Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/78

 those hills, but her opinion was that nothing could now be done with the people of that "rancheria," because the whole country would be alarmed with signal smokes, and every mountain would have a picket on the look-out for us. Better return to the camp and wait until everything had quieted down, and then slip out again.

There was still a good deal of growling going on, and not all of the men were satisfied with her talk. They shot angry glances at her, and freely expressed their desire to do her bodily harm, which threats she could perfectly understand without needing the slightest knowledge of our language. To keep her from slipping off as the two other squaws had done a fortnight previously, she was wrapped from head to feet with rope, so that it was all she could do to breathe, much less think of escaping. Another rope fastened her to a palo verde close to the little fire at which our coffee was made, and alongside whose flickering embers the sentinel paced as night began to draw its curtains near. She lay like a log, making not the slightest noise or movement, but to all appearances perfectly reconciled to the situation, and, after a while, fell off into a profound sleep.

We had what was known as "a running guard," which means that every man in the camp takes his turn at the duty of sentinel during the night. This made the men on post have about half to three-quarters of an hour's duty each. Each of those posted near the prisoner gave a careful look at her as he began to pace up and down near her, and each found that she was sleeping calmly and soundly, until about eleven o'clock, or maybe a few minutes nearer midnight, a recruit, who had just taken his turn on post, felt his elbows pinioned fast behind him and his carbine almost wrenched from his grasp. He was very muscular, and made a good fight to retain his weapon and use it, but it fell to the ground, and the naked woman plunged down the side of the hill straight through the chapparal into the darkness profound.

Bang! bang! sounded his carbine just as soon as he could pick it up from the ground where it lay, and bang! bang! sounded others, as men half-asleep awakened to the belief that there was a night attack. This firing promptly ceased upon Cushing's orders. There was not the slightest possible use in wasting ammunition, and in besides running the risk of hitting some of our own people. The squaw had escaped, and that was