le of fire all about the wearied little force. As senior officer,
Captain Truman was now in command of the detachment, but between him
and Cranston there was a bond of cordial esteem and comradeship, and the
command was purely a matter of form. Each had had long years of
experience in frontier warfare, each knew just what had to be done, and
neither regarded the situation as either desperate or particularly
dangerous. It would have been an easy matter to cut their way out
anywhere but for the helpless wounded, who would be butchered to a man
if left behind. Here in the timber, with water in abundance, and
comparative shelter for the disabled men and for the horses under the
banks, they could remain until relief should reach them. This with
Chrome's two troops not very far away and their own old colonel, with
half the regiment, somewhere over in the hills to the southwest, they
felt very well assured ought to be only a matter of a few hours. "It was
big luck," said Truman, "that our little pack-train got in when it did.
Ten minutes later and they'd have been cut off and massacred."

But the further advantage lay with the Indians that they just knew
exactly where Chrome was and Tintop, too, and knew that neither one was
making the first effort to relieve his surrounded comrades, Tintop
because he was twenty miles away and had no knowledge of what was going
on at the mouth of the Spirit River, and Chrome because he was utterly
rattled by the mounted warriors now beginning to appear in increasing
numbers around him. He had sustained no loss to speak of. None of his
men had been hit. Only two horses had been struck by their long-range
fire. He was, to use his own words, "Really provoked at Truman and
Cranston. They might know he needed them in holding such a big herd of
ponies." Poor Sanders was in a miserable state of anxiety. He begged the
major to let him take ten men and go back to find them, or even to let
him go back alone. He pointed out that they must have had a fierce
fight. He had found Sergeant Grant dead, and heard the fierce battling
in the villages where both troops were engaged, and then he had galloped
through the dust-cloud to Chrome, narrowly escaping death as he did so,
and told him the situation, confidently expecting that Chrome would turn
the ponies loose, rally his men and dash back to the village; but Chrome
did nothing of the kind. "They should have come to me," he said. "We're
the ones in need," then