ved their advantage by
seizing defensible positions on the north bank, and, as against two
hundred and fifty Indians, with two days' rations left, with abundant
water to be had by digging in the sand, with pluck and spirit left for
anything, they were not badly off, provided the Indians were not heavily
reinforced and provided their ammunition held out.

The Cheyennes now resorted to other tactics. Leaving but few warriors
scurrying about on the open prairie, both north and south, they gathered
in force in the timber up- and down-stream and began their stealthy
approaches, keeping up all the time a sharp fire upon Wayne's position.
Every now and then would come a frantic cry from some stricken horse as
a random bullet took effect, but few struck among the men. The surgeon
and the wounded were well sheltered in a concave hollow of the bank.

There was fortunately little wind. With a gale blowing either up- or
down-stream, the Indians could have fired the timber and soon driven
them out. This was well understood on both sides. But the besieged knew
as well that other methods would be resorted to, and speedily they were
developed. The rattling fire that had been kept up ever since the first
assault had died away to an occasional shot, when suddenly from the
down-stream side there came a volley, a chorus of frantic yells, and
then a pandemonium of shots, shouts, howls, and screeches, answered by
the soldiers with their carbines and the billingsgate of some
irrepressible humorist. A savage attack had begun on Hunter's men. Even
as Wayne and Ray, bending low to avoid the storm, went scurrying through
the trees to his assistance, followed by some half a dozen of the "old
hands," there came from up-stream just such another assault, and in ten
seconds every able man in the command was hotly engaged.

"For God's sake, captain, don't let them waste their fire!" shouted Ray.
"I'll go back to the other front and hold them there."

"All right! I understand, Ray. You watch the same thing over there,"
answered Wayne, who at another time would have resented any suggestions,
but had seen the value of Ray's words a dozen times that day. "Damn it!
men. Fire slow. Don't throw away a shot. _Let_ them come closer; that's
what we want," he shouted to the soldiers, who, lying behind logs or
kneeling among the trees, were driving their missiles through the
timber, where the smoke-wreaths told of the otherwise invisible foe. Out
on the prairie