darkness as if to make
sure that no lurking redskins were creeping up on them.

In the fight of a few days before De Rudio was guarding a pony crossing
with eight men when one of them sang out:

"Lieutenant, get your horse, quick. Reno (the commander of the outfit)
is retreating!" No trumpet had sounded, however, and no orders had been
given, so the lieutenant hesitated to retire. His men left in a hurry,
but he remained, quietly waiting for the call.

Presently, looking behind him, he saw thirty or forty Indians coming
full gallop. He wheeled and started to get into safer quarters. As lie
did so they cut loose with a volley. He leaned low on his horse as they
shot, and the bullets sang harmlessly over his head.

Before him was a fringe of thick underbrush along the river, and into
this he forced his unwilling horse. The bullets followed and clipped
the twigs about him like scissors. At last he gained the creek, forded,
and mounted the bank on the other side. Here, instead of safety, he
found hundreds of Indians, all busily shooting at the soldiers, who
were retreating discreetly in the face of a greatly superior force. He
was entirely cut off from retreat, unless he chose to make a bold dash
for his life right through the middle of the Indians. This he was about
to do, when a young Indian, who had observed him, sent a shot after
him, and his horse fell dead under him, rolling over and over, while he
managed to scramble to his feet.

The shot had attracted the attention of all the Indians in that
immediate neighborhood, and there were plenty of them there for all
offensive purposes. De Rudio jumped down the creek bank and hid in an
excavation while a hail of bullets spattered the water ahead of him and
raised a dozen little clouds of dust at his feet.

So heavy had this volley been that the Indians decided that the bullets
had done their work, and a wild yell broke from them.

Suddenly the yell changed to another sort of outcry, and the firing
abruptly ceased. Peering out, De Rudio saw Captain Benteen's column
coming up over the hill. He began to hope that his rescue was at hand.
But in a few minutes the soldiers disappeared and the Indians all
started off after them.

Just beyond the hill was the noise of a lively battle, and he made up
his mind that Reno's command had rallied, and that if he could join
them he might be saved.

Working his way softly through the brush he was nearing the summit of
the slope