Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/231

 and under these many of the squaws had crept, and others had piled up the dead to screen themselves and their children from the fury of our assault. Thirty-five, if I remember aright, were still living, but in the number are included all who were still breathing; many were already dying, and nearly one-half were dead before we started out of that dreadful place. None of the warriors were conscious except one old man, who serenely awaited the last summons; he had received five or six wounds, and was practically dead when we sprang over the entrance wall. There was a general sentiment of sorrow for the old "Medicine Man" who had stood up so fiercely on the left of the Apache line; we found his still warm corpse, crushed out of all semblance to humanity, beneath a huge mass of rock, which had also extinguished at one fell stroke the light of the life of the squaw and the young man who had remained by his side. The amount of plunder and supplies of all kinds was extremely great, and the band inhabiting these cliffs must have lived with some comfort. There was a great amount of food—roasted mescal, seeds of all kinds, jerked mule or pony meat, and all else that these savages were wont to store for the winter; bows and arrows in any quantity, lances, war clubs, guns of various kinds, with ammunition fixed and loose; a perfect stronghold well supplied. So much of the mescal and other food as our scouts wished to pack off on their own backs was allowed them, and everything else was given to the flames. No attempt was made to bury the dead, who, with the exception of our own Pima, were left where they fell.

Brown was anxious to get back out of the cañon, as the captive squaws told him that there was another "rancheria" in the Superstition Mountains on the south side of the cañon, and it was probable that the Indians belonging to it would come up just as soon as they heard the news of the fight, and attack our column in rear as it tried to make its way back to the top of the precipice. The men who were found dancing by Ross had, just that moment, returned from a raid upon the Pima villages and the outskirts of Florence, in the Gila valley, where they had been successful in getting the ponies we recovered, as well as in killing some of the whites and friendly Indians living there. We had not wiped out all the band belonging to the cave; there were six or seven of the young women who had escaped and made their way down to the foot of the precipice, and on into the current of the Salado; they