" After all, that tells the story. In
those old-time Indian days of continuous foray and skirmish such brief
returns, concise and unheroic, were commonplace enough.
Yet the tale is worth telling now, when such days are past and gone.
There were sixteen of them when, like so many hunted rabbits, they were
first securely trapped among the frowning rocks, and forced
relentlessly backward from off the narrow trail until the precipitous
canyon walls finally halted their disorganized flight, and from sheer
necessity compelled a rally in hopeless battle. Sixteen,--ten
infantrymen from old Fort Bethune, under command of Syd. Wyman, a
gray-headed sergeant of thirty years' continuous service in the
regulars, two cow-punchers from the "X L" ranch, a stranger who had
joined them uninvited at the ford over the Bear Water, together with
old Gillis the post-trader, and his silent chit of a girl.
Sixteen--but that was three days before, and in the meanwhile not a few
of those speeding Sioux bullets had found softer billet than the
limestone rocks. Six of the soldiers, four already dead, two dying,
lay outstretched in ghastly silence where they fell.
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