The hot brown
barrels belched forth their lightnings into those painted faces, and
the swarms of savagery melted away. The living sheltered themselves
behind the bodies of their dead, fighting now in desperation, their
horses stampeded, their ammunition all gone excepting the few
cartridges remaining in the waist-belts. From lip to lip passed the
one vital question: "In God's name, where is Reno? What has become of
the rest of the boys?"
It was four o'clock. For two long hours they had been engaged in
ceaseless struggle; and now barely a hundred men, smoke-begrimed,
thirsty, bleeding, half their carbines empty, they still formed an
impenetrable ring around their chief. The struggle was over, and they
realized the fact. When that wave of savage horsemen swept forth again
it would be to ride them down, to crush them under their horses'
pounding hoofs. They turned their loyal eyes toward him they loved and
followed for the last time, and when he uttered one final word of
undaunted courage, they cheered him faintly, with parched and fevered
lips.
Like a whirlwind those red demons came,--howling wolves now certain of
their prey.
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