hes opened fire from the brush on both sides of the
wagon-track.

The first volley came at close range; so close that in spite of the
customary poor marksmanship of their kind the Indians wounded every
man in the coach. A bullet got Tingley in the wrist. He dropped the
reins, and before he could regain them the team was running away.

The six ponies turned off from the road at the first jump and plunged
right into the midst of the Indians. Tingley could see the half-naked
savages leaping for the bridles and clawing at the stage door as they
strove to get hand-holds; but the speed was too great for them; the
old Concord went reeling and bumping through the entire party, leaving
several warriors writhing in the sand where the hoofs of the
fright-maddened broncos had spurned them.

By this time Tingley had drawn his revolver, and the two passengers
joined him in returning the fire of the enemy. Now he bent down and
picked up the reins, and within the next two hundred yards or so he
managed to swing the leaders back into the road.

From there on it was a race. The Apaches were catching up their ponies
and surging along at a dead run to overtake their victims. But
Tingley, to use the expression of the old-timers, poured the leather
into his team, and kept the long lead which he had got.

The stage pulled up at Cullen's Station with its load of wounded; and
word was sent to Wickenburg for a doctor, who arrived in time to save
the lives of the two inside passengers, although both men were shot
through the body.

Stage-driver and shotgun messenger usually saw plenty of perilous
adventures during the days of Mangus Colorado, Cochise, Victorio,
Nachez, and Geronimo; but if one was hungry for Indian-fighting in
those times he wanted to be a mule-skinner. The teamsters became so
inured to battling against Apaches that the cook who, when the savages
attacked the camp near Wickenburg one morning before breakfast, kept
on turning flapjacks during the entire fight and called his companions
to the meal at its conclusion, is but an example of the ordinary run
of wagon-hands. That incident, by the way, is vouched for in the
official history of Arizona.

Bronco Mitchel's experiences afforded another good illustration of the
hazards of freighting. In the latter seventies and the early eighties,
when Victorio, Nachez, and Geronimo were making life interesting for
settlers, he drove one of those long teams of mules which used to haul