But suddenly, out of the most innocent bushes, but which had not been planted there across the way when they passed along, a deadly fire gushed from rifles far more potent than the Indians.
The bandits and the Manitobans were caught between two fires. Nevertheless, whilst the red men seemed the more numerous, the firing elsewhere allowed a sanguine man to believe that these new assailants were so limited in force that they were obliged to ambush themselves.
Kidd flourished his Spanish rapier, rallied his men, and shouted:
"Over them! Through them! It's our only chance. Come on, boys, where we have comrades!" and the column ran into the hunters' fire. At the same time, common enough when an enemy falter, the Indians whooped diabolically and charged the Half-breeds.
They and Kidd had not only the flank but the front fire to sustain, and nearly every second man seemed to fall.
However, those who escaped death, if not wounds, scrambled into the bushes. They were ungarrisoned, being merely a line beyond the real entrenchment, moat, and brushwood chevaux de frize.
The conflict became horrible when the bandits and Half-breeds, now serried together with little order, were brought up, all standing, against the barricades. They gave up hope, and so furiously fought that none dreamt of asking quarter. Forming a rampart of their own dead, and of those of the redskins who had rushed on the guns too rashly, the determined remnant held out, dumb, calm, and gloomy, like men of stone, certain of death, but bravely selling their lives.
Overcome with horror and pity for such a sublime resolution, Jim Ridge unexpectedly sprang over the breastwork, followed by Leon, who knew most of the sufferers, and shouted in a voice everybody heard:
"Quit of shooting! It's too all-fired mean to butcher them when they stand out so well."
On both sides he was obeyed; so much authority was in the voice of one for whom the reds and whites felt a profound respect, and to whom they knew they owed so much of success.