"Lieutenant!" came in excited whisper, the voice of Stern, and there
at his post in front of the cave he knelt, signaling urgently.
"Lieutenant, quick!"
"One minute, Carmody! I've got to go. Tell me a little later." But
with dying strength Carmody clung to his hand.
"I must tell you, lieutenant--now. It wasn't Downs's fault. She--she
made--"
"Lieutenant, quick! for God's sake! They're coming!" cried the voice
of the German soldier at the wall, and wrenching his wrist from the
clasp of the dying man, Blakely sprang recklessly to his feet and to
the mouth of the cave just as Stern's carbine broke the stillness with
resounding roar. Half a dozen rifles barked their instant echo among
the rocks. From up the hillside rose a yell of savage hate and another
of warning. Then from behind their curtaining rocks half a dozen dusky
forms, their dirty white breechclouts streaming behind them, sprang
suddenly into view and darted, with goatlike ease and agility,
zigzagging up the eastward wall. It was a foolish thing to do, but
Blakely followed with a wasted shot, aimed one handed from the
shoulder, before he could regain command of his judgment. 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. It was science in savage warfare against which the drill book
of the cavalry taught no method whatsoever. Another minute and even
the shots had ceased. One glimpse more had Blakely of dingy, trailing
breechclouts, fluttering in the breeze now stirring the fringing pines
and cedars, and all that was left of the late besiegers came
clattering down the rocks in the shape of an Indian shield. Stern
would have scrambled out to nab it, but was ordered down. "Back, you
idiot, or they'll have you next!" And then they heard the feeble
voice of Wren, pleading for water and demanding to be lifted to the
light. The uproar of the final volley had roused him from an almost
deathlike stupor, and he lay staring, uncomprehending, at Carmody,
whose glazing eyes were closed, whose broken words had ceased. The
poor fellow was drifting away into the shadows with his story still
untold.