Then,
leaving him at the edge of the pool, and kicking before them the one
cowed and cowering shirker 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.
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