"Come on, you villains!" was his order to the six Mexicans.
All abreast, spread out like a skirmish line, the seven horsemen clattered over the plain, making for the point where Texas Smith was about to plunge among the whirling and caracoling Apaches.
Now came the crisis of the day.

The moment the sixty or seventy Apaches near the mouth of the canon saw Coronado set out on his charge, they raised a yell of joy over the error of the emigrants in dividing their forces, and plunged straight at the wagons.

In half a minute two wild, irregular, and yet desperate combats were raging.
Texas Smith had begun his battle while Coronado was still a quarter of a mile away.

Aiming his rifle at an Apache who was riding directly upon him, instead of dodging and wheeling in the usual fashion of these cautious fighters, he sent the audacious fellow out of his saddle with a bullet-hole through the lungs.

But this was no salvation; the dreaded long-range firearm was now empty; the savages circled nearer and began to use their arrows.