THE PARTY IN DEAD MAN’S GULCH.
Leaving Lightning Jo and his party riding at a tremendous rate over the prairie to the rescue of the sorely beleaguered company in Dead Man’s Gulch, we must precede him for awhile to that terrible spot, where one of the most dreadful tragedies of the many there enacted was going on.
The party, numbering over thirty, two-thirds of whom were hardened, bronzed hunters, had been driven tumultuously into the place by the sudden appearance of the notorious Swico-Cheque and his band, where they had barely time to throw their men and horses into the roughest attitude of defense, when they were called upon to fight the screeching Comanches, in one of the most murderous and desperate hand-to-hand encounters in which they had ever been engaged.
Our readers have already learned, from the hurried words of Gibbons, something of the experience of the beleaguered whites during the two days and nights immediately following the halt, and preceding his own departure, and it is not our purpose to weary them and harrow their feelings by a recital of the horrible incidents of that stubborn fight.
When Jim Gibbons, hugging the neck of his mustang, dashed at full speed through the lines of the Comanches, he left behind him ten able-bodied men, or, more properly, ten who were still able to load, aim and fire their rifles. More than that number lay scattered around, among the wagons, on the ground, in every position, killed by the bullets of the wonderful red riders and riflemen.
The wagons, as is the practice at such times, had been run together into an irregular circle, one being placed in the center (as the safest spot), into which the women and children were tumbled, and where, for the time, they were safe from the bullets that were rattling like sleet around them, and striking down their brave defenders upon every hand.
This done, the men devoted themselves to keeping back the swarming devils, that made a perfect realization of pandemonium as they circled about the doomed band.
In what way Dead Man’s Gulch gained its name no one can tell with any certainty, but most probably from the number of massacres and deaths that had taken place within its horrid precincts. It was simply a hollow, somewhat resembling the dried-up bed of a small lake, and, instead of being properly a gulch, was more like a basin, so that to enter it from any direction, one was compelled to descend quite a slope.
The trail which the party were following led directly through the center of this place, it being by far the most feasible route, in spite of the ascent and descent, on account of the broken nature of the country both to the north and south.
Dead Man’s Gulch, occupying an area of several acres, was strewn and covered with bones, as if indeed it were the site of some ancient catacomb, that had been rent in twain by some convulsion of nature.
A slight examination would have shown that these bones were those of horses and human beings, telling in most eloquent language to the beleaguered whites that the fate which threatened them was that which had overtaken many a one before them.
Dead Man’s Gulch indeed was a favorite point of the Comanches, who were always roving the prairies in search of such bands as these, and it was consequently well known and dreaded by all who were compelled to make the journey; and the scene to which we now direct the attention of the reader was, as we have shown, a repetition of what had been enacted there time and again without number.
The first day’s fight was especially destructive upon the horses, it being found almost impossible to shelter them from the aim of the Comanches. As a consequence, the second morning found but few of these indispensable requisites in a journey of this kind. Those that had escaped, however, were secured and sheltered in such a way as to keep them from the other bullets that endeavored to seek them out.
Captain Shields, a sturdy borderer, and a man who had crossed the plains a score of times, suspected from the first that the only possible hope for his company was for some one to get through the Comanche lines to Fort Adams, and that was the reason why he so carefully protected the two or three remaining mustangs from death.
This, as a matter of course, was the last desperate resort, and was only to be attempted when it was absolutely certain that nothing else could avail.
His first hope was that by a determined and deadly resistance he could convince the red-skins that it would not pay to keep up the contest, for the warlike Comanches have the reputation of possessing discretion as well as bravery; but, in the present case, they certainly were warranted in concluding they had the game in their own hands, and, despite the murderous replies of the whites, they refused to be driven away, and kept up a dropping fire, circling round and round the hills above, and preventing any attempts of the whites to move out.
For some time Captain Shields and his men fired from behind their horses and wagons, but they soon improved on this, and taking their positions in the wagons themselves, found that they were quite well able to pick off their assailants, while they were tolerably well protected from the return fire, the red-skins being compelled to fire more at random.
And lying in this posture, they were compelled to see the remaining horses shot down, excepting the single one upon which Jim Gibbons made his escape.
And thus the fight—of itself one of the most bitter and sanguinary among the thousand and one of the West—raged, and as it raged there were exhibited some of the most daring performances upon both sides, and among them all was no loftier nor higher-souled courage than that of our heroine—the young and beautiful Lizzie Manning of Santa Fe.