Harry's ball had broken the right arm of Smoke-creek Sam, and he had gone to grass as it struck him, or, at all events, I thought so. The red ruffian had certainly fallen, and, extricating myself from the panting body of my dying horse, I leapt towards him for the purpose of raising his hair. While I was in the act of doing this, I saw that he was not yet dead. With a desperate clutch of his left hand, he was trying to grasp the revolver which had fallen from his maimed limb upon the ground. It was lying a trifle beyond his reach, and before I had time even to think of putting him out of his misery, I saw the gleam of a cavalry sabre flashing through the air.
The blade fell.
In another instant, the savagely brutal head of Smoke-creek Sam was hanging from his shorn neck, attached to it merely by a small portion of bleeding flesh. At the same moment when this was effected, a voice shrieked out:
"Buckeeskin Mose, he now see whether Shoshonee John fight. Think him kill heap."
There was clearly no more reason for doubting the sincerity of our Indian ally.
"Smoke-creek Sam?"
This demand was made by me with an inquiring gesture, as, in doing so, I extended to him the scalp I had just lifted. Looking first at it, and then at the head he had so nearly severed from the body it belonged to, as if to make sure of their former connection, he replied:
"Heap sure."
The answering affirmative was uttered with a sententious gravity, exemplarily characteristic of his red ancestry, as Cooper has painted similar races long since wiped out by our rushing civilization. Striding from us, he then looked around the battle-field for more of his brethren, upon whom he could display the reality of his detestation of them, as well as his capacity as a headsman.