in the
heart of the village, firing with both hands; before him, about him,
half-naked savages fighting desperately, striking at him with knives,
firing from the shelter of tepees, springing at him with naked hands in
a fierce effort to drag him from the saddle. It was all confusion,
chaos, a babble of noise, his eyes blinded by glint of steel and glare
of fire. The impetus of their rush carried them irresistibly forward;
over and through tents they rode, across the bodies of living and dead;
men reeled and fell from saddle; riderless horses swept on unguided;
revolvers emptied were flung aside, and hands closed hard on sabre
hilts. Foot by foot, yard by yard, they drove the wedge of their
charge, until they swept through the fringe of tepees, out into the
stampeded pony herd.

The bugle rang again, and they turned, facing back, and charged once
more, no longer in close formation, but every trooper fighting as he
could. Complete as the surprise had been, the men of the Seventh
realized now the odds against them, the desperate nature of the fight.
Out from the sheltering tepees poured a flood of warriors; rifles in
hand they fought savagely. The screams of women and children, the
howling and baying of Indian dogs, the crack of rifles, the wild war
cries, all mingled into an indescribable din. Black Kettle was almost
the first to fall, but other chiefs rallied their warriors, and fought
like fiends, yielding ground only by inches, until they found shelter
amid the trees, and under the river bank.

In the cessation of hand to hand fighting the detachments came
together, reforming their ranks, and reloading their arms. Squads of
troopers fired the tepees, and gathering their prisoners under guard,
hastened back to the ranks again at the call of the bugle. By now
Custer comprehended his desperate position, and the full strength of
his Indian foes. Fresh hordes were before him, already threatening
attack. Hamlin, bleeding from two flesh wounds, rode in from the left
flank where he had been borne by the impetus of the last charge, with
full knowledge of the truth. Their attack had been centred on Black
Kettle's village, but below, a mile or two apart, were other villages,
representing all the hostile tribes of the southern plains. Already
these were hurrying up to join those rallying warriors under shelter of
the river bank. Even from where Custer stood at the outskirts of the
devastated village he could distin