,
gloomy, contracted gorge, a mere gash between those towering hills
shadowing its depths on either hand. A swift mountain stream, noisy
and clear as crystal, dashed from rock to rock close beside the more
northern wall, while the ill-defined pathway, strewn with bowlders and
guarded by underbrush, clung to the opposite side, where low scrub
trees partially obscured the view.

All was silent as death when they entered. Not so much as the flap of
a wing or the stir of a leaf roused suspicion, yet they had barely
advanced a short hundred paces when those apparently bare rocks in
front flamed red, the narrow defile echoed to wild screeches and became
instantly crowded with weird, leaping figures. It was like a plunge
from heaven into hell. Blaine and Endicott sank at the first fire;
Watt, his face picturing startled surprise, reeled from his saddle,
clutching at the air, his horse dashing madly forward and dragging him,
head downward, among the sharp rocks; while Wyman's stricken arm
dripped blood. Indeed, under that sudden shock, he fell, and was
barely rescued by the prompt action of the man beside him. Dropping
the opened book, and firing madly to left and right with a revolver
which appeared to spring into his hand as by magic, the latter coolly
dragged the fainting soldier across the more exposed space, until the
two found partial security among a mass of loosened rocks littering the
base of the precipice. The others who survived that first scorching
discharge also raced toward this same shelter, impelled thereto by the
unerring instinct of border fighting, and flinging themselves flat
behind protecting bowlders, began responding to the hot fire rained
upon them.

Scattered and hurried as these first volleys were, they proved
sufficient to check the howling demons in the open. It has never been
Indian nature to face unprotected the aim of the white men, and those
dark figures, which only a moment before thronged the narrow gorge,
leaping crazily in the riot of apparent victory, suddenly melted from
sight, slinking down into leafy coverts beside the stream or into holes
among the rocks, like so many vanishing prairie-dogs. The fierce
yelpings died faintly away in distant echoes, while the hideous roar of
conflict diminished to the occasional sharp crackling of single rifles.
Now and then a sinewy brown arm might incautiously project across the
gleaming surface of a rock, or a mop of coarse black hair appear