There it was, a white-topped line, apparently guarded by only a few cavalry troopers; but two hundred infantry were with it and Lieutenant Hall had stowed them in the wagons. The Cheyennes were waiting, their mouths watering; it looked like a rich plum; they could not see inside the wagons; they would meet a double surprise—one from the cavalry gathered at the War Bonnet, the other from the infantry riding in the wagons.
"Have the men had their coffee?" General Merritt asked, not a whit excited.
"Yes, sir," replied Lieutenant and Adjutant William Forbush.
"Then let them saddle up and close in mass under the bluffs."
Buffalo Bill Cody had arrived on the hill, with two other scouts: Tait, and "Chips" whose real name was Charley White. "Chips" imitated Buffalo Bill in every way; seemed to think that Bill made the world. He was Buffalo Bill's understudy.
Scout Cody did not wear buckskin, to-day. He wore one of his stage costumes—a Mexican suit of short black velvet jacket trimmed with silver buttons and silver lace, and black velvet trousers also with silver buttons down the sides, and slashed from the knee down with bright red. His brown hair was long and curling.
"What in thunder are those vagabonds down yonder fooling about?" he growled, on a sudden.
What, indeed? Something new had cropped out. From the ridge in the southeast a long ravine ran down, crossed in front of the hill and met the wagon-road trail at the right of the hill. It and the road formed a V; the two arms of the V were separated by a stretch of high ground, and the hill was at the point of the V.
Where the ravine headed at the base of the ridge a mile and a half southeast, thirty or forty Indians had collected, all ready to dash on. But why? Ah, see! Lieutenant Hall had sent two cavalry couriers forward, with dispatches for General Merritt. Two miles distant they were galloping hard, up the road, bent upon reaching the War Bonnet. The Indians knew. The warriors in the ravine were about to follow it down to the trail and kill the couriers.
The couriers could not see the Indians, on account of the high ground between. The Indians could not now see the couriers, for the same reason. But the Lieutenant King party on the hill could see everything, on both sides. The couriers, unconscious of their danger, could not possibly escape. They were far ahead of the wagon train, they were loping steadily on—were now within a mile of the War Bonnet camp, and as if at a signal the Indians in the ravine started, pellmell, to cut them off on their way.