The Americans began laughing and hooting at the fugitives.
"I think," Bothrel said facetiously, "that those fine fellows find our soup too hot, and regret having put their fingers in it."
"In truth," the Captain remarked, "they do not appear inclined to return this time."
He was mistaken; for, at the same instant, the Indians came back at a gallop.
Nothing could check them, and, in spite of the fusillade, to which they disdained to reply, they reached the very brink of the ditch.
It is true, that once there, they turned back, and retired as rapidly as they had come, though not without leaving on the way a great number of their comrades, whom the American bullets pitilessly laid low.
But the plan of the Pawnees had been successful, and the Whites soon perceived, to their great disappointment, that they had been too hasty in congratulating themselves on their facile victory.
Each Pawnee horseman carried on his croup a warrior, who, on reaching the ditch, dismounted, and profiting by the disorder and smoke, which prevented their being seen, sheltered themselves behind the trunks of trees and elevations of the soil so cleverly, that when the Americans leaned over the palisade to discover the results of the evening's charge, they were in their turn greeted by a discharge of bullets and long barbed arrows, which stretched fifteen on the ground.
There was a movement of blind terror among the Whites after this attack made by invisible enemies.
Fifteen men at one round was a fearful loss for the colonists; the combat was assuming serious proportions, which threatened to degenerate into a defeat; for the Indians had never before displayed so much energy and obstinacy in an attack.