To favor the escalade, the Apaches in the plaza had renewed their war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure. In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had had enough of fighting; besides, ammunition was becoming precious. Texas Smith alone, insatiably bloodthirsty and an independent fighter, skulked hastily across the plaza, ambushed himself in a crevice of the ruin, and took a couple of shots at the savages as they mounted their ponies at the foot of the hill and skedaddled loosely across the plain. When he returned he croaked out, with an unusual air of excitement, "Big thing!" "What is a pig ding?" inquired Sergeant Meyer. "Never see Injuns make such a fight afore." "Nor I," assented Meyer. "Stranger, they fowt first-rate," affirmed Smith, half admiring the Apaches. "How many did we save?" "Here are vour in our room, und the leftenant says there are three on the roof, und berhabs we killed vour or vive outside." "A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the dead uns." Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them into the plaza. "That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction, like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!" "I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not." Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked carcass after another, bundled it through, launched it with a vigorous shove, and then watched it with a pantherish grin, licking his chops as it were, as it rolled down the steep, splashed into the river, and set out on its swift voyage toward the Pacific. "I s'pose you'll want to dig a hole for _him_" he said, coming into the Casa and looking wistfully at the body of poor young Shubert.