ew, sir," and Sergeant Scott begged leave to take
half-a-dozen men and rush out and tackle the dozen that had probably
crept to the foot of the wall or squirmed through the dust cloud, like
so many snakes, underneath the wooden piazza. Well they knew what that
meant: Fire--fire as fierce as that the defenders themselves had kindled
in the outbuildings, only a thousand times more terrible, for it meant
fearful torture and death to these imprisoned ones within the walls, or
the certain bullets of the merciless foe when driven forth. But, before
this sally could be made down came the rush from the northward, less
powerful and spectacular only in point of numbers, and every man of the
defense was needed at the loopholes and windows again. Their shots told,
too, for Sweeny yelled delightedly from his perilous perch aloft that
half-a-dozen were down and the ponies loose; and then could be seen the
dash of comrades to pick up and bear away the dead and wounded, a feat
of daring and devotion in which the Indians of the plains have no
superior. Now the shots of the defenders were telling in more ways than
one. They busied so many of Black Wolf's people that the next rush was
delayed, and delays to _his_ plan were more than dangerous. Someone had
passed a field glass up the loft ladder, and Sweeny was shrieking new
delight and encouragement. "Sure's yer born, sir, I can see the byes
comin' like hell!" To the mind of the agent, livid and trembling behind
his little parapet of blankets, more than enough, perhaps, in the way of
hell had reached them already, but men at the windows set up a cry of
thanksgiving that faltered a moment at sound of shot and shout from
underneath, then swelled again into something like triumph, for Ray had
prized up two or three boards from the floor; two or three slim fellows
had crawled through the opening and wriggled to the low walls of rough
stone which served for foundation, and here and there a would-be
incendiary got sudden quietus and his fellows a stay, but not for long.
There came presently another superb dash from the southern side that
swept by like some human tidal wave of destruction, leaving its wreckage
on the hard sod of the prairie, and, alas, its well-nigh desperate
fire-workers at the edge of the wall. Ten minutes more and Ray's
improvised stockade was encompassed on every side by a ring of yelling,
firing, infuriated demons, most of them sprawling flat and shooting low,
and the leaden