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We returned to the encampment, and two hours afterwards we saw the Mexicans in full retreat towards the rising sun. That night was one of mourning; our success had been complete, but dearly purchased. The Arrapahoes alone had not suffered. The Apaches had lost thirty men, the Shoshones one hundred and twelve, killed and wounded, and the Montereyans several of their most respected young citizens.
At the two shots, surmising that the prospector had shot himself and his horse, the Apaches did not wait for the signal, but sprang forward and climbed upon the wall before Lane had had time to mount it. Two of them he shot as they leaped down within the enclosure.
Across the train of Lennon's thoughts fell a black shadow of suspicion. Was it possible that the girl had acted as a decoy to lure him into this ill-omened Dead Hole? She had previously brought in another man, who had in effect been murdered, after paying ransom. In his own case, the girl had herself suffered far too much during their flight from the Apaches for the pursuit to have been a sham.
So the Tonto Apaches made a raid on the Hassayamp, and carried off nearly all the stock. King Woolsey had come into the country then, and was a prominent man among the settlers, and undoubtedly a very brave one; so he raised a company to go after the Tontos. There were not more than twenty-five men, including some friendly Maricopas.
Another fierce race for the last hundred yards, with the Apaches closing in more and more, and the fate of the fugitives seemed sealed, when, just as the enemy gave a fierce yell of triumph, rising in their stirrups to lash their panting little steeds into an accelerated pace, the rock suddenly seemed to flash, and a sharp sputtering fire to dart from the zigzag path.
They had killed fourteen of his men and stolen much of his property; but he and his men had killed several times fourteen of Cochise's warriors and had wrought devastation in proportion. Did that pay the Apaches? Well, then, why keep on with it? He knew good things of Cochise and had respect for him. Cochise knew who he was and the sort of man he was.
It may seem to have been unfortunate in the one thing, that it caused the lad to go away without his horse; but he would have left the latter had he been given his chance, for he believed that while the trail of the animal could be followed without trouble, and might secure his being run to the ground in the end, yet he could readily find the means of hiding his own footsteps from the most skillful of the Apaches.
Apaches beyond doubt, a dozen, and coming this way, and these, too, have a couple of horses. Can they have overpowered his men, ambushed and murdered them, then secured their mounts? Is the whole Chiricahua tribe, reinforced by a swarm from the Sierra Blanca, concentrating on him now? The silence about him is ominous.
No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.
One of the redskins passed almost within arm's length of him, never suspecting, as a matter of course, that he was brought into such proximity to a mortal enemy. Mickey only breathed until assured that there was quite a distance between him and the Apaches.
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