llets of the enemy. Rear
subdivision, to the front! Right subdivision, halt!"

"Left subdivision, halt!" ordered Lieutenant Elmsley, when they
had come up.

"Front!" pursued the captain, and the line was formed. "Men, throw
off your packs--you must have nothing to encumber you in that sand;
the drivers will carry them into the square. Ladies, you had better
retire there too."

"To a soldier's wife the field of battle were preferable on a day
like this," calmly returned Mrs. Headley, who, with Mrs. Elmsley,
had ridden up with the rear. "Better to be shot down there than
tomahawked near the wagons. Besides our presence will encourage
the men--will it not, my lads?" A loud cheer burst from the ranks.
Each man, certainly, felt greater confidence than before.

"Then forward, charge!" shouted Capt. Headley, availing himself of
this moment of enthusiasm; "recollect, you fight for your wives
and children; if you drive not the Indians, they perish!"

"Nay, forget not, you fight for your colors!" cried Ronayne,
galloping furiously through the sand to the front, and heading the
centre.

The ascent was not very steep, and as the colors, tightly girt over
the shoulders of Ronayne and hanging from the flanks of his horse,
first appeared crowning the crest, and then the little serried line
of bayonets glittering like so many streams of light in the sun's
rays, exclamations of wonder, mingled with fierce shouts, burst
from the Indians, who up to this moment had, after their first
volley, been wholly occupied by Captain Wells and his party of
horsemen, whom they seemed more anxious to make prisoners than to
fire at, and this in consideration of their horses, which they were
anxious to obtain unwounded.

"Wells," shouted Captain Headley, on whose little line the Indians
now began to open their fire, "send half your people to protect my
right flank. Charge, men! It is all down hill work now, and we
are fairly in for it. If we are to die, let us die like men."

Simultaneously, and without the order, the men shouted the charge
as, with their commanding officer and the colors full in view before
them, they dashed forward where their enemies were the thickest,
and such was the effect of their unswerving courage that the latter,
although in numbers sufficient to have annihilated them, were awed
by their resolution; and in many instances, those who were not in
the immediate line of their advance, stood leaning on their guns
watching