The river, however, was a great help, especially now that it had been converted into a mill-race, and flooded beyond its usual proportions; for, when the Indians rushed into the water to wade across and assault the camp at close quarters, as the shallowness of the stream at that season of the year would previously have easily enabled them to have done, they found, to their astonishment, first that the current, which they did not expect to be more than a foot deep, rose above their waist-belts, then above their armpits, and finally above their heads, as, pushed onwards by their companions behind, they were submerged in the flood; while the miners, still sheltered by Ernest Wilton’s trenched rampart above, rained down a pitiless hail of bullets into the half-drowned mob, whose very strength now proved their principal weakness.
“Give it ’em, b’ys: remember poor Sailor Bill!” shouted Seth, his blood up to fever heat with passion, and the murderous spirit of revenge strong in his heart. “Give ’em goss, an’ let nary a one go back to tell the story!”
“Steady, men, and fire low!” repeated Mr Rawlings.
And the miners mowed the redskins down by the score with regular volleys from their repeating rifles, although twenty fresh Indians seemed to spring up in the place of every one killed.
The fight was too severe to last long, and soon a diversion came.
As Rising Cloud, raising his tomahawk on high, and, leading the van of his warriors, was bringing them on for a decisive charge, several sharp discharges, as if from platoon firing, were heard in the rear of the Indians.
Just then, a bullet from Ernest Wilton’s rifle penetrated the chief’s brain, and he fell dead right across the earth rampart in front of the young engineer. The platoon firing in the rear of the savages was again repeated; the United States troops had evidently arrived to the rescue; and, taken now between two fires, and disheartened by the fall of Rising Cloud, the Sioux broke, and fled in a tumultuous mass towards the gorge by which they had entered the valley of Minturne Creek.
The struggle over, the miners had time to count casualties, and see who amongst their number had fallen in the fray.
Thanks to Ernest Wilton’s breastwork, their losses had not been very heavy.
Noah Webster was slightly wounded, and Black Harry badly; while the only one killed outright was Tom Cannon, the whilom keen-sighted topman of the Susan Jane, who would never sight wreck or sail more, for Sailor Bill was only wounded, and not dead, after all.