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 above
the edge of a gully, either incident resulting in a quick interchange
of fire. That was all; yet the experienced frontiersmen knew that eyes