If there be any truth in the saying that a burnt child shuns the fire,
the two officers who led "C" troop in its dash on the village should
have been almost anywhere else, and at least ten of Cranston's men bore
the scars of previous battle, either in the South or on the frontier.
The captain was still reminded of his ugly wound, received the previous
summer, by sharp, burning twinges of pain. Davies, the junior, as we
know, had not yet recovered his strength, and had gone on this sudden
raid, stepping practically from a sick-bed to the saddle. Twice that
morning, as the captain looked with ill-concealed anxiety into the face
of his friend and subaltern, he noted its pallor, despite the expression
of stern determination. Had there been time he would covertly have
warned three or four "stalwarts" of the first platoon not to lose sight
of their lieutenant, and to hold themselves close in support, but there
was no time. Indeed, as the sequel proved, there was no need. Soldier
stories fly fast among the rank and file, and the men of "C" Troop had
heard from many a source how the young officer on his first campaign had
denied himself, stinted himself, starved himself, nearly, in order to
share his scant supply of food with the weak and suffering in his own
troop, and so they welcomed his presence with them now when the column
marched from the cantonment, and spoke among themselves their admiration
of the pluck of the young officer in being so soon again on duty.
[Illustration: "LOOK OUT! DON'T HARM THE WOMEN."
Page 431.]
And so it happened that as the pace quickened that stirring June morning
and the long line swept down upon the rousing, shrieking village, and
the first shot came singing over their heads and the wild cheer leaped
to their lips as the trumpet sounded charge, while many troopers sought
their own course through and among the fire-spitting lodges, Sergeant
Grant with Donovan and two others drove their horses close at the heels
of the lieutenant's. Only squaws or children appeared among the tepees
as they dashed furiously in. "Look out! Don't harm the women!" they
heard him cry, as he held his own pistol hand well aloft, but in another
second a scowling, painted faced flashed one brief instant into view as
their leader went lunging by, a shot rang on the air, and flame and
smoke jetted from the lodge opening. Three pistols barked in answer and
Davies galloped on unhurt, but poor Donovan, with an Irish howl, dropped
his revolver, clapped his hands to his stomach as he toppled out of
saddle. "My God, fellers, I've got it," was his moan, as Davies, a
superb rider, quickly turned his horse about, and in the twinkling of an
eye leaped to the ground to the trooper's side.
"Quick, sergeant. Quick, men, help me lift him on my saddle, I'm too
weak," was his almost breathless order, and gallantly did they answer
him.
"Are ye badly hit, Jimmy?" gasped an honest Irish lad, as he strove to
raise him from the ground. But deathly pallor and staring, sightless
eyes were the sole reply. "My God, lieutenant, he's killed outright.
There's no use staying," cried another trooper. "Mount, sir, mount for
God's sake! They'll be on us in a minute." But tugging still at the limp
and lifeless form, Davies did not seem to hear. The fierce clamor of the
charge was receding. Already the second and third platoons had cleared
the village and were reining about and rallying on the flats up-stream.
Already the pony herds, driven full tilt by Canker's squadron, were out
of sight in the dense dust-cloud and could be heard thundering up the
valley. Only a portion of Truman's troop could be dimly seen through the
settling dust, but, worst of all, the warriors recovering from their
panic came rushing from their lodges, and in a moment all would be over
with the struggling little group of blue-coats. Fortunately, they were
at the western skirt of the village, and almost all the rallying braves
were running, rifle in hand, down to the southern edge, the direction of
the chase. Some few, springing upon the scattered ponies left among the
tepees, rode furiously away into the dust-cloud in the hope of
recapturing some of their stampeded stock, and so it happened that,
except for some shrieking women, only one or two Indians appeared aware
of the little knot of troopers still in their midst, but that was more
than enough. Davies's horse, pierced by a rifle bullet, went rolling in
agony upon the ground just as a devoted Irishman was trying to bolster
the almost exhausted officer into saddle, and, luckily for him, Davies
was borne to earth out of the way of the shots that came driving at them
from the surrounding lodges. "Save yourselves," he faintly called to the
remaining men. Already Grant had darted away for help, receiving his
death wound as he rode. Then down came another horse, while Donovan's,
snorting, tore away among the tepees, and then there was help for it.
