Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/200

 Ross, aide-de-camp to the General, was waiting for the movement, and struck the arm of the murderer so that the bullet was deflected upwards, and the life of the General was saved. The scrimmage became a perfect Kilkenny fight in another second or two, and every man made for the man nearest to him, the Indian who had given the signal being grasped in the vise-like grip of Hank Hewitt, with whom he struggled vainly. Hewitt was a man of great power and able to master most men other than professional athletes or prize-fighters; the Indian was not going to submit so long as life lasted, and struggled, bit, and kicked to free himself, but all in vain, as Hank had caught him from the back of the head, and the red man was at a total disadvantage. Hewitt started to drag his captive to the guard-house, but changed his mind, and seizing the Apache-Mojave by both ears pulled his head down violently against the rocks, and either broke his skull or brought on concussion of the brain, as the Indian died that night in the guard-house.

Others of the party were killed and wounded, and still others, with the ferocity of tigers, fought their way out through our feeble lines, and made their way to the point of rendezvous at the head of the Santa Maria. Word was at once sent to them by members of their own tribe that they must come in and surrender at once, or else the whole party must expect to be punished for what was originally the crime of a few. No answer was received, and their punishment was arranged for; they were led to suppose that the advance was to be made from Date Creek, but, after letting them alone for several weeks—just long enough to allay to some extent their suspicions—Crook pushed out a column of the Fifth Cavalry under command of Colonel Julius W. Mason, and by forced marches under the guidance of a strong detachment of Hualpai scouts, the encampment of the hostiles was located just where the Hualpais said it would be, at the "Muchos Cañones," a point where five cañons united to form the Santa Maria; and there the troops and the scouts attacked suddenly and with spirit, and in less than no time everything was in our hands, and the enemy had to record a loss of more than forty. It was a terrible blow, struck at the beginning of winter and upon a band which had causelessly slaughtered a stageful of our best people, not as an act of war, which would have been excusable, but as an act of highway robbery, by sneaking off the reservation where the