THE LAST DAY IN DEAD MAN’S GULCH.
Only a few seconds and Egbert Rodman was in the middle of the encampment, breathless and wild.
“The whole horde of Indians are coming back!” he called out, as soon as he could frame the words. “They are but a short distance away and will be here in the next minute!”
The words had scarcely been uttered when the borders of the gulch were swarming with yelling Comanches. The women had barely time to scramble under shelter, when the red-skins were upon them.
“Fire, as you can load and aim!” called out Captain Shields, while yet his men were leaping to their places. “Don’t wait, but let them have it! We may as well die fighting like men!”
Crack! crack! barked the rifles of the scouts, in a regular fusillade among the horsemen, the fatal results being instantly seen, in the Comanches here and there dropping from the backs of their mustangs.
This destructive fire accomplished the best thing possible, in that it prevented the wholesale charge that was so much to be dreaded; as it could not fail to be deadly fatal almost on the instant.
The incessant sleet of bullets sent into the ranks of the red-skins created an unexpected confusion, and just as our friends had reached the last round of their ammunition, they fell back out of range, and dismounting, crept to the edge of the gulch and began firing down upon the encampment, just as the scouts themselves would have done had the position been reversed.
Despite the exaggerated assertion of the startled Egbert, as he dashed into the camp, Captain Shields became well satisfied from the glimpse he had gained, that the Comanche force was divided, and he was now fighting against only a portion of those against whom he had been pitted before, the others, as he rightly suspected, having followed on in the pursuit of the flying messenger, and with the purpose of entrapping and ambuscading the cavalry that would be sent, in all probability, to the rescue of the little band of whites.
But there was little consolation to be derived from this discovery, as there were certainly over a hundred Comanches at hand, and they unquestionably had the power, when they should choose to put it forth, to crush out of existence himself and every one of his brave men. One single determined charge, a few minutes’ appalling conflict around the wagons, and then not a man need be left to tell the awful tale of the last appalling massacre of Dead Man’s Gulch.
The red-skins kept up the cautious policy of lying flat upon their faces, just over the edge of the ravine, and aiming deliberately down into the encampment. By this time the canvas of the wagons was riddled, and knowing pretty well at what points to aim, the greatest caution was necessary upon the part of the scouts to escape the bullets that were flying all about them.
Fully a dozen of these merciless wretches directed their exclusive attention to the wagon which they knew contained the helpless members of the party, and such a steady fire was kept up on it that the canvas in a few minutes looked like a sieve, pierced in every part by bullets, many of which imbedded themselves in the impenetrable planks of which the wagon-body was composed.
This was the first time since the opening of this dreadful siege that such a demonstration was made, and the unrelenting malignity which characterized it, excited the wonder of the scouts, who believed that the Comanches were so infuriated at the losses already suffered, that some of the survivors who may have lost their closest relatives, were bent upon exterminating every one, man, woman and child, without awaiting what might be considered the inevitable capture of the females.
But provision had been made against this very thing from the first. The sides of the vehicle, behind the canvas, had been walled up with packages and bundles, in such a skillful fashion, that so long as the little party could be made to keep between them and near the center of the wagon-body, they were as impervious to the rifle-shots as if incased in an ironclad of the navy.
This steady stream of fire from the boundary of the gulch continued until the greater portion of the day had passed. So long as it continued without any concentration upon the part of the Comanches, Captain Shields was satisfied, for nothing short of a cannonade could demolish the barricades that had withstood such a terrific fire for so many hours.
With the sole purpose of preventing any coup d’état upon the part of the red-skins, the intrepid captain called to his men to send a shot among them now and then, taking care, however, that in every case the rifleman discharged his gun at a fair target.
These opportunities, fortunately for our friends, were few, and they were thus saved the fatal revelation that could have had but one terrible result upon the part of the valiant defenders.
Captain Shields was thus kept so incessantly employed, both in body and mind, that he had little time in which to think of the apparition, and the ominous warning which he fervently believed it foreshadowed; but, now and then, in the heat of the conflict, it came to him with its dreadful depression of spirits, and made him sigh and wish that the “last minute” would come and the agony end.
This fearful fire continued until darkness descended upon the prairie, and when the light failed, a lull came so sudden as to cause a ringing and peculiar lightness of the head that almost drove away the senses of those that remained.
Captain Shields waited a few minutes, and finding a possibility of this quiet lasting for a short time, he determined to make the round, and exchange a few words with his friends. He was alone in the wagon which he had chosen for his sentry-box, and stealing cautiously out, he hurried across the clearing to that containing the women and children. He found them stunned, paralyzed and nearly dead from the awful ordeal through which they had passed, but a little inquiry proved them all untouched by the bullets that had been sent so inhumanly after them.
Then he made the rounds of the other vehicles, and a blood-chilling discovery awaited him. Out of the five defenders besides himself, only one, Egbert Rodman, remained alive, the other four having been struck and killed by the balls of the Comanches!
“What is the use?” said the stunned officer as he took the hand of the young man and helped him out upon the green sward; “we two are the only ones left, and I have fired my last round of ammunition, even to my pistols.”
“So have I,” returned Egbert; “we may as well go to the women and die defending them. The last moment is at hand.”
“It is here!” said Captain Shields, in a clear voice. “Look! there they come!”
As he spoke, he pointed up the sides of the gulch, where, in the dim light of the early night, the horsemen were seen gathering for the final charge. The next moment it came!