The little Irishman, Carney, bending low, strove to drag his prostrate
leader, stunned by a kick from his dying horse, around behind the
nearest lodge, when he, too, was sent blindly stumbling forward and
sprawling in the dust, shot through and through from an unseen rifle not
ten feet away, and the gallant fellow never heard the furious cheer with
which "C" Troop came charging back to the rescue.
It is one thing to dash into an Indian village; it is another to get out
of it. Wounded or unhorsed, any men left behind are doomed to cruel and
certain death. Within another minute, Cranston and his men came tearing
in, firing right and left at every dusky form that appeared. Within a
minute the prostrate bodies were found, and half a dozen men, Brannan
among them, had sprung from their saddles, while the others rode
blazing with their revolvers at the nearest lodges, some bringing their
carbines into play. But even within that minute the scalping-knife had
been at work, and poor Donovan's mutilated head lay in a pool of blood.
Short-lived triumph for the scalper, sneaking to shelter with his
hideous prize, for Cranston's pistol stretched him in his tracks, and
Sergeant Buckner's big charger knocked the foremost of the rescuing
warriors scrambling back between the lodges, where other troopers drove
their horses trampling them under foot. But every wigwam had its
garrison. The village swarmed with maddened braves, who now came rushing
to the scene, and, they on foot and the troopers in saddle, they with
their repeating rifles, the troopers with their pistols or
single-shooters, annihilation of the latter could be but a question of a
few moments. Even before Davies and his brave defenders could be lifted
to the saddle and led away, two or three more of Cranston's horses went
down, and Corporal Bertram was shot through both thighs. Then came the
effort to retire fighting, covering their dead and wounded. There was
only one way to go,--out across the westward flat, where the ponies were
peacefully grazing when the attacking column hove in sight. Even as he
shouted his orders to his savagely fighting troop, Cranston looked back
with keen anxiety. To what pitiless fire must they be exposed in
retreating over that prairie! Yet, with Indians on every hand within the
village, it was manifestly his duty to get out. "Go on with the
wounded!" he cried to the men afoot. "Go on! We'll cover you." And then
Davies slowly opened his eyes and began to look feebly about him. Oh,
if Truman would only come! Every second the fight waged fiercer, hotter,
and more men dropped as they backed slowly away. Down went Buckner's
horse. Down went the guidon, and then, when it seemed as though half the
troop must fall before they could reach the open field, the
half-frenzied, half-joyous cheer of Truman's men rose shrill above the
clamor, and again the dancing, howling Indians dove for cover underneath
the tepees as "F" Troop came thundering through.
"By the Lord, but that's the hottest place I ever struck!" cried
Sergeant Buckner a moment later, as, slowly falling back now, most of
the men fighting on foot, with the led horses and the disabled soldiers
well beyond them, "C" Troop was making its way southwestward towards the
clump of Cottonwoods and willows, close along the stream. Truman's men,
after their spirited and successful charge, were now rallying well to
the north of the village beyond the ridge, where for the time being they
were safe from the Indian fire. But once more now the warriors in the
village were swarming along its western limit and, flat on their
bellies, firing vengefully on Cranston's retiring line, now three
hundred yards away, and every moment some horse would rear and plunge,
stung by the hissing lead, but only one more soldier had been hit.
Davies, faint and dizzy and only semi-conscious still, was riding slowly
away with Brannan's supporting arm about him. The bodies of Carney and
Donovan were thrown across led horses and lashed on with lariats, and
Cranston had just sent a corporal to tell the horse-holders to move more
quickly when, up the slopes to the north, the men caught sight of a
horse and rider darting toward them from the distant ridge over which
Truman's men had disappeared. Straight as an arrow's flight they came,
heedless of the fact that their course was along the western edge of the
Indian village and barely two hundred yards away. "My God, fellers, it's
little Millikin!" cried an excited trooper. "Ride wide, you young
idiot!" yelled another, but all to no purpose. The boy trumpeter who had
borne the message to Truman and charged with him through the village was
now on his homing flight to rejoin his own. Vengeful yells and
war-whoops rang from the village as warrior after warrior caught sight
of him and blazed away. Throwing himself out of saddle, Indian fashion,
and clinging like a monkey to the off side, the young dare-devil drove
straight onward, the bullets nipping the bunch grass and kicking up the
dust under his racer's flying feet, yet mercifully whizzing by him.
