erposing ever between
the village and the captured herds. Cranston, easily reining his pawing
charger, sits facing the reforming centre of his panting line. The
guidon-bearer is there all right and waves aloft the fluttering folds,
and the boy trumpeter tries to sound the recall, but makes a mess of it,
and throws the forming rank into convulsions of unrebuked chaff and
laughter. The captain is proud of his men and unbends for the occasion,
but, all the same, he eagerly counts the files, looking for this
familiar bearded face or that. Both sergeant platoon commanders are
there. The second and third platoons re-form without much delay and with
hardly a missing face. It's the first that proves to be the last. They
had to charge through the thickest part of the village,--the westward
side, where more Indians were awake and alert, roused by the cries of
the herd guards. The dust-cloud is still settling. Galloping forms still
issue from it and the western skirts of the village, from the clumps of
Cottonwoods, from under the banks, whither the mad dash of some horses
had carried their riders. But Cranston's face loses its smile, a world
of anxiety suddenly replaces it, for shots and yells ring from the midst
of the village still, and the chief of the first platoon is not here to
rally his men.

"Who's missing there, sergeant?" he calls, spurring over to where a
trooper comes riding heavily forward, drooping a little as he rides.

"Four or five, sir. Donovan was shot from his horse and the lieutenant
went back for him."

"_Quick_, trumpeter! Ride to Captain Truman and tell him to whirl about
and help us. _Now_, men, follow for all you're worth!"

And when the dust-cloud settles on the flats south of the Minneconjou
village, only one of "C" Troop remains to greet the eyes of the
battalion adjutant, sent back with Major Chrome's impatient query as to
why on earth the Eleventh doesn't come on. It is Sergeant Grant, who has
toppled out of saddle--dead.

CHAPTER XXX.

If there be any truth in the saying that a burnt child shuns the fire,
the two officers who led "C" troop in its dash on the village should
have been almost anywhere else, and at least ten of Cranston's men bore
the scars of previous battle, either in the South or on the frontier.
The captain was still reminded of his ugly wound, received the previous
summer, by sharp, burning twinges of pain. Davies, the junior, as we
know, had not yet recovered his st