El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-02-10

have q little fire at night. It was in
October and Gilbert was working
about the house. Barnes, with the
heedlessness that has lost many man
out his gun or pistol. Suddenly the
usual silence of the place was broken
by six shoots fired in rapid succession,
| followed by an ominious silence.
| Gilbert, nearing the reports of the
gun, knew what they meant at once
and ran into the house for his rifle
to aid his partner If possible, but soon
q band of thirty or forty A paches came
on charge from the direction Barnes
had gone and Gilbert knew that
the poor fellows fate was sealed and
ran into the house, closing the door,
| and determined to avenge his death
| and make it hot for the murderers,
He opened fire at once, using the
rifles principally and reserving one
pistol for an emergency.
The old Irishmeu had Cut port holes
on all four sides of the house, just large
enough to shoot through, and
Hared Outwardly SO as to pretty well
command ell the ground. Gilbert, be-
ing cool, brave man, such as you
might expect from the land of Davy
Crockett, and quick shot, soon had
and others wounded.
The Indians, baffled in their attempt
to carry the house by assault, retired
ou5 of range in the brush, but not
without having desperately wounded
Gilbert. A stray bullet had struck
the door knob, glence1 and struck him
In the side, but as the ball was 1atten-
ed and it's force somewhat spent it did
not penetrate to any depth. 1t car
ried into the wound a wad of his clothes,
and finally dropped out while he was
running from one port hole to the
other during the fight.
Having time Gilbert hastily reloaded
the empty pistols and determined to
make break for the tule swamp. The
spring was about one hundred yards
from the house and the water flowing
from it caused quite large body of
land to be densely covered by tules, Or
cst-tails as we call them. These cat
tails had been used to thatch the roof
| and were used great deal for that
purpose all over the west. They were
nard to set on fire, but once started,
would burn 6ercely, and he knew the
Indians would resort to fire and roast
him. Peeping through one of the
port holes he saw smoke, felt that
they would soon charge again, and set
| fire to the roof, aud there was no time
to be lost, so he cautiously opened the
door and looked out. All was clear
between him and 1.-The haven where he
|
his eye caught the shadow of big In
dian on the ground at the corner of the
house standing with his gun ready to
shoot. This, in the language of old
| Texas rangers, was "a dead give
away" and settled the fate of the
Apache. With his rifle over his left
arm and revolver in his hand, he tip
toed along and sprang with the sbrill
scream of a panther to the corner.
The Indian was so astonished and un-
nerved, he did not shoot, but fell back
ward with ball through his heart.
| Gilbert then sprang away with the
speed of an old black tail buck going
down mountain. The Indians saw
their little scheme defeated, and made
the welkin ring with hideous yells.
| They opened ire On him and soon bull
lets were knocking up the dust all
around him, and whizzing about his
ears, but that only made him run the
faster. He fired back at them as he
ran four shots from Barnes's pistol and
then plunged into the thick tules ahead
of them and disappeared from ''hound
and hunters KEN as suddenly. as the
stag from Fitz James.
The Indians dared not follow him.
nor could they remain in the open
ground. The tules were green, so
they could not burn him out. He
moved in towards the center of the
patch, which was some three hundred
yards wide, and soon found he had to
! face danger almost as great as that
| from the Apache bullets, arrows and
lances. The soft, black mud was Civ
| ing way under him, and unless he could
| find some way to prevent it, he would
probably be smOthered-a death, how
ever, that he preferred to being roasted.
Gilbert's genius for making the
most of adverse circumstances did
I'll -, = l.
down some of the largest clusters of
| thecat-tails aud managed to pull up and
| lay across these enough to keep him
| from sinking. He had trouble to keep
| ''his powder dry" but after making a
regular alligator's nest he got on top of
it and reloaded Barnes's pistol.
1t was 10 o'clock in the morning
when he entered the tu!es, and the In
dams, after robbing the house of every
thing in it, had given up the fight.
pretty badly worsted, for they got only
one scalp and lost eight of their war
riors. The little plunder n the house
WAS very poor pay for their losses.
They did not care to poke around in
the tules for man that could put up
such fight as Gilbert, and according
| ly left for their stronghold in the CHR
icAhua mountains, knowing that the
troops from Bowie would be after them
as soon they got the news.
Gilbert staid in the tules until after
dark. Then he managed to wade
through the bog to the edge and
crawled for some distance for fear
some of the Apaches had remained to
watch him. He got away safely, how
ever, on the Camp Bowie side of the
tules, land by daylight next morning
was fifteen miles from his ranch on the
road to Camp Bowie.
AS soon as the sun rose the heat be-
came quite oppressive, and being faint
from lOss of blood and the pain from
his wound, he left the road to seek for