The Round-Up | Page 6

the fire of the Apaches, he piled them on top
of the upper wall in such a fashion as to form little turrets. He left an
opening in each, through which he could observe, in turn, each point of
the compass whence danger might be expected, and could fire his
Winchester without exposing himself. Then he began going from post
to post on a continuous round of self-imposed sentinel duty. "If I could
only climb the sahuaro," he thought, "and fly my red shirt as a flag, to
let the Rurales know I've flanked the enemy, it might hurry them along
in time to put a crimp in these devils before they get me. But it'll have
to be 'Hold the Fort' without any 'Oh, Say Can You See?' business.
Anyhow, I'm flying the rattlesnake flag of Bunker Hill, 'Don't Tread on
Me!' Whether the Rurales see it or not, I've saved their hides. If the

Apaches had got to this fort first, gee, how they would have crumpled
up the Greasers as they came along the trail!"
Rendered thirsty by his exertions, Lane remembered the canteen in the
bisnaga, which he had forgotten among his other preparations for
defense. He cautiously reached his hand over the ledge, and secured the
precious vessel, but, as he was withdrawing it, PING! came a bullet
through the canteen, knocking it out of his hand. As it fell clattering
down the side of the ledge, he groaned: "Damned good shooting,!
They've probably left their best marksman below with the ponies. No
hope for escape on that side.
Well, there's some consolation in the thought that they'll undoubtedly
finish me before I get too damned thirsty. Glad it wasn't my hand."
Although the period he spent waiting for the attack was less than an
hour by his watch, it seemed to last so long that he had hopes that the
Rurales would appear in time to rescue him. His spirits rose with the
prospect. Looking about him at the walls, the fireplace, and the red
cross, he reflected: "I am not the first man, or even the first white man,
that has withstood an attack in this place." In imagination he
constructed the history of the fort. Here, in ages remote, a tribe of
Indians, defeated and driven to the mountains had constructed an
outpost against their enemies of the plain, but these had captured the
stronghold, and fortified it against its former occupants. Later, a band
of Spanish gold-seekers had made a stand here against natives whom
they had roused against them by oppression. Or, perhaps, as indicated
by the cross, it had afforded refuge to the Mission Fathers, those heroic
souls who had faced the horrors of the infernolike desert in their saintly
efforts to convert its fiendish inhabitants.
With the symbol of Christianity in his mind, Lane turned toward the
giant cactus, which he had heretofore regarded chiefly in the aspect of a
flagpole, and saw in its columnar trunk and opposing branches a
distinct resemblance to a cross. The plant was dead, and dry as punk.
Suddenly there flashed into his mind a hideous suggestion. More cruel
than even the Romans, the inventors of crucifixion, the Apaches are
wont to bind their captives to these dead cacti, which supply at once

scourging thorns, binding stake, and consuming fuel, and, kindling a
fire at the top, leave it to burn slowly down to the victim, and, long
before it despatches him, to twist his body and limbs into what appear
to the Apache sense of humor to be exquisitely ludicrous contortions.
With his mind occupied by these horrible apprehensions, Lane looked
at the rattlesnake upon the sahuaro whose struggles by this time had
diminished to a movement of the tail.
"Poor old rattler," he thought. "I wish I could spare a cartridge to put
you out of your misery."
At length, as Lane peered up the mountainside, he saw a bush on a
ledge a little to the left of the trail quiver, as if stirred by a passing
breath of wind. He aimed his Winchester through a crack in the wall at
the spot, and when a moment later an Apache rose up from the ground
and leaped toward the shelter of a rock below, Lane fired, and the
savage fell crumpling. Like an echo of the explosion a rifle on the right
spoke, and a bullet struck the rock by Lane's head. He marked the spot
whence the shot came, and quickly ran to another part of the wall. From
here he saw the edge of an Indian's thigh exposed by the side of the
boulder he had noted. CRACK! went Lane's Winchester; the leg was
suddenly withdrawn, and at the same moment a head appeared on the
other side of