“WE SHALL STARVE ALIVE.”
With their menacing yells ringing out in a loud chorus, the Indians
under Van Dorn and the half-breed and the two sub-leaders they had
appointed, swept down upon the devoted band.
They had determined upon a desperate charge, hoping by their fierce
onset and irresistible force to terrify the emigrants and fairly cut
into them at the first charge.
They made a mistake.
Mustang Max was not exceedingly terrified, and his men borrowed their
deportment from him.
Cool and steady as old Indian fighters they knelt behind the wagons,
rifles cocked and fingers on triggers, ready at the word of command to
hurl death among the on-coming foe.
Mustang Max waited long.
He knew the abilities of the men under him, and he would risk no such
things as long shots, for he wanted every bullet to tell.
Therefore the yelling horde galloped up to within two hundred yards of
the wagons before the command rang out:
“Fire!”
Crash!
With a combined roar the rifles of the kneeling defenders rang out.
A chorus of shrieks, ringing high and clear above the savage yells in
intense agony, followed closely upon the heels of the discharge.
Horses leaped fairly into the air, and then dropped dead.
Men were crushed under their falling forms and ridden over in a second.
Many warriors threw up their hands in a wild gesture of despair as they
reeled in their saddles, and then fell to the plain dead, wounded or
dying.
It had been a deadly, destructive fire, well aimed and hurled in
exactly at the right moment, and fully a dozen out of the four
different parties were down upon the ground.
But still a volley had been looked for by the desperate leaders, and
they had given a desperate order that admitted of no pause:
“If half are killed let the rest dash on to the wagons.”
Thus it was that the terrible charge was not stayed by the volley.
It threw all four divisions into a little confusion for a second, and
then they dashed on again.
This was not what Mustang Max had looked for.
He certainly expected that his first fire would break up the enemy’s
ranks so badly that the charge would have to be deferred until the
parties could be re-organized as well as possible by the living
leaders, but he saw instantly that he had made a mistake.
He had underrated the courage of the foe, and that is always a very bad
thing to do.
“Fire again,” he shouted, and those who held double-barreled guns
poured in a scattering volley, while those who had discharged their
single barrels had to make use of their revolvers, a much inferior
weapon for such service.
“Shoot, stab or use your butts,” yelled the guide. “Don’t let the red
devils mount over the wagons. Keep them outside if we have to go out to
them. Here they are.”
And he sent a revolver bullet fairly between the eyes of the foremost
redskin on his side.
It was a shrewd trick to divide up the large party, for it fairly
weakened the strength of the emigrants greatly to spread them around
the inner circle formed by the wagons, and gave them less chance of
repulsing a charge close at hand.
Onward with irresistible force the redskins came, and some of them
fairly leaped their steeds over the shafts, as the wagons lay together,
passing through the narrow gap thus left, and landing fairly among the
brave defenders.
They did not last long after they got inside, for Mustang Max gave them
his special attention and services, and sent them out of the world
flying.
With loud, horrible cries, calculated by the Indians to throw the
frightened women into confusion, and thus work a diversion in their
favor, the redskins dashed upon the wagons and sought to force a way
into the barricade.
They leaped from their horses and clambered over the tops of the seats
and over the interlacing shafts and poles.
Like a swarm they came, keeping up their horrid chorus of chilling
yells; but Mustang Max had taken good care that the women should have
no chance to interfere with the defense.
“Strike hard,” he cried, as he sprang to the breach. “Force them
outside and then keep them out.”
Nobly they leaped forward at the word, but the foe was a desperate one,
and were not to be easily driven off.
Many a redskin went down clutching a white man in his arms, and their
lives would flow out with their mingling blood as they lay upon the
ground in that deadly embrace.
Mustang Max fought like a demon, and did more than any three other men
in the party.
With that terrible battle-smile playing over his noble face, he stalked
among his foes.
He seemed to bear a charmed life: to covet danger; to laugh at death;
the Indians felt a holy horror of coming in his way when they looked
upon him, and therefore he was not as strongly opposed as a less
terrible foe would have been.
A scream rang out from one of the wagons, as the guide sprang upon an
Indian who stood near it.
Mustang Max guessed instantly what the cry meant.
An Indian had cut his way through one of the canvas sides, and was now
among the women.
With a swift blow he struck down the redskin in his path, and drawing
his keen knife, he slashed the side of the cover with a strong blow.
Out tumbled an Indian and a white woman for the red rascal had clasped
her in his arms.
They must have been struggling on that side, and pressing against the
canvas, for the same blow that let them drop out left a long bleeding
gape on the Indian’s bare leg.
Mustang Max promptly picked up the woman, slung her back into the body
of the wagon without much ceremony, and promptly put his knife into the
Indian’s breast.
Then he leaped back into the thickest of the fight.
With words and blows he encouraged his men, and drove the enemy back
over the wagons.
Inch by inch the ground was contested in a bloody manner, but the
emigrants were defenders, and brave ones, too, and they struck hard
blows for their wives and little ones.
At length the last of the enemy were fairly forced outside the
barricade, and then Van Dorn, who found that this thing was not
healthy, recalled his men, and gave orders for a retreat.
In a moment they were all mounted upon their horses, and dashed away
for a quarter of a mile, less in number by fully a score.
They halted upon the plain, and those who had them, hastened to erect
their tents.
Mustang Max, giving orders to clear up the sanguinary marks of the
conflict, saw this, and his heart grew heavy.
“Devil take them,” he said.
“What does it mean?” said one.
“It means that they’ve settled down there with the determination to
starve us out, unless driven away by some other force, and I don’t know
where our rescuers are to come from. We have food in plenty, but no
water, and without drink we cannot eat. If those chaps hang on, and no
one comes to help us, we must charge on them, or we shall starve alive.”