The words were hardly spoken and the sergeant had barely reached the fireplace, when, as if in antic.i.p.ation of this movement, two figures leaped over the end of the log nearest the perpendicular rock, ran to the corner formed by the cabin and the wall, and by the aid of the dovetailed ends of the logs clambered quickly to the roof. I sent a shot at them, but it had no effect.

No sooner had they reached the roof than they threw the flaming brands and coal of our bonfire down the chimney, where they broke into fragments and rolled over the floor, setting fire to the scattered straw and plumes.

Busy putting stops into the windows, and fastening them and the doors, we could do nothing to extinguish the fire before it got well under way.

A blanket was thrown over the top of the chimney to prevent a draught, and soon the whole interior was thick with stifling smoke.

The horses plunged frantically, sending the fire in every direction.

Our eyes began to smart painfully, and we felt ourselves suffocating and choking in the thick and poisonous atmosphere.

To remain in the house was to be burned alive; to leave it was to perish, perhaps, in a still more horrible way. Just as I was on the brink of despair, the sergeant gasped rather than spoke:

"They are here, lieutenant. Hark! Hark!"

Ping! Ping! We heard the sound of rifle-shots, accompanied by a good, honest, Anglo-Saxon cheer. Was there ever sweeter music?

The war-whoops ceased, the blanket was quickly withdrawn from the chimney-top, and two thuds on the east side of the cabin showed the Indians had left the roof. A general scurrying of feet and other thuds down the perpendicular wall back of the spring were evidence that the besiegers were in full and demoralized flight.

We threw the doors open, and our friends rushed in, and before a greeting was uttered feet and b.u.t.ts of rifles were sweeping brands and straw into the fireplace, and the roaring draught was fast clearing the air.

Before I had fairly recovered my sight, and while still engaged in wiping away the tears the smoke had excited to copious flow, I heard a sobbing voice near me say:

"Oh, Franky, brother, if it had not been for dear little Vicky what would have happened to you?"

Blinking my eyes open, I saw the boy corporals with their right arms about each other's neck, holding their Spencers by the muzzles in their left hands.

"Why, Henry," I said, "you did not make that march with the men?"

"Couldn't keep him back, sir," answered Corporal Coffey. "Said his place was with his brother. Made the march like a man, and fired the first shot when we turned the bluff."

We shook hands all round, and then went out to see whether the volleys of the rescuing party had inflicted any punishment upon the Navajos.

Two dead Indians lay near the cabin, and farther away the one that had fallen when attempting to remove the obstacle before the log.

There were traces of others having been wounded.

A fire was promptly kindled outside the cabin, and we sat about it for a time to rest and enjoy a lunch. The horses had been somewhat singed about the legs, but were not disabled. An hour afterwards Sergeant Cunningham placed Corporal Henry on his pony, Chiquita, and we started for the valleys.

At daybreak the day after we left Jemez we reached camp, and on the evening of the same day the detachment we had left behind for a rest also arrived, without adventure on the march. Cordova and his son at once set out on the trail of the Navajos, whom we reported to be in possession of their animals, to ascertain why they were in our vicinity.

After four days' scouting the Mexicans returned with the information that they found the Indians had left their camp on the Jemez road after their defeat. They had struck straight through the hills for the Rio Grande, where they joined the main body, the same which had attacked us the day after our arrival in the valleys, and which had recently made several successful raids on the flocks and herds near Pena Blanca and Galisteo.

It was the guide's opinion that the party which had besieged me in the cabin had been to the valleys to see what chance there was of running captured stock through there. Their report must have been favorable, for Cordova said a detachment of forty-seven Navajos was now encamped in Los Vallecitos, apparently intending to pa.s.s us the following night with a large number of cattle, horses, mules, and sheep.

I began at once to make preparations to retake the stolen stock and to capture the Navajos.

That the Navajos, if they were watching our movements, might not surmise we knew of their presence near us, I ordered the scouting party and huntsmen not to go out next morning, and all the men to keep within the limits of the parade.

The next evening I marched all the company, except the guard, including the boy corporals, by way of the reserved trail into the valley of St. Anthony, and entered La Puerta from the western end.

This was done for fear some advance-guard of the redmen might witness our movement if we went by the usual way, and because so large a party might leave a trail visible to the keenly observant enemy even by starlight, and there would be moonlight before we could cross the valley.

It was my intention to make an ambush in La Puerta. In the narrowest part of that canon, where it was barely fifty yards wide, the walls rose perpendicularly on each side. A hundred yards east and west of this narrowest portion of the pa.s.s were good places of concealment. I placed Sergeant Cunningham and thirteen men at the western end, and took as many and the boys with me to the eastern.

