"Order Colonel McLaren to charge that party and drive them to the ridge, and not to stop till he has forced them clear away from their camps."
Once more his words flashed out like a whip-lash, and Wallace Smith, quivering to be off, caught them as they came from his lips,
"Tell Captain Pope to advance at a gallop through the skirmish line and give them shell. Tell him to clear the valley and sweep the ridge in front of Brackett and McLaren."
Wallace dashed away and the General relapsed into his former attitude of silent, intent watchfulness. All his officers and orderlies were now gone somewhere with orders, excepting Al and Lieutenant Dale, who still rode behind him. But he paid no more heed to them than to the grass under his horse's feet. His whole attention was concentrated on the great game he was playing with living men for pawns, as the skilful chess player centres his thought upon the board before him at the crisis of the game.
Far to the right and left fronts, beginning in a low rumble and rising rapidly to a steady, pounding thunder above the crackle of the musketry, sounded the hoof-beats of McLaren's and Brackett's squadrons as they passed from the trot to the gallop and from the gallop to the charge and, a forest of flashing sabres circling above their heads, bore down with fierce cheers upon the foe. Straight ahead, through the gap in the battle line, could be seen the guns of the Prairie Battery, going forward, the cannoneers clinging to the limbers, the cavalry escort galloping furiously on either side. A moment more, and the boom of a howitzer rose above the lesser noises of battle, followed by another and another, and the shells, circling high, burst like great, white flowers against the rugged, dark green front of Tahkahokuty. A terrified commotion could be seen among the people in the camps on its crest. Here and there fires burst out among the lodges and smoke began to pour aloft through the foliage.
"'But see! Look up! On Flodden bent
The Scottish foe has fired his tent!'"
quoted Lieutenant Dale, pointing upward, and Al, catching the inspiration of the great poet of border warfare, who had thrilled him since childhood, went on,
"'And sudden, as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill