too late; Glover uttered a yell of surprise, pain, and rage; this
time it was not his nose, but his left ear.

"Reckon they'll jest chip off all my feeturs 'fore they git done with me,"
he grinned, feeling of the wounded part. "Git my figgerhead smooth all
round."

To favor the escalade, the Apaches in the plaza had renewed their
war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but
useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general
and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold
over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of
the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure.
In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not
contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had
had enough of fighting; besides, ammunition was becoming precious. Texas
Smith alone, insatiably bloodthirsty and an independent fighter, skulked
hastily across the plaza, ambushed himself in a crevice of the ruin, and
took a couple of shots at the savages as they mounted their ponies at the
foot of the hill and skedaddled loosely across the plain.

When he returned he croaked out, with an unusual air of excitement, "Big
thing!"

"What is a pig ding?" inquired Sergeant Meyer.

"Never see Injuns make such a fight afore."

"Nor I," assented Meyer.

"Stranger, they fowt first-rate," affirmed Smith, half admiring the
Apaches. "How many did we save?"

"Here are vour in our room, und the leftenant says there are three on the
roof, und berhabs we killed vour or vive outside."

"A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the
dead uns."

Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and
immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the
three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them
into the plaza.

"That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction,
like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he
looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment
which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!"

"I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of
burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not."

Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of
love. A crevice in the northern wal