eutenant remained master of the whole front of
the caravan.

Meantime there was a busy popping along the flankers and through the
hinder openings in the second line of wagons. The Indians skurried,
wheeled, pranced, and yelled, let fly their arrows from a distance, dashed
up here and there with their lances, and as quickly retreated before the
threatening muzzles. The muleteers, encouraged by the presence of the
soldiers, behaved with respectable firmness and blazed away rapidly,
though not effectively. The regulars reserved their fire for close
quarters, and then delivered it to bloody purpose.

Around Sweeny, who garrisoned the left-hand wagon of the rearmost line,
the fight was particularly noisy. The Apaches saw that he was little, and
perhaps they saw that he was afraid of his gun. They went for him; they
were after him with their sharpest sticks; they counted on Sweeny. The
speck of a man sat on the front seat of the wagon, outside of the driver,
and fully exposed to the tribulation. He was in a state of the highest
Paddy excitement. He grinned and bounced like a caravan of monkeys. But he
was not much scared; he was mainly in a furious rage. Pointing his musket
first at one and then at another, he returned yell for yell, and was in
fact abusive.

"Oh, fire yer bow-arreys!" he screamed. "Ye can't hit the side av a
waggin. Ah, ye bloody, murtherin' nagers! go 'way wid yer long poles. I'd
fight a hundred av the loikes av ye wid ownly a shillelah."

One audacious thrust of a lance he parried very dexterously with his
bayonet, at the same time screeching defiantly and scornfully in the face
of his hideous assailant. But this fellow's impudent approach was too much
to be endured, and Sweeny proceeded at once to teach him to keep at a more
civil distance.

"Oh, ye pokin' blaggard!" he shouted, and actually let drive with his
musket. The ball missed, but by pure blundering one of the buck-shot took
effect, and the brave retreated out of the melee with a sensation as if
his head had been split. Some time later he was discovered sitting up
doggedly on a rock, while a comrade was trying to dig the buckshot out of
his thick skull with an arrow-point.

"I'll tache 'em to moind their bizniss," grinned Sweeny triumphantly, as
he reloaded. "The nasty, hootin' nagers! They've no rights near a white
man, anyhow."

On the whole, the attack lingered. The Apaches had done some damage. One
driver had been lanced mortally. One