Even then, when every carbine seemed to leap from its socket, men remembered the groan of despair that rose from Burleigh's lips.
"Look after the prisoners, corporal. Sergeant Carey, you and the first six come with me!" cried Loring. A gallop of less than a minute brought them almost abreast of the ridge. Black and billowing a cloud of smoke was rising, lashed from beneath by angry tongues of red flame.
"It isn't the house, thank God!" cried the sergeant. "It's the haystacks. But—look at the Indians!"
Look, well they might! All about the corrals they were darting. All of a sudden there blazed from the ridge line across the stream the fire of a dozen rifles. All around them the spiteful bullets bit the turf. One horse madly reared and plunged, his rider cursing heartily. Wildly the more excitable troopers returned an aimless shot from the saddle, while others gazed eagerly to the officer for orders. It was his first meeting with the Sioux. It had been his hope to gain that threatened ranch by dawn and join its garrison, but where was that hope now? Down along the banks of the Laramie, lashing their bounding ponies, brandishing their weapons and yelling like mad, a band of Sioux, full forty strong, came charging at them, splashing through the shallows and scattering out across their front in the well-known battle tactics. Not an instant was there to be lost!
"Jump for those rocks, men!" rang Loring's order. "Cut loose your prisoners, corporal. They must fight for their lives."
But oh, what chance had so few against so many! Springing from saddle, turning loose their startled, snorting horses, that go tearing away down the valley, the old hands have jumped for the rocks, and kneeling and taking deliberate aim, opened fire on the foremost of the foe. A gaudy warrior goes down in the flood, and a yell goes up to heaven. Another good shot slays a feather-decked pony and sends his rider sprawling, and wisely the others veer away to right and left and scurry to more distant range. But up the slopes to the south still others dart. From three sides now the Indian bullets are hissing in. In less than four minutes of sharp, stinging fight, gallant Sergeant Carey is stretched on the turf, with a shattered elbow, Corporal Burke and two troopers are shot dead, Loring, with white, set face and a scorching seam along the left cheek, seizes a dropped carbine and thrusts it into Burleigh's shaking hands. "Up with you, man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips. A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark, and with a howl the warrior drops upon the bank.
"Well done, Burleigh!" shouts Loring. "Fire again!"
Hope, or whiskey, or lingering spark of manhood has fired the major's eye and nerved his hand. With something like a sob, one of Birdsall's captured crew rolls over to where the young commander is coolly loading and firing—and despite their heavy loss the stout defense has had its effect, and the yelling braves are keeping at wider range.
"I'm done for, lieutenant," he moans. "For God's sake lie flat behind me," and he feebly points to the slope behind their left rear, where half a dozen Sioux, dismounted, are skipping to the shelter of the rocks. Another minute and their bullets are hissing at the backs of the besieged. Another minute and Burleigh topples over on the sward, the life blood pouring from his side, and Loring sees that half his fighting force is gone, even as everything begins to swim before his eyes, and the hand that strives to sweep away the blur before his sight, leaves his pallid face smeared with blood. There is a sound of coming thunder in his ears, the blare of distant trumpet, the warning yell of wary Indians, the rousing cheer of charging horse, and the earth seems turning round and rolling up to meet him as he droops, fainting at his post, the battle won.
Well and gallantly done, was the universal verdict of the frontier on Walter Loring's maiden fight. Brave, cool and resolute in face of desperate peril he had proved, and many a sympathizing soldier hovered about the hospital tent, where day after day he lay in the delirium of fever that followed his wounds. Yet will it be believed that, when at last convalescence came and the doctors were compelled to raise the blockade, the news was broken to him that so soon as he should be declared strong enough there was still another ordeal ahead. The gallant General he had served so well had indeed been ordered elsewhere, as was prophesied at Omaha. "A new king came who knew not Joseph." The senior colonel was assigned to temporary command of the department, and he, old Pecksniff, listened to the tales of Nevins, and of that new arrival from California, Petty, reinforced by Heaven alone knows what allegations from the lambs of Lambert's flock.