" had been shared, the last scrap of bacon long since
devoured. Of the once-abundant rations only coffee grains were left.
Of the cartridge-crammed "thimble belts," with which they had entered
the canon and the Apache trap, only three contained so much as a
single copper cylinder, stopped by its forceful lead. These three
belonged to troopers, two of whom, at least, would never have use for
them again. One of these, poor Jerry Kent, lay buried beneath the
little cairn of rocks in still another cavelike recess a dozen yards
away, hidden there by night, when prowling Apaches could not see the
sorrowing burial party and crush them with bowlders heaved over the
precipice above, or shoot them down with whistling lead or
steel-tipped arrow from some safe covert in the rocky walls.

Cut off from their comrades while scouting a side ravine, Captain Wren
and his quartette of troopers had made stiff and valiant fight against
such of the Indians as permitted hand or head to show from behind the
rocks. They had felt confident that Sergeant Brewster and the main
body would speedily miss them, or hear the sound of firing and turn
back _au secours_, but sounds are queerly carried in such a maze of
deep and tortuous clefts as seamed the surface in every conceivable
direction through the wild basin of the Colorado. Brewster's rearmost
files declared long after that never the faintest whisper of affray
had reached their ears, already half deadened by fatigue and the
ceaseless crash of iron-shod hoofs on shingly rock. As for Brewster
himself, he was able to establish that Wren's own orders were to "push
ahead" and try to make Sunset Pass by nightfall, while the captain,
with such horses as seemed freshest, scouted right and left wherever
possible. The last seen of Jerry Kent, it later transpired, was when
he came riding after them to say the captain had gone into the mouth
of the gorge opening to the west, and the last message borne from the
commander to the troop came through Jerry Kent to Sergeant Dusold, who
brought up the rear. They had passed the mouths of half a dozen
ravines within the hour, some on one side, some on the other, and
Dusold "passed the word" by sending Corporal Slater clattering up the
canon, skirting the long drawn-out column of files until, far in the
lead, he could overtake the senior sergeant and deliver his message.
Later, when Brewster rode back with all but the little guard left over
his few broken-down men an