the level bench, firing
furiously as they ran, and, whether from the superstitious awe with
which the Indians view the suicide, or the dread of close combat with
the gallant band of blue-coats, the mounted warriors turned and scurried
away across the prairie, and were presently out of range beyond the
ridge again. Then, and not till they had reached and lifted and borne
the lifeless form of the trooper, did the little party condescend to
answer the repeated summons from the fort. Then at last they slowly
returned, unrebuked, for no man had the heart to chide their daring.

Only once more was there further sight of the one-sided battle. Half a
mile or more beyond the bare divide there rose against the southern sky
a bold, oblong height or butte, studded with bowlders and stunted pine,
and watchers at the fort became aware as the sun climbed higher that the
smoke cloud, thinning gradually but perceptibly, was slowly drifting
thither. The fire, too, grew faint and scattering. The war-whoops rang
and re-echoed among the rocks, but all sound of cheering had long since
died away. At last, an hour after the fury of the fight began, the
colonel, gazing in speechless grief, through his field-glass, muttered
to the officer at his side:

"Some of them are still left. They are fighting for their lives along
that butte."

Only a few, though. One by one the dark dots among the bowlders ceased
to stir and move about. Little by little the fire slackened, and all but
occasional scattered shots died utterly away. Then other forms,
feathered and bedizened, were seen rushing in numbers up the distant
hillside, and that meant all was over, and the brutal knives were busily
at work. Little by little all sound of conflict, all sight of
combatants, disappeared entirely, and the unclouded sunshine streamed
down upon a scene on which the silence of death indeed had fallen. When
at last, late that afternoon, the watchers reported a vast body of
Indians drifting away eastward toward the distant Powder River, and
venturesome scouts stole out to reconnoiter, backed by skirmish lines
from the stricken post, they found the grassy slopes beyond that
curtaining ridge one broad field of death, strewn with the stripped and
hacked and mangled forms of those who had so gallantly dashed forth to
the aid of comrade soldiery at the break of day, so torn and mutilated
and disfigured that only a limited few were ever identified. Officers
and men, one after an