Thus they waited grimly for the next assault.
Nor was it long delayed. Scarcely had the troopers recovered, refilled
their depleted cartridge belts from those of their dead comrades, when
the onslaught came. Lashing their ponies into mad gallop, now sitting
erect, the next moment lying hidden behind the plunging animals,
constantly screaming their shrill war-cries, their guns brandished in
air, they swept onward, seeking to crush that thin line in one terrible
onset. But they reckoned wrong. The soldiers waited their coming.
The short, brown-barrelled carbines gleamed at the level in the
sunlight, and then belched forth their message of flame into the very
faces of those reckless horsemen. It was not in flesh and blood to
bear such a blow. With screams of rage, the red braves swerved to left
and right, leaving many a dark, war-bedecked figure lying dead behind
them, and many a riderless pony skurrying over the prairie. Yet their
wild ride had not been altogether in vain; like a whirlwind they had
struck against Calhoun on the flank, forcing his troopers to yield
sullen ground, thus contracting the little semicircle of defenders,
pressing it back against that central hill.
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