,Jfissionary Activity Among the Apaches, 1743-1758
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Useless attempt to aid tlte mission. At the first shouts of Indians, the native servants of the mission fled in terror. One of them reached the presidio a short time afterwards. On learning from him of the attack, Colonel Parrilla immediately dispatched nine soldiers to reinforce the guard and to report the state of affairs. The little band hardly had set out from the presidio, when they were attacked by the Indians, who had stationed themselves between the presidio and mission to prevent any aid being given to the besieged inmates. Jose Vasquez fell wounded, two others were killed outright, and the remaining six wheeled about and dashed to the presidio with a horde of Indians yelling wildly behind them. As the soldiers, wounded and bleeding, rushed in, the Indians turned about, unwilling to attack the fort. Vasquez had been quickly stripped of his clothing at the place where he fell and was left for dead, but this Spaniard was hard to kill. After the Indians departed, he dragged himself for more than a mile to the mission with a deep wound in his breast. Just as he was about to enter the gate, he was noticed by the Indians who picked him up bodily and threw him on the burning stockade. How he managed to get out of the enveloping inferno he did not know himself, but by eight o'clock that morning, burnt, bruised and still bleeding, he weakly knocked on the door, where the survivors had taken refuge and with his last breath faintly called for a priest to hear his confession. Fate of t/1c survivors. The frenzied orgy continued through the day. The eight survivors watched through the loopholes and heard the crackle of the fire as it burnt the walls of their refuge. By noon they could stay in their fiery furnace no longer. The foemen had relaxed their vigilance. Desperately Fray Molina and his companions rushed out into the adjoin- ing building next to the chapel, but the Indians saw them and now set fire to their new refuge. Before nightfall they again had to make another dash for life into the chapel itself. As this place was already on fire, the Indians paid no attention to their captives, confident they would soon perish there in the flames. When darkness fell only the glowing embers of the mission that had never in fact been occupied by the Apaches, remained, but the chapel had not yet crumbled. Under cover of the night Colonel Parrilla sent out a sergeant and fourteen men to reconnoitre. Cautiously they approached the burning mission, but the Indians, who infested the surrounding country, discovered them and raised loud yells to warn their companions of the
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