CAMP AHEAD. 181 
firing into our abandoned camp. We commended ourselves 
for early rising and pushed on, wondering what could have 
become of General Gregg’s party. Finally, the guides in- 
sisted on getting out of the cafion and striking towards 
Prescott, but I ordered them to keep a-head, feeling confident 
that we should soon meet the party or its trail. 
At last all hope seemed to be gone, and I agreed to climb 
out up the western cliff. It was as much as we could do to 
reach the top, and imagine our feelings on arriving there to 
find that we were merely on a vertical ledge of rock, and that 
immediately on the other side was the same cafion we had 
_ come along an hour before. We scrambled along the narrow 
_ ledge, however, faint from hunger and fatigue, having come 
_ nearly twenty miles on foot, up and down cafions and steep 
_ ravines, climbing through mountain passes and stumbling 
_ over the rocky bed of the streams—equivalent to at least sixty 
_ miles, as we thought, on a level road. We had had nothing 
to eat for over twenty-four hours, and very little sleep; the 
night was bitterly cold, our over-coats were left behind when 
we scaled the cliff during the Indian attack, and we had 
_ nothing to comfort us but a “Tucson blanket” each, which 
_ Scant covering can scarcely be interpreted in genteel society. 
Such was our condition when one of the party cried out, 
| “ What is that smoke?” I got out my field-glass and saw 
two fires, and some animals grazing contentedly on a distant 
‘Ail. “That is camp, boys! Orderly, fire two shots in quick 
- succession!” The shots were fired. Anxiously we listened 
for the acknowledgment. It came soon—the two welcome 
_ answering shots, and we strode on, with renewed heart. 
Now if we had not seen camp, I could have walked as many 
miles as we had already gone without giving up, but when 
_ I came within two miles of camp, and felt certain of succour, 
