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
canon, skirting the long drawn-out column of files until, far in the
lead, he could overtake the senior sergeant and deliver his message.
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