tricken horses. Perhaps that task fell to him because he was
the poorest shot, perhaps it was because he had the least experience;
but it was a man's job. He stood upright clinging to the tie-ropes,
trying to soothe the plunging animals; and he became the target
for a hundred of those rifles which were clattering along the
hillside below him. For every warrior in the band knew that the
first bullet that found its mark in his body would send the horses
stampeding down the slope; and to put his foes afoot was the
initial purpose of the plains Indian when he went into battle.

So Private Smith clinched his teeth and did his best, while the
deep-toned buffalo-guns roared and the rifles of the savages answered
in a never-ending volley all around him. The leaden slugs droned past
his ears as thick as swarming bees; the plunging hoofs showed through
the brown dust-clouds, and his arms ached from the strain of the
tie-ropes.

Billy Dixon had thrown away his wide-rimmed sombrero and his long hair
rippled in the wind. He had been through the battle at Adobe Walls and
men knew him for one of the best shots in the country south of the
Arkansas River. He was taking it slowly, lining his sights with the
coolness of an old hand on a target-range. Now he raised his head.

"Here they come," he shouted.

The circle was drawing inward where the land sloped up at the easiest
angle. A hundred half-naked riders swung toward the summit, and the
thud-thud of the ponies' little hoofs was audible through the rattle
of the rifles. The buffalo-guns boomed in slow succession like the
strokes of a tolling bell. Empty saddles began to show in the
forefront. The charge swerved off, and as it passed at point-blank
range a curtain of powder smoke unrolled along the whole flank.

Private George Smith pitched forward on his face. His rifle flew far
from him. He lay there motionless. A trooper binding his wounded thigh
glanced around when the assault had become a swift retreat.

"Look!" he cried. "They've got Smith."

"Set us afoot," another growled and pointed after the stampeded
horses.

Smith lay quite still as he had fallen. They thought him dead. Within
the hour, a dozen whooping Comanches ran their ponies up the hill
toward his limp form. To gain that scalp-lock under fire would be an
exploit worth telling to their grandchildren in after years. And
there was the long-barreled rifle as a bit of plunder. But the five
white men, who had change