Running the gauntlet of more than half the length of the village, the
little rascal darted, grinning, through the cheering skirmish line, and
tumbled to his feet before his beloved chief.
"Captain Truman's compliments, sir, and he'll rejoin you at the timber,"
was his message, delivered while his quivering horse stood flicking his
long tail at a red seam in his silky coat where one bullet at least had
scored its way, and Cranston bade him take his horse--and no more such
fool chances--and get under cover straightway.
But now in falling back the skirmish line had made an irregular half
wheel to the southward with a flying pivot toward the village, and the
Indians were darting or crawling out south of the tepees so as to get
an enfilading fire on the line. Cranston's quick eyes saw the danger and
warned his right skirmishers. "Back there! Fall back, you men! Run for
it!" he shouted; and to the jeering rage of the Indians the run began,
the men halting and refacing the village as soon as beyond danger of
flank fire, and then came still another excitement. Even while falling
steadily back, with wary eyes on the smoking lodge lines, the men at the
right became suddenly aware of a rush of several Indians to the point
where the troop had re-formed after its initial charge. "They're making
for the timber," was the first cry, for a few scattered, stunted trees
grew along the low ridge. Then came a yell from the rear, from the
sergeant in charge of the led horses.
"It's one of our men lying there wounded. For God's sake save him!" and
that was enough. Every carbine along the line was brought to bear on the
stooping, crouching, scurrying warriors who had ventured so far out from
the sheltering tepees. Obedient to Davies's order, Brannan and two or
three men in saddle left the wounded to take care of themselves, and
spurred headlong across the prairie to the scene, and Cranston, catching
sight of the affair at the same instant, waved his cap in eager signal,
while his voice, now hoarse and choked, could hardly be heard in the
order "By the right flank." Truman's column of fours, reappearing at the
instant at the north, but well to the westward of the village, could not
imagine what that distant manoeuvre meant, but it was no time to ask
questions. "Gallop" was the order, and down they came. And so it
happened that barely twenty minutes after the first shot was fired the
comrade troops of the Eleventh were once more united, and, facing nearly
north, were in furious fight with an overwhelming force of Indians,
while Chrome, turning deaf ear to Sanders's supplications, was vainly
striving to round up a galloping herd of several hundred ponies full
three miles away. Picking up the body of Sergeant Grant, saved from
scalping and mutilation by the dash of Brannan and his squad, "C" Troop
was once more wearily retiring toward the timber along the Wakon, and
Truman deploying his dismounted skirmishers to their relief.
And then, as the horses were huddled at last under the bank, and the
wounded were tenderly lowered to the shade of the willows, and the dead,
with soldier reverence, laid, blanket covered, under a spreading tree,
the captains met to compare notes and sum up the losses. Grave indeed
were their faces, for two of the best sergeants were killed as well as
five veteran troopers, and nearly a dozen were more or less severely
wounded. Davies, unscarred by bullet, lay faint from loss of blood, and
dizzy and dazed from the blow from his horse's hoof. The knife wound,
Red Dog's treacherous work, had reopened as a result of his violent
throw to earth, and there was no surgeon nearer than Chrome's battalion,
now out of sight far up the Ska. "Thank God! they've got few ponies
left," said Cranston, fervently. "We can hold them here until help
comes."
And help was coming, hard and fast,--harder and faster than Cranston
dreamed, but not to them. Within the next quarter hour, greeted by
frantic acclamations from the hostile village, there rode into view on
the opposite bluff, and came shouting their war-song, brandishing
feathered lance or gleaming rifle, more than a hundred red
warriors,--Ogallallas, Brulés, Minneconjous all, with Red Dog himself,
escaped from durance at the agency, madly revelling in their midst.