The marvellous country, or, Three years in Arizona and New Mexico.: Containing an authentic history of this wonderful country and its ancient civilization ... together with a full and complete history of the Apache tribe of Indians .../ By Samuel Woodworth Cozzens. Illustrated by more than one hundred engravings.

SKIIRMISH WITH THE APACHES.
jocosely, that savages though they were, still they knew
better than to attack their "Great Father," as he was called
by nearly all the Indian tribes in the Territory; therefore
no further attention was paid to the matter.
We had just entered a small canion, or pass, through the
hills to the prairies beyond. Rocks bare and sterile towered
far above us on either side. The only vegetation visible
was an occasional cactus, twenty or thirty feet in height,
and three or four feet in circumference, fluted with the
regularity of a Corinthian column, and covered with beautiful variegated blossoms; or, perchance, high up in a cleft
of the rocks, a prickly-pear, with its bright green leaves,
and magnificent scarlet flowers, looking like the gift of some
good fairy, hung there to relieve the eye by contrast with
the sombre background of the rock.
Suddenly the appalling war-whoop of the Apaches sounded
on our ears like a death-knell, echoed from side to side by
the massive walls. It resembled the incarnate shrieks of
ten thousand devils holding high carnival over the agony
of some lost soul.
Startled as we were, we yet had presence of mind enough
to spur our mules forward towards the mouth of the canon,
which was only a short distance before us. It took but a
moment to reach it; and as we escaped from between the
gloomy walls out into the beautiful green prairie, we
uttered an involuntary shout of triumph; but alas! it came
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