-darting
warriors, would be almost as sure to miss. He would soon be weighted
down with wounded, refusing to leave them to be butchered; unable,
therefore, to move in any direction, and so compelled to keep up a
shelterless, hopeless fight until, one by one, he and his gallant
fellows fell, pierced by Indian lead, and sacrificed to the scalping
knife as were Custer's three hundred a decade before.

No, Ray knew too much of frontier strategy to be so caught. There stood
the little grove of dingy green, a prairie fortress, if one knew how to
use it. There in the sand of the stream bed, by digging, were they sure
to find water for the wounded, if wounded there had to be. There by the
aid of a few hastily thrown intrenchments he could have a little plains
fort and be ready to repel even an attack in force. Horses could be
herded in the depths of the sandy shallows. Men could be distributed in
big circle through the trees and along the bank; and, with abundant
rations in their haversacks and water to be had for the digging, they
could hold out like heroes until relief should come from the south.

Obviously, therefore, the cottonwood grove was the place, and thither at
thundering charge Field led the foremost line, while Ray waved on the
second, all hands cheering with glee at sight of the Sioux darting
wildly away up the northward slope. Ten men in line, far extended, were
sent right forward half way across the flats, ordered to drive the
Indians from the bottom and cripple as many as possible; but, if menaced
by superior numbers, to fall back at the gallop, keeping well away from
the front of the grove, so that the fire of its garrison might not be
"masked." The ten had darted after the scurrying warriors, full half way
to the beginning of the slope, and then, just as Ray had predicted, down
came a cloud of brilliant foemen, seeking to swallow the little ten
alive. Instantly their sergeant leader whirled them about and, pointing
the way, led them in wide circle, horses well in hand, back to the dry
wash, then down into its sandy depths. Here every trooper sprang from
saddle, and with the rein looped on the left arm, and from the shelter
of the straight, stiff banks, opened sharp fire on their pursuers, just
as Clayton's platoon, dismounting at the grove, sprang to the nearest
cover and joined in the fierce clamor of carbines. Racing down the
slope at top speed as were the Sioux, they could not all at once check
the way of