“Ready, boys?  They’re near enough now.  Cover the two leaders!  Drop the first two anyhow!”

Breathless silence, thumping hearts one instant longer, then the chasm bellows with the loud reports.  The four guns are fired almost as one.  One half-naked wretch leaps high in air and falls, face downward, dead as a nail.  Another whirls about, bounds a few yards along the brook-side, and then goes splashing into a shallow pool, where he lies writhing.  The two farthest down the canon have slipped back behind the rocky shoulder.  The other two, close at hand, have rolled behind the nearest shelter and thence send harmless bullets whizzing overhead.  Costigan lets drive a wild Irish yell of triumph and delight.

“Now, then, run for it, boy.  Well done, you two, if ye are blackguards,” he calls to Moreno and his mate.  “They won’t disturb ye again for ten minutes anyhow.  Hold your post, though, till we call you back.  We’re going to block the mouth of the cave.”

Twenty minutes later and, working like beavers, Costigan and his two men have lugged rocks, logs, bales of blankets, everything, anything that can stop a bullet, and the entrance to the cave is being stoutly barricaded.  Patterson, who was sorely exposed at his post and ordered down by Lieutenant Drummond, is aiding in the work.  Wing has been carefully borne into the back cave, whither, too, the wailing, quaking Moreno women are herded and bidden to hold their peace.  There, too, Fanny and Ruth, silent, pallid perhaps, but making no moan, are now kneeling by their patient.  Costigan runs in with two buckets he has filled with water and “Little Mac” follows with half a dozen dripping canteens.  More rocks are being lifted on the barricade, convenient apertures being left through which to fire, and Costigan, feverishly eager, is making every exertion, for any minute may be the last with those plucky fellows battling there aloft.  The air rings with the shots of the encircling Apaches and with the loud report of the cavalry carbine answering the hidden foe.  Twice has Costigan implored the lieutenant to come down anyhow, so long as his crippled condition prevents his firing a gun, but Drummond pokes his bandaged head one instant over the edge to shout something to the effect that he is “on deck” until he has seen the last man down, and Costigan knows it is useless to argue.  At last the barricade is ready.  Walsh, peering grimly around, just the top of his head showing over the parapet, begs for one shot and shouts his Hibernian challenge to the Apache nation to come forth and show itself.  Drummond picks up the glasses for one final look down the desert and across the valley in search of friends who surely should be coming, cautiously places the “binocular” on the inner edge of the top of his shelving rock, then raises his head to the level.

“Fur the love o’ God, loot’n’nt, don’t sit so high up!” implores Walsh.  “They’re sure to spot—­Oh, Christ!” And down goes the poor faithful fellow, the blood welling from a deep gash along the temple.  He lies senseless at his commander’s feet.