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He thundered all this out as sternly as if he were commanding troops. Because
he was a man, Clara obeyed him; and notwithstanding he was a man, Mrs.
Stanley obeyed him. Both were so bewildered with surprise and terror as to be
in a kind of animal condition of spirit, knowing just enough to submit at once to
the impulse of an imperious voice. The riderless horse, equally frightened and
equally subordinate, was hurried to the rear of the leading wagon and handed
over to a muleteer.

By the time this work was done the foremost riders of the assailants were
within two hundred yards of the head of the train, letting drive their arrows at
the flying Mexican vedettes and uttering yells fit to raise the dead, while their comrades
behind, whooping also, stormed along under a trembling and flickering of
lances. The little, lean, wiry horses were going at full speed, regardless of
smooth faces of rock and beds of loose stones. The blackguards were over a
hundred in number, all lancers and archers of the first quality.

The vedettes never pulled up until they were in rear of the hindermost
wagon, while their countrymen on the flanks and rear made for the same poor
shelter. The drivers were crouching almost under their seats, and the muleteers
were hiding behind their animals. Thus it was evident that the entire
brunt of the opening struggle would fall upon Thurstane and his people; that,
if there was to be any resistance at all, these five men must commence it, and,
for a while at least, “go it alone.”

The little squad of regulars, at this moment a few yards in front of the foremost
wagon, was drawn up in line and standing steady, precisely as if it were a
company or a regiment. Sergeant Meyer was on the right, veteran Kelly on
the left, the two recruits in the centre, the pieces at a shoulder, the bayonets
fixed. As Thurstane rode up to this diminutive line of battle, Meyer was
shouting forth his sharp and decisive orders. They were just the right orders;
excited as the young officer was, he comprehended that there was nothing to
change; moreover, he had already learned how men are disconcerted in battle
by a multiplicity of directions. So he sat quietly on his horse, revolver in hand,
his blue-black eyes staring angrily at the coming storm.

“Kelly, reserfe your fire!” yelled Meyer. “Recruits, ready—bresent—aim
—aim low—fire!”

Simultaneously with the report a horse in the leading group of charging savages
pitched headlong on his nose and rolled over, sending his rider straight
forward into a rubble of loose shales, both lying as they fell, without movement.
Half a dozen other animals either dropped on their haunches or sheered violently
to the right and left, going off in wild plunges and caracolings. By this
one casualty the head of the attacking column was opened and its seemingly resistless

impetus checked and dissipated, almost before Meyer could shout, “Recruits,
load at will, load!”

A moment previous this fiery cavalry had looked irresistible. It seemed to
have in it momentum, audacity, and dash enough to break a square of infantry
or carry a battery of artillery. The horses fairly flew; the riders had the air of
centaurs, so firm and graceful was their seat; the long lances were brandished
as easily as if by the hands of footmen; the bows were managed and the arrows
sent with dazzling dexterity. It was a show of brilliant equestrianism, surpassing
the feats of circus riders. But a single effective shot into the centre of the
column had cleft it as a rock divides a torrent. It was like the breaking of a
water-spout.

The attack, however, had only commenced. The Indians who had swept off
to right and left went scouring along the now motionless train, at a distance of
sixty or eighty yards, rapidly enveloping it with their wild caperings, keeping in
constant motion so as to evade gunshots, threatening with their lances or discharging
arrows, and yelling incessantly. Their main object so far was undoubtedly
to frighten the mules into a stampede and thus separate the wagons.
They were not assaulting; they were watching for chances.

“Keep your men together, Sergeant,” said Thurstane. “I must get those
Mexicans to work.”

He trotted deliberately to the other end of the train, ordering each driver as
he passed to move up abreast of the leading wagon, directing the first to the
right, the second to the left, and so on. The result of this movement would of
course be to bring the train into a compact mass and render it more defensible.
The Indians no sooner perceived the advance than they divined its object and
made an effort to prevent it. Thurstane had scarcely reached the centre
of the line of vehicles when a score or so of yelling horsemen made a caracoling,
prancing charge upon him, accompanying it with a flight of arrows. Our young
hero presented his revolver, but they apparently knew the short range of the
weapon, and came plunging, curveting onward. Matters were growing serious,
for an arrow already stuck in his saddle, and another had passed through his hat.
Suddenly there was a bang, bang of firearms, and two of the savages went
down.

