176 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
miles when, as it seemed, at the roughest part of the whole 
way, where nature had made a sort of waste closet at random 
for all the shapeless blocks and sharp-cornered masses of rock 
and washed-out boulders that she had no time to work up 
and wished to hide from sight, we suddenly heard a shot from — 
the brink of the cafion at our rear, and the dreaded war- 
whoop burst upon us. Then we looked up to the right and 
left, ahead and to the rear ; but the walls seemed everywhere as 
tall as a church-steeple, with scarcely a foot-hold from top to — 
base. They had looked high before, and the chasm narrow, 
but now it seemed as though we were looking up from the 
bottom of a deep well or a tin-mine, and no bucket to draw _ 
us up by. Soon the shots were repeated, and the yells were 
followed by showers of arrows. We staggered and stumbled, 
about as fast as a very slow ox-team, along the rocky bed, 
till we came to some bushes, and then stopped. 
Some of the Indians had got on the edge of the cafion 
ahead of us, whose yells answered those from the rear; and 
the whole concatenation of sounds echoed among the cliffs till 
it seemed to us that every rancheria in Arizona had poured 
out its dusky warriors to overwhelm us. 
It was a yell of triumph—of confidence. It appeared to 
say, ‘‘Oh, ye wise and boastful white men, with your drilled 
soldiers and repeating guns, and wealth and power, who came 
out to hunt the poor Indian from his wigwam, look where we 
have got you! We have only been waiting for you to make 
some blunder; now we shall take advantage of it, and not 
let any of you escape. It shall be worse than at Fort 
Kearney, for not even one shall be spared to tell the story. It 
will be a good place to bury you; in fact, you are already 
buried in as deep a grave as you could wish. We shall only 
leave you there, that is all, ha! ha! What are your Spencer 
>. 
Ser oS ee 
