"How well I remember the coolness and confidence of Bill! He could not have been more calm if he had been stripping for a foot-race for fun. He had perfect faith in the result, and when O-ton-son-e-var motioned to commence the fearful trial, Bill spoke to me, but I could not answer—my grief was too great.
"He stripped to his drawers, and standing there awaiting the signal, naked from the belt up, he was the picture of the noblest manhood I ever saw. He tightened his belt, and stood for a few seconds looking, with compressed lips, down the double row of savages, as they stood, face to face, gloating on their victim. It seemed like an age to me, and when the signal came I was forced by an irresistible power to look upon the scene.
"At the instant Bill darted like a flash of lightning from the foot of the tree; on rushed the devils with their gleaming blades, yelling, and crowding one another, and cutting at poor Bill with all the rage of their revengeful nature. But he evaded all their horrible efforts—now tossing a savage here and another there, now almost creeping like a snake at their feet, then like a wildcat he would jump through the line, dashing the knives out of their hands, till at last, with a single spring, he passed almost twenty feet beyond the mark where the chief stood.
"We were saved, and when the disappointed savages were crowding around him I rushed in and threw myself in his arms. The chief motioned the impatient warriors away, and with sullen footsteps followed them.
"In a few moments we slowly retraced our way to the Rock, where, taking our mules, we pushed on in the direction of the Missouri. We camped on the bank of the Arkansas that night, only a few miles from the terrible Rock; and while we were resting around our little fire of buffalo-chips, and our animals were quietly nibbling the dried grass at our feet, we could still hear the Kiowas chanting the death-song as they buried their lost warriors under the blackened sod of the prairie."
SHERIDAN'S ROOST.
GENERAL P. H. SHERIDAN.