s Dennis's dead body; all of us, being bruised and cut and
bleeding, walked slowly and painfully; and behind us, ghastly forms torn
by bullets and crushed by blows, lay the slain Indians in all manner of
unnatural attitudes, made yet more hideous and fantastical by the
gathering gloom of night. Indeed, night now was so close upon us that
had not the canon in which we were run east and west, we would have been
for some time past in darkness. As it was, though shut off from the west
by the great range of mountains, a faint light came down into its depths
from the still bright eastern sky, where lingered ruddy reflections of
the sunset: and so we could see to pick our way, along the edge of the
little stream, among the rough masses of rock and trunks of trees which
had fallen from above.

Our march ended sooner than we had counted on. Before we had
accomplished more than half a mile of this rough travelling, there
loomed before us a wall of rock which shut in the end of the canon, and
which rose as high and as sheer as did the canon's sides. Our hearts
sank within us, for we perceived that we were in a cul-de-sac; whence
escape was possible only along the way by which we had come--and so to
return, with the Indians still in wait for us, was to walk straight into
the jaws of death. And, further, if our course in this direction was cut
off, it was evident that the King's symbol graved upon the rock at the
entrance of the canon was a useless and misleading sign.

In the hope that we might find a sharp turn, not to be perceived until
we were close upon it, we pressed on through the dusk until we came to
the very end of the canon, and the dark wall of rock that barred our way
rose directly above our heads. And then we found, not a turn in the
canon, but a narrow opening (through which came forth the little stream)
into the body of the mountain itself. Yet we hesitated about entering
this black gap--for who could tell what depths, unseen in that dense
darkness, we might not plunge into headlong?

Much dry pine wood, branches and whole trees, lay about us in the canon;
and of this apt material Rayburn presently constructed a great torch.
Lighting this in the open canon was not to be thought of, for while we
felt tolerably certain that the main body of our enemies had not
followed us, we could not be wholly certain that they were not close
upon our heels and ready to open upon us with a volley of arrows and
spears. Rayburn there