Bob Hampton of Placer - Page 198/205

"Reno is going in, boys; it will be our turn next."

"Close up! Quiet there, lads, quiet," officer after officer passed the

word of command.

Yet there were those among them who felt a strange dread--that firing

sounded so far up the stream from where Reno should have been by that

time. Still it might be that those overhanging bluffs would muffle and

deflect the reports. Those fighting men of the Seventh rode steadily

on, unquestioningly pressing forward at the word of their beloved

leader. All about them hovered death in dreadful guise. None among

them saw those cruel, spying eyes watching from distant ridges, peering

at them from concealed ravines; none marked the rapidly massing hordes,

hideous in war-paint, crowded into near-by coulées and behind

protecting hills.

It burst upon them with wild yells. The gloomy ridges blazed into

their startled faces, the dark ravines hurled at them skurrying

horsemen, while, wherever their eyes turned, they beheld savage forms

leaping forth from hill and coulée, gulch and rock shadow. Horses

fell, or ran about neighing; men flung up their hands and died in that

first awful minute of consternation, and the little column seemed to

shrivel away as if consumed by the flame which struck it, front and

flank and rear. It was as if those men had ridden into the mouth of

hell. God only knows the horror of that first moment of shrinking

suspense--the screams of agony from wounded men and horses, the dies of

fear, the thunder of charging hoofs, the deafening roar of rifles.

Yet it was for scarcely more than a minute. Men trained, strong, clear

of brain, were in those stricken lines--men who had seen Indian battle

before. The recoil came, swift as had been the surprise. Voice after

voice rang out in old familiar orders, steadying instantly the startled

nerves; discipline conquered disorder, and the shattered column rolled

out, as if by magic, into the semblance of a battle line. On foot and

on horseback, the troopers of the Seventh turned desperately at bay.

It was magnificently done. Custer and his troop-commanders brought

their sorely smitten men into a position of defence, even hurled them

cheering forward in short, swift charges, so as to clear the front and

gain room in which to deploy. Out of confusion emerged discipline,

confidence, esprit de corps. The savages skurried away on their

quirt-lashed ponies, beyond range of those flaming carbines, while the

cavalry-men, pausing from vain pursuit, gathered up their wounded, and

re-formed their disordered ranks.

"Wait till Reno rides into their village," cried encouraged voices

through parched lips. "Then we'll give them hell!"