Wyman, now reclining in agony against the base of the overhanging
cliff, directed the movements of his little command calmly and with
sober military judgment. Little by little, under protection of the
rifles of the three civilians, the uninjured infantrymen crept
cautiously about, rolling loosened bowlders forward into position,
until they finally succeeded in thus erecting a rude barricade between
them and the enemy. The wounded who could be reached were laboriously
drawn back within this improvised shelter, and when the black shadows
of the night finally shut down, all remaining alive were once more
clustered together, the injured lying moaning and ghastly beneath the
overhanging shelf of rock, and the girl, who possessed all the patient
stoicism of frontier training, resting in silence, her widely opened
eyes on those far-off stars peeping above the brink of the chasm, her
head pillowed on old Gillis's knee.
Few details of those long hours of waiting ever came forth from that
black canyon of death. Many of the men sorely wounded, all wearied,
powder-stained, faint with hunger, and parched with thirst, they simply
fought out to the bitter ending their desperate struggle against
despair. The towering, overhanging wall at their back assured
protection from above, but upon the opposite cliff summit, and easily
within rifle range, the cunning foe early discovered lodgment, and from
that safe vantage-point poured down a merciless fire, causing each man
to crouch lower behind his protecting bowlder. No motion could be
ventured without its checking bullet, yet hour after hour the besieged
held their ground, and with ever-ready rifles left more than one
reckless brave dead among the rocks. The longed-for night came dark
and early at the bottom of that narrow cleft, while hardly so much as a
faint star twinkled in the little slit of sky overhead. The cunning
besiegers crept closer through the enshrouding gloom, and taunted their
entrapped victims with savage cries and threats of coming torture, but
no warrior among them proved sufficiently bold to rush in and slay.
Why should they? Easier, safer far, to rest secure behind their
shelters, and wait in patience until the little band had fired its last
shot. Now they skulked timorously, but then they might walk upright
and glut their fiendish lust for blood.
Twice during that long night volunteers sought vainly to pierce those
lines of savage watchers. A long wailing cry of agony from out the
thick darkness told the fate of their first messenger, while Casey, of
the "X L," crept slowly, painfully back, with an Indian bullet embedded
deep in his shoulder. Just before the coming of dawn, Hampton, without
uttering a word, calmly turned up the collar of his tightly buttoned
coat, so as better to conceal the white collar he wore, gripped his
revolver between his teeth, and crept like some wriggling snake among
the black rocks and through the dense underbrush in search after water.
By some miracle of divine mercy he was permitted to pass unscathed, and
came crawling back, a dozen hastily filled canteens dangling across his
shoulders. It was like nectar to those parched, feverish throats; but
of food barely a mouthful apiece remained in the haversacks.