die, and this was his
way--ah, those red men knew how to die. He got within forty yards,
reeling and swaying, but still trying to fit an arrow to the string, and
as none of us would fire on him now, seeing that he was dying, for a
moment it looked as though he would ride directly into us, and perhaps
do some harm. Then I heard the boom of the boy's carbine, and almost at
the instant, whether by accident or not I could not tell, I saw the red
man drop out of the forks of his saddle and roll on the ground with his
arms spread out.

Perhaps never was metamorphosis more complete than that which now took
place. Shaking off detaining hands, Andrew Jackson sprang from our line,
ran up to the fallen foe and in a frenzy of rage began to belabor and
kick his body, winding up by catching him by the hair and actually
dragging him some paces toward our firing line! An expression of
absolute beatitude spread over the countenance of Mandy McGovern. She
called out as though he were a young dog at his first fight. "Whoopee!
Git to him, boy, git to him! Take him, boy! Whoopee!"

We got Andrew Jackson back into the ranks. His mother stepped to him and
took him by the hand, as though for the first time she recognized him as
a man.

"Now, boy, _that's_ somethin' _like_." Presently she turned to me. "Some
says it's in the Paw," she remarked. "I reckon it's some in the Maw; an'
a leetle in the trainin'."

Cut up badly by our fire, the Sioux scattered and hugged the shelter of
the river bank, beyond which they rode along the sand or in the shallow
water, scrambling up the bank after they had gotten out of fire. Our men
were firing less, frequently at the last of the line, who came swiftly
down from the bluff and charged across behind us, sending in a
scattering flight of arrows as they rode.

I looked about me now at the interior of our barricade. I saw Ellen
Meriwether on her knees, lifting the shoulders of a wounded man who lay
back, his hair dropping from his forehead, now gone bluish gray. She
pulled him to the shelter of a wagon, where there had been drawn four
others of the wounded. I saw tears falling from her eyes--saw the same
pity on her face which I had noted once before when a wounded creature
lay in her hands. I had been proud of Mandy McGovern. I was proud of
Ellen Meriwether now. They were two generations of our women, the women
of America, whom may God ever have in his keeping.

I say I had turned my head; but almost as