over
the foreboard and guide the horse, which was now forced into a furious
gallop. Earnest in his desire to obey, Ned Chadmund did the same,
awaiting the result of this desperate attempt to escape from a most
perilous position.

The bottom of the pass was quite level and hard, but the ambulance
bounded and leaped from side to side in a way that threatened to
overturn it, and made anything like connected conversation impossible.
The speed of the party was about the same, the horsemen retaining their
position a short distance in advance of the vehicle and all nerved to
the fiery charge they believed to be inevitable. The lad, still lying
flat on his face in the bottom of the ambulance, raised his head just
enough to peer over the shoulder of the corporal at the galloping horse
and the figures of the cavalry beyond.

Suddenly the reports of a score of rifles sounded in the pass, and the
horrified lad saw fully one half of the soldiers topple out of their
saddles, riddled by the balls that had been fired from a skillfully
arranged ambush. At the same time several horses reared, plunged and
fell, fatally wounded by others of the missiles.

"Down!" shouted the corporal to Ned, who, in the excitement of the
moment, had placed his hands upon the shoulders of his friend and risen
to his knees. "Down, I say! Don't you see that they are firing at us?"

The rattling sound of the returning fire of the cavalry was heard, each
man being armed with a rifle, and the corporal rose to his knees and
lashed the galloping horse to a still greater speed.

Instead of a dozen Apaches, fully a hundred came swarming toward the
little band of soldiers, the painted warriors seeming to spring, like
the dragon's teeth of old, from the very ground. Hemmed in on every
hand, the cavalry, throwing away their rifles, which were useless in
such an emergency, and drawing their revolvers, charged straight through
the yelling horde closing in around them. Fascinated by the terrible
scene and scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Ned crawled forward
again and stared out from the front of the ambulance, while the corporal
added his voice to the terrible din by shouting to his horse, which was
plunging forward at a rate that threatened to overturn completely the
bounding vehicle.

The horsemen that were left were comparatively few and they fought like
Spartans; but Ned saw them drop one by one from their animals, until
there was only the lieutenant le