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 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 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 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.
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