Coronado had just finished his round when a loud yell was raised by the Apaches, and twenty or thirty of them started at full speed down the trail by which the caravan had come.
Looking for the cause of this stampede, the emigrants beheld, nearly half a mile away, a single horseman rushing to encounter a score.

It was Texas Smith, making an apparently hopeless rush to burst through the environment of Parthians and reach the train.
"Shall we make a sally to save him ?" demanded Coronado, glancing at Thurstane.
The officer hesitated; to divide his small army would be perilous; the Apaches would attack on all sides and with advantage.
But the sight of one man so overmatched was too much for him, and with a great throb of chivalrous blood in his heart, he shouted, "Charge!".