Dana nodded, pressed his hand to his side, and saying nothing, walked up to a neighboring cottonwood and leaned against it, looking rather pale.
"Damn the luck!" growled Wayne. "This won't do. I must get the whole crowd under cover."
"You get under yourself," grinned Dana. "That hat of yours looks like a sieve now. Yi-ip! There goes your horse." And forgetting his own pain, he strove to aid the captain, whose horse had suddenly plunged forward, and was now rolling and kicking in the agony of death.
"I'm all right, Dana. Poor old Ned! he's carried me many a mile. Here, sergeant, help the lieutenant back to the doctor. Go, Dana! I'll get the men where they belong. We're all right, once we get in the timber."
And so, little by little, slowly and steadily the skirmishers fell back to the shelter of the trees. There in big semicircle they were distributed, each in a little, hastily constructed rifle-pit or shelter of his own, and by nine o'clock this bright July morning the first phase of the combat was at an end, and there was time to "take account of stock."
Dana was shot through the side by a Henry or Winchester bullet, and was lying under the bank faint, thirsty, but plucky. Sergeant Gwinn and two of the men were dead, and eight men now needed the care of the surgeon; three of them were senseless, probably mortally hurt. At least fifteen horses were killed or rendered useless; the others were "corralled" under the bank, where, in a deep bend, they were safe except from long-range fire. Ray's men on the island had improved their advantage by seizing defensible positions on the north bank, and, as against two hundred and fifty Indians, with two days' rations left, with abundant water to be had by digging in the sand, with pluck and spirit left for anything, they were not badly off, provided the Indians were not heavily reinforced and provided their ammunition held out.
The Cheyennes now resorted to other tactics. Leaving but few warriors scurrying about on the open prairie, both north and south, they gathered in force in the timber up- and down-stream and began their stealthy approaches, keeping up all the time a sharp fire upon Wayne's position. Every now and then would come a frantic cry from some stricken horse as a random bullet took effect, but few struck among the men. The surgeon and the wounded were well sheltered in a concave hollow of the bank.
There was fortunately little wind. With a gale blowing either up- or down-stream, the Indians could have fired the timber and soon driven them out. This was well understood on both sides. But the besieged knew as well that other methods would be resorted to, and speedily they were developed. The rattling fire that had been kept up ever since the first assault had died away to an occasional shot, when suddenly from the down-stream side there came a volley, a chorus of frantic yells, and then a pandemonium of shots, shouts, howls, and screeches, answered by the soldiers with their carbines and the billingsgate of some irrepressible humorist. A savage attack had begun on Hunter's men. Even as Wayne and Ray, bending low to avoid the storm, went scurrying through the trees to his assistance, followed by some half a dozen of the "old hands," there came from up-stream just such another assault, and in ten seconds every able man in the command was hotly engaged.
"For God's sake, captain, don't let them waste their fire!" shouted Ray. "I'll go back to the other front and hold them there."
"All right! I understand, Ray. You watch the same thing over there," answered Wayne, who at another time would have resented any suggestions, but had seen the value of Ray's words a dozen times that day. "Damn it! men. Fire slow. Don't throw away a shot. Let them come closer; that's what we want," he shouted to the soldiers, who, lying behind logs or kneeling among the trees, were driving their missiles through the timber, where the smoke-wreaths told of the otherwise invisible foe. Out on the prairie, too, the mounted warriors went careering about, dashing at full speed towards the woods, as though determined to charge, but invariably veering off to right or left as they came within three hundred yards. Of course, there was no direction from which the bullets did not come whizzing into the timber, and men were more likely to be hit in the back than elsewhere,—one of the many disheartening features of such warfare. Almost every moment somebody was hit, though at the time it could not be seen or known, as all were too busy with what was in their front to look around. Once in a while, too, some lucky shot would send an Indian pony to his knees out on the prairie, or a warrior would drop and be borne off by a ducking, dodging trio of his fellows. Then there would be a shout of triumph from the timber, answering yells of rage and defiance from the foe; but finally, after nearly an hour of such savage work, the Cheyennes seemed to give it up. Then came another respite, another "taking of stock."