n their rapid ponies the Indians flashed past
between the saloon and Rath's, darted here and there around the
corners, flung to earth and ran to pry at windows and doors.

Horses were down and kicking, in the street. An Indian scampered from
the Shadley brothers' wagon, his arms full of plunder; but a bullet
from the saloon dropped him like a stone. Nothing was heard from the
two Shadleys; probably they were dead in their wagon.

The saloon was thick with powder-smoke; the air outside quivered to the
whoops and jeers and threats. Would the store hold out? Hurrah! The
boys in there were up and shouting, too. Shots spouted from the
windows.

The first charge had passed on. Chief Quana reformed his ranks, for
another. Abode Walls, now rudely awakened, hastily prepared. There
were the seven men in the Hanrahan saloon--a low, box-like affair,
sitting by itself at one side of the store; there were Store-keeper
Rath and his wife, and a couple of hunters, in the Rath house, on the
other side of the store; and in the long store itself there were twelve
or fourteen men.

Peeping out, dazed and bootless and coatless just as they had sprung
from their blankets, they saw a wonderful sight. Fully six hundred
Indians were coming again, in a solid front.

The long feathered war-bonnets of the Comanches and Cheyennes flared
upon the breeze; the painted, naked riders lashed and urged--"Yip!
Yip! Yip!"; the ponies, of all colors, jostled and plunged, and their
hoof-beats drummed; above the tossing crests bare arms upheld a fringe
of shaking guns and bows and lances. Unless he had been at Beecher's
Island and witnessed the charge of Roman Nose, not a man of Adobe Walls
ever had seen so terrible a spectacle as this, under the pink sky of
the fresh June morning.

On a hill to the right I-sa-tai the medicine-man stood, all unclothed
except for a bonnet of sage twigs. He was making medicine.

The buffalo-hunters and the two or three freighters, the clerks and
roustabouts and Saloon-keeper Hanrahan and Store-keeper Rath jammed
their guns through every window and cranny fronting the charge, and
waited. It seemed as if the red cavalry surely would ride right over
the place and flatten it.

Four hundred yards, three hundred yards, two hundred yards--"Yip! Yip!
Yip!" "Hi! Hi!"; the hoof-beats were thunderous; it was an avalanche;
smoke puffed from the ponies' backs, bullets whined and thudded--and
the guns of saloon and s