The sergeant was instructed to keep his men perfectly quiet until the head of the herd had pa.s.sed their place of concealment, and then, under cover of the noise made by the moving animals, to slip down into the canon, and when the rear of the herd came up make a dash across the front of the Indians and begin firing, taking care not to hit us.

For myself, I intended to drop into the pa.s.s with my detachment when the Navajo rear had pa.s.sed, deploy, and bag the whole party and the booty.

It was a long and tiresome wait before the raiders appeared. The men had been told that they might sleep, and many of them had availed themselves of the permission.

The moon rose soon after ten o'clock, and made our surroundings plainly visible in the rarefied atmosphere peculiar to the arid region of the plains and Rockies. I sat on a bowlder and watched through the tedious hours until three o'clock, when Corporal Frank approached from the direction of the place where his brother was sleeping.

"What sound is that, Mr. Duncan?" he whispered.

I listened intently, and presently heard the distant bleating of sheep, and soon after the deeper low of an ox.

"The Indians must be approaching," I replied. "You may stir up the men. Be careful that no noise is made."

I continued to listen, and after a long time noticed a sound like the rushing of wind in a pine forest. It was the myriad feet of the coming flocks and herds, hurrying along the gra.s.sy valley. The men began to a.s.semble about me, all preserving perfect silence, listening for the approaching Indians.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed, and over a roll in the surface of the valley, revealed against the sky, looking many times their actual size in the uncertain perspective, appeared two tall figures, whose nearer approach showed to be mounted Indians piloting the captured stock, which followed close behind.

"Corporal Henry," I said, "drop carefully down into the trail and skirt closely along the wall until you come to Sergeant Cunningham's position, and tell him the Indians are close by. Tell him also to allow the two Indians in advance to pa.s.s unmolested."

I sent this order by the younger boy because I suspected he was feeling that Corporal Frank's expedition to Jemez, with the adventures of the return trip, had given him a certain prominence to be envied. I meant Henry should divide honors with his brother hereafter.

The little corporal silently disappeared beneath the wall, and a few minutes afterwards the two Indians entered the defile, and the goats and sheep, which had been spread widely over the open valley, scampered, crowded, and overleaped one another as they closed into the narrow way. There seemed to be fully two thousand of them, intermingled with a motley herd of horses, mules, a.s.ses, and kine of all sizes and descriptions, numbering three hundred or more, all driven by a party of seventy-three Indians.

The cattle-thieves were evidently congratulating themselves upon having run the gantlet of the military camp and being out of danger, for they had abandoned the traditional reserve of the Indian race, and were talking loudly and hilariously as they pa.s.sed my wing of the ambuscade. The Indians fell completely into the trap, and they and the cattle with them were captured without any difficulty.

During the winter our supply of grain ran short, and I sent a party, with the Cordovas as guides, to Jemez. They were unable to get through the snow, and the elder Cordova was so badly frost-bitten that in spite of all we could do he died in the camp.

Then I went with a larger party, and was successful. On June 1st orders came to break up the camp, and on the 9th the acc.u.mulated stores of nineteen months' occupation were packed, and with a train of ten wagons we set out for Santa Fe.

VI

CROSSING THE RIVER

Two days after my arrival at the Territorial capital I was ordered to proceed alone to Los Pinos, a town two hundred miles south, in the valley of the Rio Grande, and report to Captain Bayard, commanding officer of a column preparing for a march to Arizona.

On reaching AlG.o.dones, on the eastern bank of the great river, I was visited by a Catholic priest. He told me that Manuel Perea, the Mexican lad with whom the boy corporals were so friendly at Santa Fe, was a prisoner in the hands of Elarnagan, a chief of the Navajos. He begged me to a.s.sist in his release, and I promised to do all I could, consistently with my military duty. Two days after arriving at Los Pinos, where I found a troop of California volunteer cavalry and also another troop of New Mexican volunteers, the boy corporals unexpectedly arrived. Colonel Burton had changed his plans and had allowed them to accompany me. They at once asked to be a.s.signed to duty, and I promised to consult with Captain Bayard.

My interview with him concluded, I returned to my tent and found the boys busy in fitting up two cot bedsteads, spreading mats before them, hanging a small mirror to the rear tent-pole, and arranging their marching outfit as they proposed to set it up at every encampment between the Rio Grande and Prescott.

"Did you have this tent pitched for our use, sir?" asked Henry.

"I did not know you were coming, corporal, so that is impossible. Your tent was placed here some days ago by the post commander, for the accommodation of visiting officers who have since gone. Captain Bayard has a.s.signed it to you."