ath
the tepees as "F" Troop came thundering through.

"By the Lord, but that's the hottest place I ever struck!" cried
Sergeant Buckner a moment later, as, slowly falling back now, most of
the men fighting on foot, with the led horses and the disabled soldiers
well beyond them, "C" Troop was making its way southwestward towards the
clump of Cottonwoods and willows, close along the stream. Truman's men,
after their spirited and successful charge, were now rallying well to
the north of the village beyond the ridge, where for the time being they
were safe from the Indian fire. But once more now the warriors in the
village were swarming along its western limit and, flat on their
bellies, firing vengefully on Cranston's retiring line, now three
hundred yards away, and every moment some horse would rear and plunge,
stung by the hissing lead, but only one more soldier had been hit.
Davies, faint and dizzy and only semi-conscious still, was riding slowly
away with Brannan's supporting arm about him. The bodies of Carney and
Donovan were thrown across led horses and lashed on with lariats, and
Cranston had just sent a corporal to tell the horse-holders to move more
quickly when, up the slopes to the north, the men caught sight of a
horse and rider darting toward them from the distant ridge over which
Truman's men had disappeared. Straight as an arrow's flight they came,
heedless of the fact that their course was along the western edge of the
Indian village and barely two hundred yards away. "My God, fellers, it's
little Millikin!" cried an excited trooper. "Ride wide, you young
idiot!" yelled another, but all to no purpose. The boy trumpeter who had
borne the message to Truman and charged with him through the village was
now on his homing flight to rejoin his own. Vengeful yells and
war-whoops rang from the village as warrior after warrior caught sight
of him and blazed away. Throwing himself out of saddle, Indian fashion,
and clinging like a monkey to the off side, the young dare-devil drove
straight onward, the bullets nipping the bunch grass and kicking up the
dust under his racer's flying feet, yet mercifully whizzing by him.
Running the gauntlet of more than half the length of the village, the
little rascal darted, grinning, through the cheering skirmish line, and
tumbled to his feet before his beloved chief.

"Captain Truman's compliments, sir, and he'll rejoin you at the timber,"
was his message, delivered while his quiv