buffalo. Its hide still
hung about its bones. And inside the narrow shelter of this carcass the
two concealed themselves while a whole village passed near them trailing
off toward the south.

Insufficient food, lack of sleep, and poisonous water from the buffalo
wallows brought nausea and weakness to the faithful men making their way
across the hostile land to bring help to us in our dire extremity. It is
all recorded in history how these two men fared in that hazardous
undertaking. No hundred miles of sandy plain were ever more fraught with
peril; and yet these two pressed on with that fearless and indomitable
courage that has characterized the Saxon people on every field of
conquest.

Meanwhile day crept over the eastern horizon, and the cold chill of the
shadows gave place to the burning glare of the September sun. Hot and
withering it beat down upon us and upon the unburied dead that lay all
about us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's
edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and
stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the
renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us
and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were
hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle
continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not
attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them.
And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away
of ammunition and food, a growing fever from weakness and loss of blood,
a festering of wounds, the ebbing out of strength and hope; while putrid
mule meat and muddy water, the sickening stench from naked bloated
bodies under the blazing heat of day, the long, long hours of watching
for deliverance that came not, and the certainty of the fate awaiting us
at last if rescue failed us--these things marked the hours and made them
all alike. As to the Indians, the passing of Roman Nose had broken their
fighting spirit; and now it was a mere matter of letting us run to the
end of our tether and then--well, Jean had hinted what would happen.

On the third night two more scouts left us. It seemed an eternity since
Stillwell and his comrade had started from the camp. We felt sure that
they must have fallen by the way, and the second attempt was doubly
hazardous. The two who volunteered were quiet men. They knew what the
tas