ng all about them, but, well sheltered, they remained untouched.
The fire was too hot for the Comanches and they again withdrew.

Twice again during the day the Indians tried the same tactics with no
better result. Later they tried sharpshooting at long range, to which
Loving and Jim did not even reply. At last, late in the afternoon,
they resorted to the desperate measure of a direct charge, hoping to
ride over and shoot down the two white men. Up they came at a dead run
five or six abreast, the front rank firing as they ran. But, badly
exposed in their own persons, the fire from the buffalo-wallow made
such havoc in their front ranks that the savage column swerved, broke,
and retreated.

Night shut down. Loving and Jim ate the few biscuits they had baked
and some raw bacon. Then they counselled with one another. Their
thirst was so great, it was agreed they must have water at any cost.
They knew the Indians were unlikely to attempt another attack until
dawn, and so they decided to attempt to reach the stream shortly after
midnight. Although it was scarcely more than fifteen hundred yards,
that was a terrible journey for Loving. Compelled to crawl noiselessly
to avoid alarming the enemy, Jim could give him little assistance. But
going slowly, dragging his shattered leg behind him without a murmur,
Loving followed Jim, and they reached the river safely and drank.

It was now necessary to find new cover. For long distances the banks
of the Pecos are nearly perpendicular, and ten to twenty feet high. At
flood the swift current cuts deep holes and recesses in these banks.
Prowling along the margin of the stream, Jim found one of these
recesses wide enough to hold them both, and deep enough to afford good
defence against a fire from the opposite shore, Above them the bank
rose straight for twenty feet. Thus they could not be attacked by
firing, except from the other side of the river; and while the stream
was only thirty yards wide, the opposite bank afforded no shelter for
the enemy.

In the gray dawn the Indians crept in on the first entrenchment and
sprang inside the breastworks with upraised weapons, only to find it
deserted. However, the trail of Loving's dragging leg was plain, and
they followed it down to the river, where, coming unexpectedly in range
of the new defences, two of their number were killed outright.

Throughout the day they exhausted every device of their savage cunning
to dislodge Lo