They were alone, between bending blue sky and wide plain; a little trio in the midst of a vast expanse. As the scouts had claimed, no shelter was near. At the other edge of the plateau flowed the North Platte River, but too distant to be reached now.
Louder pealed the whoops of the warriors, louder shrieked the shrill voices of the squaws, as onward charged, headlong, the wild company, to ride over the white dogs and snatch scalp and weapon.
Almost within gunshot swept forward the attack. Already had spoken, recklessly, with “Bang! Bang!” the guns in the hands of the two excited warriors. Were the white men going to run, or stand? They were going to stand, for they had vaulted to ground. One of them was small enough to be a boy. Three puffs of blue smoke jetted from them. The leading Indians ducked low—but the shots had not been for them! Look! Down had dropped the three mules, to lie kicking and struggling.
The white men (yes, one was a boy!) bent over them, stoutly dragging and shoving; and next, in behind the bodies they had crouched. Only the tops of their broad hats and their shoulders could be described, and their gun muzzles projecting before. This, then, was their fort: the three dead mules arranged in triangle! Evidently the two men, and perhaps the boy, had fought Indians before. Davy felt like cheering; but from the forty throats rang a great shout of rage and menace. The squaws had halted, with Dave, to watch; unchecked and unafraid the warriors forged on, straight for the little barricade.
“Kill! Kill!” shrieked the squaws, glaring.
The warriors were shooting in earnest; arrows flew, the two guns again belched. The charge seemed almost upon the fort, when from it puffed the jets of smoke. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” drifted dully the reports; and with scarce an interval followed other jets, rapid and sharp: “Bang! Bang-bang! Bang! Bang!”
From the painted, parted lips of the two squaws issued a wilder, different note, and little Dave again felt like cheering; for from their saddles had lurched three of the Cheyennes, and a pony also had pitched in a heap.
Cut Nose swerved; he and every warrior flung themselves to the pony side opposite the fort, and parting, the column split as if the fort were a wedge. In two wings they went scouring right and left of it. Around and around the mule-body triangle they rode, at top speed, in a great double circle, plying their bows.
Their arrows streamed in a continuous shower, pelting the fort. They struck, quivering, in the mule bodies and in the ground. Now from every savage throat rang another shout—high, derisive. On their ponies the squaws capered, and shook their blanket ends. An arrow was quivering in a new spot—the shoulder of one of the whites. Now Davy felt like sobbing. But it was not in the shoulder of the boy; it was in the shoulder of the man beyond him, and facing the other way. However, that was bad enough.