape?

Had they got warning of the approach of some strong force of soldiery--Brewster scouting in search of them, or may be Sanders himself? Had they slipped away, therefore, and could the besieged dare to creep forth and shout, signal, or even fire away two or three of these last precious cartridges in hopes of catching the ear of searching comrades?

Wren, exhausted, had apparently dropped into a fitful doze. His eyes were shut, his lips were parted, his long, lean fingers twitched at times as a tremor seemed to shoot through his entire frame. Another day like the last or at worst like this, without food or nourishment, and even such rugged strength as had been his would be taxed to the utmost. There might be no to-morrow for the st.u.r.dy soldier who had so gallantly served his adopted country, his chosen flag. As for Chalmers, the summons was already come. Far from home and those who most loved and would sorely grieve for him, the brave lad was dying.

Carmody, kneeling by his side, but the moment before had looked up mutely in his young commander's face, and his swimming, sorrowing eyes had told the story.

Nine o'clock had come without a symptom of alarm or enemy from without, yet death had invaded the lonely refuge in the rocks, claiming one victim as his tribute for the day and setting his seal upon still another, the prospective sacrifice for the dismal morrow, and Blakely could stand the awful strain no longer.

"Sergeant," said he, "I must know what this means. We must have help for the captain before this sun goes down, or he may be gone before we know it."

And Carmody looked him in the face and answered: "I am strong yet and unhurt. Let me make the try, sir. Some of our fellows must be scouting near us, or these beggars wouldn't have quit. I can find the boys, if anyone can."

Blakely turned and gazed one moment into the deep and dark recess where lay his wounded and the dying. The morning wind had freshened a bit, and a low, murmurous song, nature's aeolian, came softly from the swaying pine and stunted oak and juniper far on high. The whiff that swept to their nostrils from the lower depths of the canon told its own grewsome tale. There, scattered along the stream bed, lay the festering remains of their four-footed comrades, first victims of the ambuscade. Death lurked about their refuge then on every side, and was even invading their little fortress. Was this to be the end, after all? Was there neither help nor hope from any source?

Turning once again, a murmured prayer upon his lips, Blakely started at sight of Carmody. With one hand uplifted, as though to caution silence, the other concaved at his ear, the sergeant was bending eagerly forward, his eyes dilating, his frame fairly quivering. Then, on a sudden, up he sprang and swung his hat about his head. "Firing, sir! Firing, sure!" he cried. Another second, and with a gasp and moan he sank to earth transfixed; a barbed arrow, whizzing from unseen s.p.a.ce, had pierced him through and through.

CHAPTER XX

WHERE IS ANGELA?

For a moment as they drew under shelter the stricken form of the soldier, there was nothing the defense could do but dodge. Then, leaving him at the edge of the pool, and kicking before them the one cowed and cowering s.h.i.+rker of the little band, Blakely and the single trooper still unhit, crept back to the rocky parapet, secured a carbine each and knelt, staring up the opposite wall in search of the foe. And not a sign of Apache could they see.

Yet the very slant of the arrow as it pierced the young soldier, the new angle at which the bullets bounded from the stony crest, the lower, flatter flight of the barbed missiles that struck fire from the flinty rampart, all told the same story. The Indians during the hours of darkness, even while dreading to charge, had managed to crawl, snake-like, to lower levels along the cliff and to creep closer up the stream bed, and with stealthy, noiseless hands to rear little shelters of stone, behind which they were now crouching invisible and secure.

With the illimitable patience of their savage training they had then waited, minute after minute, hour after hour, until, lulled at last into partial belief that their deadly foe had slipped away, some of the defenders should be emboldened to venture into view, and then one well-aimed volley at the signal from the leader's rifle, and the vengeful shafts of those who had as yet only the native weapon, would fall like lightning stroke upon the rash ones, and that would end it.