Meyer had observed the danger of his officer, and had ordered Kelly to fire,
blazing away too himself. There was a headlong, hasty scramble to carry off
the fallen warriors, and then the assailants swept back to a point beyond accurate
musket shot. Thurstane reached the rear of the train unhurt, and found
the six Mexican cattle-drivers there in a group, pointing their rifles at such Indians
as made a show of charging, but otherwise doing nothing which resembled
fighting. They were obviously panic-stricken, one or two of them being of an
ashy-yellow, their nearest possible approach to pallor. There, too, was Coronado,
looking not exactly scared, but irresolute and helpless.

“What does this mean?” Thurstane stormed in Spanish. “Why don't you
shoot the devils?”

“We are reserving our fire,” stammered Coronado, half alarmed, half ashamed.

Thurstane swore briefly, energetically, and to the point. “Damned pretty
fighting!” he went on. “If we had reserved our fire, we should all have been
lanced by this time. Let drive!”

The cattle-drivers carried short rifles, of the then United States regulation
pattern, which old Garcia had somehow contrived to pick up during the war
perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers. Supported by Thurstane's pugnacious

presence and hurried up by his vehement orders, they began to fire.
They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at all, in fact; blazed
away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do who have become demoralized.
However, as the pieces had a range of several hundred yards, the small
bullets hissed venomously over the heads of the Indians, and one of them, by pure
accident, brought down a horse. There was an immediate scattering, a multitudinous
glinting of hoofs through the light dust of the plain, and then a rally in
prancing groups, at a safe distance.

“Hurrah!” shouted Thurstane, cheering the Mexicans. “That's very well.
You see how easy it is. Now don't let them sneak up again; and at the same
time don't waste powder.”

Then turning to one who was near him, and who had just reloaded, he said in
a calm, strong, encouraging tone—that voice of the thoroughly good officer
which comes to the help of the shaken soldier like a reinforcement—“Now, my
lad, steadily. Pick out your man; take your time and aim sure. Do you see
him?”

“Si, señor,” replied the herdsman. His coolness restored by this steady
utterance and these plain, common-sense directions, he selected a warrior in
helmet-shaped cap, blue shirt, and long boots, brought his rifle slowly to a level,
took sight, and fired. The Indian bent forward, caught the mane of his plunging
pony, hung there for a second or two, and then rolled to the ground, amid a yell
of surprise and dismay from his comrades. There was a hasty rush to secure
the body, and then another sweep backward of the loose array.

“Good!” called Thurstane, nodding and smiling at the successful marksman.
“That is the way to do it. You are a match for half a dozen of them as long as
you will keep cool.”

The besieged travellers could now look about quietly and see how matters
stood with them. The six wagons were by this time drawn up in two ranks of
three each, so as to form a compact mass. As the one which contained the
ladies had been the leader and the others had formed on it to right and left, it
was in the centre of the first rank, and consequently pretty well protected by its
neighbors. The drivers and muleteers had recovered their self-possession, and
were all sitting or standing at their posts, with their miscellaneous arms ready
for action. Not a human being had been hit as yet, and only three of the mules
wounded, none of them seriously. The Apaches were all around the train, but
none of them nearer than two hundred yards, and doing nothing but canter about
and shout to each other.

“Where is Texas Smith?” demanded Thurstane, missing that mighty hunter,
and wondering if he were a coward and had taken refuge in a wagon.

“He went off shutin' an hour ago,” explained Phineas Glover. “Reckon he's
astern somewhere.”

Glover, by the way, had been useful. In the beginning of the affray he had
brought his mule alongside of the headmost wagon, and there he had done really
valuable service by blazing away alarmingly, though quite innocuously, at the gallopading
enemy.

