Two
Indian boys, with their feet frozen, had been left as decoys, and after
standing off four troops of cavalry for hours, they too had in some
mysterious way departed.
But the pursuit was relentless; on, on over the rolling hills swept the
famishing troopers, and again the Spartan band turned at bay, firmly
intrenched on a bluff as before. This was the last stand--nature was
exhausted. The soldiers surrounded them, and Major Wessells turned the
handle of the human vise. The command gathered closer about the doomed
pits--they crawled on their bellies from one stack of sage-brush to the
next. They were freezing. The order to charge came to the Orphan Troop,
and yelling his command, Sergeant Johnson ran forward. Up from the
sage-brush floundered the stiffened troopers, following on. They ran
over three Indians, who lay sheltered in a little cut, and these killed
three soldiers together with an old frontier sergeant who wore long
hair, but they were destroyed in turn. While the Orphans swarmed under
the hill, a rattling discharge poured from the rifle-pits; but the troop
had gotten under the fire, and it all passed over their heads. On they
pressed, their blood now quickened by excitement, crawling up the steep,
while volley on volley poured over them. Within nine feet of the pits
was a rim-rock ledge over which the Indian bullets swept, and here the
charge was stopped. It now became a duel.
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