Catlike they had crouched and watched since early dawn. Catlike they had played the old game of apparent weariness of the sport, of forgetfulness of their prey and tricked their guileless victims into hope and self-exposure, then swooped again, and the gallant lad whose last offer and effort had been to set forth in desperate hope of bringing relief to the suffering, had paid for his valor with his life. One arrow at least had gone swift and true, one shaft that, launched, perhaps, two seconds too soon for entire success, had barely antic.i.p.ated the leader's signal and spoiled the scheme of bagging all the game. Blakely's dive to save his fallen comrade had just saved his own head, for rock chips and spattering lead flew on every side, scratching, but not seriously wounding him.

And then, when they "thought on vengeance" and the three brown muzzles swept the opposite wall, there followed a moment of utter silence, broken only by the faint gasping of the dying man. "Creep back to Carmody, you," muttered Blakely to the trembling lad beside him. "You are of no account here unless they try to charge. Give him water, quick." Then to Stern, his one unhurt man, "You heard what he said about distant firing. Did you hear it?"

"Not I, sir, but I believe _they_ did--an' be d.a.m.ned to them!" And Stern's eyes never left the opposite cliff, though his ears were strained to catch the faintest sound from the lower canon. It was there they last had seen the troop. It was from that direction help should come. "Watch them, but don't waste a shot, man. I must speak to Carmody," said Blakely, under his breath, as he backed on hands and knees, a painful process when one is sore wounded. Trembling, whimpering like whipped child, the poor, spiritless lad sent to the aid of the stricken and heroic, crouched by the sergeant's side, vainly striving to pour water from a clumsy canteen between the sufferer's pallid lips. Carmody presently sucked eagerly at the cooling water, and even in his hour of dissolution seemed far the stronger, st.u.r.dier of the two--seemed to feel so infinite a pity for his shaken comrade. Bleeding internally, as was evident, transfixed by the cruel shaft they did not dare attempt to withdraw, even if the barbed steel would permit, and drooping fainter with each swift moment, he was still conscious, still brave and uncomplaining. His dimmed and mournful eyes looked up in mute appeal to his young commander. He knew that he was going fast, and that whatever rescue might come to these, his surviving fellow-soldiers, there would be none for him; and yet in his supreme moment he seemed to read the question on Blakely's lips, and his words, feeble and broken, were framed to answer.

"Couldn't--you hear 'em, lieutenant?" he gasped. "I can't be--mistaken. I know--the old--Springfield _sure_! I heard 'em way off--south--a dozen shots," and then a spasm of agony choked him, and he turned, writhing, to hide the anguish on his face. Blakely grasped the dying soldier's hand, already cold and limp and nerveless, and then his own voice seemed, too, to break and falter.

"Don't try to talk, Carmody; don't try! Of course you are right. It must be some of our people. They'll reach us soon. Then we'll have the doctor and can help you. Those saddle-bags!" he said, turning sharply to the whimpering creature kneeling by them, and the lad drew hand across his streaming eyes and pa.s.sed the worn leather pouches. From one of them Blakely drew forth a flask, poured some brandy into its cup and held it to the soldier's lips. Carmody swallowed almost eagerly. He seemed to crave a little longer lease of life. There was something tugging at his heartstrings, and presently he turned slowly, painfully again. "Lieutenant," he gasped, "I'm not scared to die--this way anyhow. There's no one to care--but the boys--but there's one thing"--and now the stimulant seemed to reach the failing heart and give him faint, fluttering strength--"there's one thing I ought--I ought to tell. You've been solid with the boys--you're square, and I'm not--I haven't always been. Lieutenant--I was on guard--the night of the fire--and Elise, you know--the French girl--she--she's got most all I saved--most all I--won, but she was trickin' me--all the time, lieutenant--me and Downs that's gone--and others. She didn't care.

You--you aint the only one I--I--"

"Lieutenant!" came in excited whisper, the voice of Stern, and there at his post in front of the cave he knelt, signaling urgently.

"Lieutenant, quick!"

"One minute, Carmody! I've got to go. Tell me a little later." But with dying strength Carmody clung to his hand.

"I must tell you, lieutenant--now. It wasn't Downs's fault. She--she made--"