ntucky and West Virginia one hundred years ago.
The Indians were outside, the frontiersmen were inside, and no help
near.

The sun rose. By this time the Indians hiding close in had been
disposed of, in one way or another. They were shooting from two
hundred yards--but that was a dead range for the white men's guns. The
buffalo-hunters asked nothing better.

Their rifles were sighted to a hair. The hunters were accustomed to
lie all day, on the buffalo range, and from their "stand" to leeward
plant bullet after bullet of their Sharp's .50-120, Ballard .45-90, and
Winchester .44-40 behind the buffalo's shoulders. A circle eight
inches in diameter was the fatal spot--and from two hundred yards they
rarely varied in their aim.

An Indian who exposed himself two hundred or three hundred yards away
stood a poor show of escape.

The Chief Quana men soon learned this. They already knew it, from
other fights, upon the buffalo range itself. They had grown to respect
a buffalo-hunter at bay.

Now they withdrew, by squads, to six hundred, seven hundred, eight
hundred yards; and firing wildly they sought to cover the retreat of
their wounded and their warriors afoot. The Indians between the main
party and the fort would spring up, run a few steps, and drop again
before a bullet caught them.

Thus the fight lasted until the middle of the afternoon. The hunters
inside the walls had no rest, but they ventured to move about a little.
The men in the saloon bolted out, and ran into the store. From here
Scout Dixon, scanning the country, saw a moving object at the base of
the hill, eight hundred yards distant. The Indians now were mostly out
of sight, beyond. He commenced shooting at the tiny mark, correcting
his aim by the dust thrown up when the bullets landed. The old
single-shot Sharp's, either fifty caliber or the forty-four
sharp-shooter Creedmore pattern fitted with special sights, was the
favorite gun of the buffalo-hunters. Scout Dixon kept elevating his
rear sight, and pumping away. Finally he thought that he had hit the
mark; it did not move. After the battle and siege he rode over there,
to see. He had shot an Indian through the breast, with a fifty-caliber
ball at eight hundred yards.

Toward evening the Indians stopped fighting. I-sa-tai's medicine had
proved weak, for the hunters' guns seemed to be as bad as ever. But
the battle was not yet ended, as Adobe Walls found out, the next
morning. The