S22 The Book of Woodcraft
It didn't take Burns five seconds to decide what should
be done; he had two of his men harnessed with the sus-
penders of their comrades, and made them lean well over
the precipice, while the harness was used to hold them in
place; these men were to fire with their revolvers at the
enemy beneath, and for a volley or so they did very effec-
tive work, but their Irish blood got the better of their rea-
son and, in their excitement, they began to throw their
revolvers at the enemy; this kind of ammunition was rather
too costly, but it suggested a novel method of annihilating
the enemy. Brown ordered his men to get together and
roll several of the huge boulders, which covered the surface
of the mountain, and drop them over on the unsuspecting
foe. The noise was frightful, the destruction sickening.
Our volleys were still directed against the inner faces of the
cave and the roof, and the Apaches seemed to realize that
their only safety lay in crouching close to the great stone
heap in front; but even this precarious shelter was now taken
away; the air was filled with the bounding, plunging frag-
ments of stone, breaking into thousands of pieces, with
other thousands behind, crashing with the momentum
gained in a descent of hundreds of feet. No human voice
could be heard in such a cyclone of wrath; the volume of
dust was so dense that no eye could pierce it, but over on
our left, it seemed that for some reason we could still dis-
cern several figures guarding that extremity of the enemy's
line — the old Medicine Man, who, decked in all the
panoply of his office, with feathers on head, decorated shirt
on back, and all the sacred insignia known to his people,
had defied the approach of death, and kept his place, firing
coolly at everything that moved on our side, that he could
see, his rifle reloaded and handed back by his assistants —
either squaws or young men — it was impossible to tell
which, as only the arms could be noted in the air. Major
Stránka:book 1913.djvu/544
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