“Stand firm!” roared Stillman, his face gray with rage and suspense, “you infernal cowards!”
Ben Gordon, seething with anger, caught one of the fleeing men by the shirt collar.
“Get back there!” he yelled. “Fight like a man!”
“Out of the way, bub!” snarled the fellow furiously, his fearful fright giving him the strength of two, as he pushed the boy with great violence. “I’d ruther be a live coward then a dead hero.”
Nearer came the red riders. The boy was fearfully excited. The little pulses in his temple were beating hard, and he saw the charging Sacs as in a red mist. It looked to him as if they must sweep all before them.
To add to his dismay, he saw that the line of white defenders was growing steadily thinner. All over the camp frenzied volunteers, beset with an unreasoning fear, were throwing themselves on their horses and galloping desperately to safety. Stillman and some of the other officers ran frantically about, exhorting the fleeing men to stand firm, even thwacking the craven fellows with flats of their swords, in short, doing their utmost to rally the panic-stricken men.
All to no avail. Soon, almost the entire white force, hundreds strong, was milling about in a confused throng. Climbing posthaste on the nearest horses, they deserted their impregnable camp and fled southward in the greatest consternation, although the oncoming Sac horsemen were still upwards of a half-mile away on the open prairie to the north.
Thus, out of the whole detachment of three hundred men, there presently remained in the grove only Stillman, a few of his officers, Ben Gordon, Jim Martin and the three troopers, together with about twenty of the volunteers who had stood fast, in the face of the wild Indian charge and the equally wild panic in the white camp.
This pitiful remnant of the once potent white army took refuge at the northwest corner of the grove, near the creek, where the timber was thickest. The deadly muzzles of their rifles faced toward the green prairie to the north, from whence the screeching red horsemen were whirling in, like a dark storm-cloud.
“Hold your fire!” cried Stillman, as a half-dozen of the volunteers started a scattering volley.