Apache Rampage by J. T. Edson Page B

Ellwood was satisfied with the finished result. Knowing his people he’d never hoped to get so much done. In that he did the citizens of Baptist’s Hollow an injustice. They knew their lives were in danger and were willing to work hard at anything which would save them.
    A man suddenly dropped his shovel and gave a startled yell, pointing off towards the hills. ‘Look up there!’ he yelled.
    The others looked and panic filled them. Dust was rolling up in the hills, a moving cloud and coming their way, beneath the dust could be seen vague shapes of riding men. It was at that moment the working party realised how few of their number were armed.
    Millet, as befitting a leading member of the community, gave an example of how to act in such an emergency. Dropping his shovel he gave a howl of:
    ‘Run for it. Apaches!’
    Ellwood was watching the dust and he snapped, ‘Apaches, nothing. They’re miners from the hills.’
    ‘Miners?’ asked Millet, scowling, then raising his hand to peer at the figures from under its shade. ‘So they are. I’ve not got me spectacles with me, or I’d have seen that afore.’
    For all that Millet licked his lips and looked ready to bolt. The figures were closer now, and he could make out that they were definitely not Indians. He recognised most of the riders, but this was the first time he’d ever seen so many of them coming into town at one time.
    Seventeen men rode slowly towards the town, travelling in a loose group. Tall, lean, grizzled and bearded men wearing buckskins and riding shaggy Indian ponies. Each of this pair nursed a Remington Rolling Block rifle across his knees and belted a revolver. Every other man in the group was armed, rifle out and ready, revolver holstered at his side. They made a hard-looking bunch, fighting men all of them, and men who knew the Arizona country. They were worried men also. That showed in the wolf-cautious way they rode and watched the surrounding country.
    Ellwood watched the approaching party. He knew all of them and most had been in his jail for drunkenness at one time or another. The two old-timers in front and the short, broad oldster, riding a mule and leading a burro, at the rear, were always cautious. There was more than just plain caution right now.
    The miners came nearer without changing their pace any. The two men in the lead brought their horses to a halt. The taller looked down at the pits, spat out a well-chewed wad of tobacco and asked:
    ‘You heard something, Major?’
    ‘What about?’ asked Ellwood.
    ‘The Apaches done put their paint on. That’s why me’n ole Ike here cut out and found the other boys,’ the miner said, indicating his partner. ‘War a few we couldn’t find. Found one family and buried what was left. So we didn’t take no more time out to find the others—what’s left of ‘em.’
    ‘Have you seen any Apaches?’ Millet asked worriedly. These men were all well-versed in Apache ways, and their testimony was more to be believed than the words of a bunch of Texas cowhands.
    ‘Plenty in our time, me’n Zeke have,’ the man called Ike answered. ‘War seeing ‘em real regular until two-three days back.’
    ‘Then we stopped seeing ‘em,’ went on Zeke grimly. ‘So we concluded to git up and the hell out of the Dragoons for a piece. Us and all them as could.’
    The other miners gave a grunting agreement to the words. They knew Apaches and knew full well when it was time to yell ‘calf-rope’ and head for a safer area than their small mining claims in the Dragoon Mountains. Any white man still in the Dragoons would likely be staying there permanently.
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Haslett, looking nervously around and imagining Apaches behind every bush. ‘You come in when you stopped seeing Apaches?’
    Zeke took his attention from the rifle pits and looked at the scared face of the storekeeper. ‘Waal, I ain’t eddicated, but there’s one lil thing I allus did l’arn. When you sees Apaches