Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/230

 no eye could pierce it, but over on our left it seemed that for some reason we could still discern several figures guarding that extremity of the enemy's line—the old "Medicine Man," who, decked in all the panoply of his office, with feathers on head, decorated shirt on back, and all the sacred insignia known to his people, had defied the approach of death, and kept his place, firing coolly at everything that moved on our side that he could see, his rifle reloaded and handed back by his assistants—either squaws or young men—it was impossible to tell which, as only the arms could be noted in the air. Major Brown signalled up to Burns to stop pouring down his boulders, and at the same time our men were directed to cease firing, and to make ready to charge; the fire of the Apaches had ceased, and their chant of defiance was hushed. There was a feeling in the command as if we were about to rush through the gates of a cemetery, and that we should find a ghastly spectacle within, but, at the same time, it might be that the Apaches had retreated to some recesses in the innermost depths of the cavern, unknown to us, and be prepared to assail all who ventured to cross the wall in front.

Precisely at noon we advanced, Corporal Hanlon, of Company G, Fifth Cavalry, being the first man to surmount the parapet. I hope that my readers will be satisfied with the meagrest description of the awful sight that met our eyes: there were men and women dead or withing in the agonies of death, and with them several babies, killed by our glancing bullets, or by the storm of rocks and stones that had descended from above. While one portion of the command worked at extricating the bodies from beneath the pile of débris, another stood guard with cocked revolvers or carbines, ready to blow out the brains of the first wounded savage who might in his desperation attempt to kill one of our people. But this precaution was entirely useless. All idea of resistance had been completely knocked out of the heads of the survivors, of whom, to our astonishment, there were over thirty.

How any of the garrison had ever escaped such a storm of missiles was at first a mystery to us, as the cave was scarcely a cave at all, but rather a cliff dwelling, and of no extended depth. However, there were many large slabs of flat thin stone within the enclosure, either left there by Nature or carried in by the squaws, to be employed in various domestic purposes. Behind