hen it is struck, smashed, and sent clattering
down into the canon by a shot fired not twenty yards away.

"Fur God's sake come quick, sir!" gasps Costigan. Then, desperate at
his loved young leader's delay, the Irishman throws a brawny arm about
him and fairly drags him to the end of the steep. Then down they go,
Costigan leading and holding up one hand to sustain Drummond in case
of accident. Down, hand under hand, to the accompaniment of cracking
rifles and answering carbines, while every other second the bullets
come "spat" upon the rocky sides, close and closer, until, panting,
almost breathless, Costigan reaches the solid bottom of the gorge and
swings Drummond to his feet beside him. Seeing their leader safely
down, the men, with one defiant shot and cheer, scurry to the edge of
the canon, and come slipping and sliding to join their comrades. At
the mouth of the cave Costigan strives to push Drummond in through the
narrow aperture left for their admission, but miscalculates his
commander's idea of the proprieties. Like gallant Craven at Mobile
Bay, Drummond will seek no safety until his men are cared for. "After
you, pilot," the chivalric sailor's last word as the green waters
engulfed his sinking ship, finds its cavalry echo in Drummond's "After
you, corporal," in this far-away canon in desert Arizona. The men have
scrambled through the gap, then Costigan, with reluctant backward
glance, is hurried in just as a flash of flame and smoke leaps
downward from the crest and the foremost Apache sends a hurried,
ill-aimed shot at the last man left. Before another shot can follow,
Drummond's arm is seized by muscular hands and he is dragged within
the gap. Two or three huge stones are rolled into place, and in an
instant through the ragged loop-holes the black muzzles of half a
dozen carbines are thrusting, and Costigan shouts exultingly, "Now,
you black-legged blackguards, come on if ye dare!"

But no Apache is fool enough to attack a strong position. Keeping well
under cover, the Indians soon line the crest and begin sending down a
rain of better-aimed bullets at the loop-holes, and every minute the
flattened lead comes zipping through. One of these fearful missiles
tears its way through Costigan's sleeve and, striking poor old Moreno
in the groin, stretches him groaning upon the floor. A glance shows
that the wound is mortal, and, despite his crimes, the men who bear
him, moaning, in to the farther cave are moved to