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.
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.
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