In thirty
seconds the cliff was as bare of Apaches as but the moment before it
had been dotted. Something, in the moment when their savage plans and
triumph seemed secure, had happened to alarm the entire party. With
warning shouts and signals they were scurrying out of the deep ravine,
scattering, apparently, northward. But even as they fled to higher
ground there was order and method in their retreat. While several of
their number clambered up the steep, an equal number lurked in their
covert, and Blakely's single shot was answered instantly by half a
dozen, the bullets striking and splashing on the rocks, the arrows
bounding or glancing furiously. Stern ducked within, out of the storm.
Blakely, flattening like hunted squirrel close to the parapet, flung
down his empty carbine and strove to reach another, lying loaded at
the southward loophole, and at the outstretched hand there whizzed an
arrow from aloft whose guiding feather fairly seared the skin, so
close came the barbed messenger. Then up the height rang out a shrill
cry, some word of command in a voice that had a familiar tang to it,
and that was almost instantly obeyed, for, under cover of sharp,
well-aimed fire from aloft, from the shelter of projecting rock or
stranded bowlder, again there leaped into sight a few scattered,
sinewy forms that rushed in bewildering zigzag up the steep, until
safe beyond their supports, when they, too, vanished, and again the
cliff stood barren of Apache foemen as the level of the garrison
parade.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243