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.
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