scular symmetry that was
artistically beautiful. About his naked body was a broad, blood-red
silken sash, the ends of which floated in the wind. His war bonnet, with
its two short, curved, black buffalo horns, above his brow, was a
magnificent thing crowning his head and falling behind him in a sweep of
heron plumes and eagle feathers. The Plains never saw a grander warrior,
nor did savage tribe ever claim a more daring and able commander. He was
by inherent right a ruler. In him was the culmination of the intelligent
prowess and courage and physical supremacy of the free life of the
broad, unfettered West.

On they rushed that mount of eager warriors. The hills behind them
swarmed with squaws and children. Their shrieks of grief and anger and
encouragement filled the air. They were beholding the action that down
to the last of the tribe would be recounted a victory to be chanted in
all future years over the graves of their dead, and sung in heroic
strain when their braves went forth to conquest. And so, with all the
power of heart and voice, they cried out from the low hill-tops. Just at
the brink of the stream the leader, Roman Nose, turned his face a moment
toward the watching women. Lifting high his right hand he waved them a
proud salute. The gesture was so regal, and the man himself so like a
king of men, that I involuntarily held my breath. But the set
blood-stained face of the wounded man beside me told what that kingship
meant.

As he faced the island again, Roman Nose rose up to his full height and
shook his clenched fist toward our entrenchment. Then suddenly lifting
his eyes toward the blue sky above him, he uttered a war-cry, unlike any
other cry I have ever heard. It was so strong, so vehement, so full of
pleading, and yet so dominant in its certainty, as if he were invoking
the gods of all the tribes for their aid, yet sure in his defiant soul
that victory was his by right of might. The unearthly, blood-chilling
cry was caught up by all his command and reechoed by the watchers on
the hills till, away and away over the undulating plains it rolled,
dying out in weird cadences in the far-off spaces of the haze-wreathed
horizon.

Then came the dash for our island entrenchment. As the Indians entered
the stream I caught the sound of a bugle note, the same I had heard
twice before. On the edge of the island through a rift in the
dust-cloud, I saw in the front line on the end nearest me a horse a
little smal