THE BLOW FALLS.
As the medicine chief threw off his robes, and straightening up, rifle
in hand, sought to find his victim, Kit Carey recognized who he was.
It was Red Hatchet, as he had half-suspected, when the wild chant of
the medicine chief urged the bands to strike at the soldiers, whose
bullets in return would take no effect upon them if they struck into
brave hearts.
But his long stooping posture had unsteadied the nerves of Red Hatchet,
and his bullet, though well aimed, simply cut a button from over the
heart of Kit Carey.
That first shot was the signal that brought a volley, for concealed
beneath their blankets the warriors had their rifles and revolvers,
and full upon the surprised soldiers poured a terrible, death-dealing
volley.
Brave men fell dead and dying ere they could draw a weapon, while with
one terrific war-cry the Indians made a rush for their tepees.
Then began a battle the like of which was never seen before.
It was a battle of desperation upon the one side, of indignation and
revenge upon the other.
The soldiers rallied quickly for the fight, and began to move down upon
the tepees, for there were the gallant Wallace, Lieutenant Carey, and
the detail of soldiers sent to search the camp.
Their presence there meant death to them unless rescue came quickly.
The squaws, maddened by the firing, drew weapons they had hidden about
them, and fought like demons.
Half-grown boys and girls, enveloped in blankets, and looking like
braves, dashed about upon their ponies, dealing death wherever they
could strike a blow.
It was a wild, weird scene, an Inferno while it lasted.
Brought to bay among the tepees, Captain Wallace felt that he was to
die, but he intended to fall with his face to the foe, as a brave
soldier should.
An Indian warrior rushed upon him, firing as he came.
Wounded, though he was, the brave Wallace avenged himself then and
there.
Two other braves bounded toward him, and a sharp hand-to-hand fight
followed.
They, too, fell dead, though the gallant soldier staggered from the
wounds he had received, and seemed about to fall.
But no! once more he turned to meet his foes, and two more confronted
him, one a chief with uplifted tomahawk.
The last two shots of the captain's revolver dropped one Indian dead
and wounded the other.
But that other came on, unheeding his four comrades who lay dead at the
brave captain's feet, and now it was sword against tomahawk.
To the hilt in the heart of the Indian chief sank the sword of Captain
Wallace, just as the tomahawk, though held in a dying hand, fell with
fatal force upon the soldier's head.
As Captain Wallace sank among his foes, fitting monument to show how
he died, Kit Carey dashed up, sword in one hand, revolver in the other.
"Great God! it is the noble Wallace! I am too late to save, but not to
avenge. A noble death for a soldier to die, my gallant comrade," and
the speaker glanced at the foes lying around the dead captain.
As he finished speaking he placed a whistle to his lips, and gave two
sharp calls.
"Now to find Red Hatchet, for this is his work. Hark! how those
Hotchkiss guns roar. Captain Capson is doing his duty well."
The fight was now surging along the ravine, the Hotchkiss gun pouring
its deadly fire upon the flying redskins, while the scene of the battle
was sickening to behold.
In answer to the two calls, up dashed two Indians who had come with Kit
Carey, one leading his horse.
"Ah! there is the colonel, so I shall report my intention of following
Red Hatchet," and, throwing himself into his saddle, Kit Carey rode
up to Colonel Forsythe, who was doing all in his power to check the
firing, now the Indians were in full flight.
A few words of explanation, and Kit Carey dashed away like the wind,
followed by his two Indian guards.
"We must catch Chief Red Hatchet," he explained, and so on they swept,
leaving the ravine and riding so as to head off the chief whom the two
police had seen take to flight alone, after he had started the deadly
combat.
Taking the direction they had seen him disappear in, Kit Carey soon
found his trail, and followed it with the horses on a run, and leaving
Wounded Knee Creek and its red tragedy rapidly behind him.
But Red Hatchet was splendidly mounted, his horse was fresh, and the
cunning chief well knew that his own safety lay in reaching the Bad
Lands, and giving to the Sioux there his story of the treachery of the
soldiers.
He had planned well not to be looked upon as a deserter from the field,
by the few warriors, who, like himself, would escape from the fatal
field.
He had hoped, by a perfect surprise, to massacre so many soldiers in
the first few volleys that the others would be driven to flight.
Once they stampeded, their camps and weapons would fall into the hands
of the Indians, and many of their horses, too, and a quick retreat
could be made to the Bad Lands, where the story of the battle would
inspire at once courage in the heart of the faintest-hearted brave to
resist their foes, the pale-faces.
With this in view to start the attack, and reap its fruits of success,
Red Hatchet during the night had instructed the young warriors in the
duty each was to perform.
A few were to seize the horses of the cavalry men, others were to kill
the officers in their first volley, and more were to make a rush for
the soldiers' tents, while the reserve of women and children were to
rush up from among the tepees and thus complete the panic that had been
started.
But Red Hatchet had smarted under the hesitation of the braves; they
did not act promptly, and he saw victory slipping from his grasp, when
K troop cut the warriors off from their tepees, and were sent to search
the Indian camp for arms.
This must not be, the Sioux must be forced to strike the blow, even
if it came late, and so the daring chief grasped his hands full of
dirt, threw it upon the soldiers, a sign he knew that the braves must
understand, and, understanding, act, and then raising his rifle he
selected his victim and fired.
The result is known, and Red Hatchet was rejoiced to see the first
volley tell upon the soldiers.
But then came the rebound, a boomerang that recoiled upon himself,
for the gallant soldiers of the Seventh were not to be driven like
frightened buffalo before the hunter, were not to be slaughtered like
sheep in a fold, for they rallied at once, and far above the din came
the ringing words from the lips of Kit Carey:
"Men of the Seventh! remember the gallant Custer! Men of the Seventh,
avenge Custer!"
Ringing cheers answered this appeal to the memory of the battle of the
Big Horn, and the soldiers of the Seventh swept down over the field,
while, with a cry of fury and hatred, Red Hatchet sprang upon an
officer's horse and fled from the fatal field.