“It's a bad lookout for Texas,” observed the Lieutenant. “I shouldn't want
to bet high on his getting back to us.”

Coronado looked gloomy, fearing lest his trusted assassin was lost, and not
knowing where he could pick up such another.

“And how are the ladies?” asked Thurstane, turning to Glover.

“Safe 's a bug in a rug,” was the reply. “Seen to that little job myself.
Not a bugger in the hull crew been nigh 'em.”

Thurstane cantered around to the front of the wagon which contained the
two women, and called, “How are you?”

At the sound of his voice there was a rustle inside, and Clara showed her
face over the shoulder of the driver.

“So you were not hurt?” laughed the young officer. “Ah! that's bully.”

With a smile which was almost a boast, she answered, “And I was not very
frightened.”

At this, Aunt Maria struggled from between two rolls of bedding into a sitting
posture and ejaculated, “Of course not!”

“Did they hit you?” asked Clara, looking eagerly at Thurstane.

“How brave you are!” he replied, admiring her so much that he did not
notice her question.

“But I do hope it is over,” added the girl, poking her head out of the wagon.
“Ah! what is that?”

With this little cry of dismay she pointed at a group of savages who had
gathered between the train and the mouth of the cañon ahead of it.

“They are the enemy,” said Thurstane. “We may have another little tussle
with them. Now lie down and keep close.”

“Acquit yourselves like—men!” exhorted Aunt Maria, dropping back into
her stronghold among the bedding.

Sergeant Meyer now approached Thurstane, touched his cap, and said, “Leftenant,
here is brifate Sweeny who has not fired his beece once. I cannot make
him fire.”

“How is that, Sweeny?” demanded the officer, putting on the proper grimness.
“Why haven't you fired when you were ordered?”

Sweeny was a little wizened shaving of an Irishman. He was not only quite
short, but very slender and very lean. He had a curious teetering gait, and he
took ridiculously short steps in marching, as if he were a monkey who had not
learned to feel at ease on his hind legs. His small, wilted, wrinkled face, and his
expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness, were also monkey-like. At
Thurstane's reprimand he trotted close up to him with exactly the air of a circus
Jocko who expects a whipping, but who hopes to escape it by grinning.

“Why haven't you fired?” repeated his commander.

“Liftinint, I dasn't,” answered Sweeny, in the rapid, jerking, almost inarticulate
jabber which was his usual speech.

Now it is not an uncommon thing for recruits to dread to discharge their
arms in battle. They have a vague idea that, if they bang away, they will attract
the notice of some antagonist who will immediately single them out for
retaliation.

“Are you afraid anybody will hit you?” asked Thurstane.

“No, I ain't, Liftinint,” jabbered Sweeny. “I ain't afeard av them niggers a
bit. They may shoot their bow arreys at me all day if they want to. I'm afeard
of me gun, Liftinint. I fired it wonst, an' it kicked me to blazes.”

“Come, come! That won't do. Level it now. Pick out your man. Aim.
Fire.”

Thus constrained, Sweeny brought his piece down to an inclination of forty-five
degrees, shut his eyes, pulled trigger, and sent a ball clean over the most
distant Apaches. The recoil staggered him, but he recovered himself without
going over, and instantly roared out a horse-laugh.

“Ho! ho! ho!” he shouted. “That time I reckon I fetched won av 'em.

“Sweeny,” said Thurstane, “you must have hit either the sun or the moon,
I don't know which.”

Sweeny looked discomfited; the next breath he bethought himself of a saving
joke: “Liftinint, it 'ud sarve erry won av 'em right;” then another neigh of
laughter.

“I ain't afeard av the ball,” he hastened to asseverate; “it's the kick av it
that murthers me. Liftinint, why don't they put the britch to the other end av
the gun? They do in the owld counthry.”

“Load your beece,” ordered Sergeant Meyer, “and go to your bost again, to
the left of Shupert.”

The fact of Sweeny's opening fire did not cause a resumption of the close
fighting. Quiet still continued, and the leaders of the expedition took advantage
of it to discuss their situation, while the Indians gathered into little groups
and seemed also to be holding council.

