One of the scouts, one who had refused to try and ride through to the regiment, was shot dead, and lay on his face among the trees. So, too, were two more of the men, while six were wounded, and Wayne himself had a flesh wound in the thigh. The hot sun of noonday was pouring down, and matters looked ugly.
"Do you know how much ammunition we have left?" asked Mr. Ray, in a low tone, of the commanding officer about an hour later.
"No," said Wayne, looking anxiously in his face.
"Not twelve rounds to the man."
CHAPTER XIV.
RAY'S RIDE FOR LIFE
Darkness has settled down in the shadowy Wyoming valley. By the light of a tiny fire under the bank some twenty forms can be seen stretched upon the sand,—they are wounded soldiers. A little distance away are nine others, shrouded in blankets: they are the dead. Huddled in confused and cowering group are a few score horses, many of them sprawled upon the sand motionless; others occasionally struggle to rise or plunge about in their misery. Crouching among the timber, vigilant but weary, dispersed in big, irregular circle around the beleaguered bivouac, some sixty soldiers are still on the active list. All around them, vigilant and vengeful, lurk the Cheyennes. Every now and then the bark as of a coyote is heard,—a yelping, querulous cry,—and it is answered far across the valley or down the stream. There is no moon; the darkness is intense, though the starlight is clear, and the air so still that the galloping hoofs of the Cheyenne ponies far out on the prairie sound close at hand.
"That's what makes it hard," says Ray, who is bending over the prostrate form of Captain Wayne. "If it were storming or blowing, or something to deaden the hoof-beats, I could make it easier; but it's the only chance."
The only chance of what?