llowed into the cover, with
an impetuosity that, for the moment, drove all before it. But the
bloody trophy in the hand of the partisan served as an incentive to the
attacked, as well as to the assailants. Mahtoree had left many a daring
brave behind him in his band, and the orator, who in the debates of
that day had manifested such pacific thoughts, now exhibited the most
generous self-devotion, in order to wrest the memorial of a man he had
never loved, from the hands of the avowed enemies of his people.

The result was in favour of numbers. After a severe struggle, in which
the finest displays of personal intrepidity were exhibited by all the
chiefs, the Pawnees were compelled to retire upon the open bottom,
closely pressed by the Siouxes, who failed not to seize each foot of
ground ceded by their enemies. Had the Tetons stayed their efforts on
the margin of the grass, it is probable that the honour of the day
would have been theirs, notwithstanding the irretrievable loss they had
sustained in the death of Mahtoree. But the more reckless braves of the
band were guilty of an indiscretion, that entirely changed the
fortunes of the fight, and suddenly stripped them of their hard-earned
advantages.

A Pawnee chief had sunk under the numerous wounds he had received, and
he fell, a target for a dozen arrows, in the very last group of his
retiring party. Regardless alike of inflicting further injury on their
foes, and of the temerity of the act, the Sioux braves bounded forward
with a whoop, each man burning with the wish to reap the high renown of
striking the body of the dead. They were met by Hard-Heart and a chosen
knot of warriors, all of whom were just as stoutly bent on saving the
honour of their nation, from so foul a stain. The struggle was hand to
hand, and blood began to flow more freely. As the Pawnees retired with
the body, the Siouxes pressed upon their footsteps, and at length the
whole of the latter broke out of the cover with a common yell, and
threatened to bear down all opposition by sheer physical superiority.

The fate of Hard-Heart and his companions, all of whom would have died
rather than relinquish their object, would have been quickly sealed, but
for a powerful and unlooked-for interposition in their favour. A shout
was heard from a little brake on the left, and a volley from the fatal
western rifle immediately succeeded. Some five or six Siouxes leaped
forward in the death agony, and every arm a