The circle began to contract, the men crawling and hitching forward, a few inches at a time. For some minutes this was kept up on all sides of the hole, until they had approached within a few rods of it. Still the Indians gave no sign. Then again the soldiers heard, plainly audible in the silence, the persuasive voice of Captain Miner, raised slightly above its ordinary tone;
"Charge, boys, charge!"
As if released by a spring, at those welcome words the Coyotes leaped to their feet as one man and with a fierce shout rushed forward. The Indians heard them coming and as the soldiers approached within twenty feet of their refuge they arose and with a blood-curdling yell fired their guns straight into the faces of their assailants. Good fortune was surely with the Dakota boys that day, for the bullets, even at that deadly range, whistled by harmlessly, and in less time than it takes to tell it, a score of carbines flashed and the savage assassins, riddled with bullets, fell back across the body of their already dead companion. Thus speedily had the cold-blooded murder of Captain Feilner been avenged.
The soldiers, talking together excitedly, gathered around the edge of the buffalo wallow; and two or three, including Corporal Wright, sprang down into it to take trophies, such as beads or feathers, from the dead warriors. Al was standing on the brink of the hole watching the Corporal bend over one of the bodies, when, to his amazement, he saw another of the supposedly dead Indians raise the muzzle of his musket toward the Corporal's back.
The Indian raised his rifle to shoot Corporal Wright
"Look out, Corporal!" shouted Al, at the same instant shooting into the Indian. The Corporal leaped high in air and turned round just in time to see the musket drop from the hands of the warrior as he fell back and expired.
"Why, he wasn't dead at all!" exclaimed Al, aghast at the suddenness of the thing. "He was playing possum and he almost had you, Corporal."
Wright, a little pale, scrambled out of the hole and grasped Al's hand warmly.