“There are over a hundred warriors,” said Thurstane.

“Apaches,” added one of the Mexican herdsmen.

“What band?”

“Manga Colorada or Delgadito.”

“I supposed they were in Bernalillo.”

“That was three weeks ago,” put in Coronado.

He was in profound thought. These fellows, who had agreed to harry Bernalillo,
and who had for a time carried out their bargain, why had they come to
intercept him in the Moqui country, a hundred and twenty miles away? Did
they want to extort more money, or were they ignorant that this was his train?
And, supposing he should make himself known to them, would they spare him
personally and such others as he might wish to save, while massacring the rest
of the party? It would be a bold step; he could not at once decide upon it; he
was pondering it.

We must do full justice to Coronado's coolness and readiness. This atrocious
idea had occurred to him the instant he heard the charging yell of the
Apaches; and it had done far more than any weakness of nerves to paralyze his
fighting ability. He had thought, “Let them kill the Yankees; then I will proclaim
myself and save her; then she will be mine.” And because of these
thoughts he had stood irresolute, aiming without firing, and bidding his Mexicans
do the same. The result was that six good shots and superb horsemen,
who were capable of making a gallant fight under worthy leadership, had become
demoralized, and, but for the advent of Thurstane, might have been massacred
like sheep.

Now that three or four Apaches had fallen, Coronado had less hope of making
his arrangement. He considered the matter carefully and judiciously, but
at last he decided that he could not trust the vindictive devils, and he turned his
mind strenuously toward resistance. Although not pugnacious, he had plenty
of the desperate courage of necessity, and his dusky black eyes were very resolute
as he said to Thurstane, “Lieutenant, we trust to you.”

The young veteran had already made up his mind as to what must be done.

“We will move on,” he said. “We can't camp here, in an open plain, without
grass or water. We must get into the cañon so as to have our flanks protected.
I want the wagons to advance in double file so as to shorten the train.
Two of my men in front and two in rear; three of your herdsmen on one flank
and three on the other; Captain Glover alongside the ladies, and you and I
everywhere; that's the programme. If we are all steady, we can do it, sure.”

“They are collecting ahead to stop us,” observed Coronado.

“Good!” said Thurstane. “All I want is to have them get in a heap. It
is this attacking on all sides which is dangerous. Suppose you give your drivers
and muleteers a sharp lecture. Tell them they must fight if the Indians
charge, and not skulk inside and under the wagons. Tell them we are going to
shoot the first man who skulks. Pitch into them heavy. It's a devilish shame
that a dozen tolerably well-armed men should be so helpless. It's enough to
justify the old woman's contempt for our sex.

Coronado rode from wagon to wagon, delivering his reproofs, threats, and
instructions in the plainest kind of Spanish. At the signal to march, the drivers
must file off two abreast, commencing on the right, and move at the fastest trot
of the mules toward the cañon. If any scoundrel skulked, quitted his post, or
failed to fight, he would be pistolled instanter by him, Coronado sangre de Dios,
etc.!

While he was addressing Aunt Maria's coachman, that level-headed lady
called out, “Mr. Coronado, your very voice is cheering.”

“Mrs. Stanley, you are an example of heroism to our sex,” replied the Mexican,
with an ironical grin.

“What a brave, noble, intelligent man?” thought Aunt Maria. “If they
were only all like him!”

This business took up five minutes. Coronado had just finished his round
when a loud yell was raised by the Apaches, and twenty or thirty of them started
at full speed down the trail by which the caravan had come. Looking for the
cause of this stampede, the emigrants beheld, nearly half a mile away, a single
horseman rushing to encounter a score. It was Texas Smith, making an apparently
hopeless rush to burst through the environment of Parthians and reach
the train.

“Shall we make a sally to save him?” demanded Coronado, glancing at
Thurstane.

The officer hesitated; to divide his small army would be perilous; the
Apaches would attack on all sides and with advantage.

But the sight of one man so overmatched was too much for him, and with a
great throb of chivalrous blood in his heart, he shouted, “Charge!”