All downward to the banks of Till
Was wreathed in sable smoke!'"
Before the resistless rush of the Minnesotans, the savages on either flank broke and fled wildly back to the higher ground, the cavalry hard on their heels. Here, backed literally against their camps, they turned amid the rocks and trees and ravines, like wolves at bay, to protect for a few minutes the squaws and children, who were frantically striking the tepees and running or driving their travois up the ravines and into the impenetrable mountain fastnesses beyond. Farther and still farther along the crest of the lower ridge puffed out the little, cotton-like jets of carbine and rifle smoke. At length, nearly at the foot of the mountain on the right they began to increase in rapidity until they were floating off in a mass of thin vapors, while the sound of the fire became a shrill, continuous rattle. Above it rose the yells of the Indians, answered now and then by a disjointed cheer. General Sully's eyes narrowed, and his jaws set hard.
"Brackett's struck a hornet's nest," he ejaculated. "By George, that begins to sound like Fair Oaks!"
He wheeled his horse and galloped back to Captain Jones, whose battery was a short distance behind him.
"Captain," he cried, pointing to the spot where the heaviest fight seemed to be raging, "get out there as quick as the Lord'll let you, close to the base of the mountain, and shell out those redskins in front of Brackett."
The Captain saluted and spurred his horse around to the flank of his command.
"On right sections;—to twenty-five yards, extend intervals;—" he shouted. "Trot;—march!" Then, as the battery resolved itself into the new formation, he continued, "Right oblique,—march! Trot! Gallop!"
The guns went racing away, swung into battery, and in a moment their shells were searching the ravines in Brackett's front. They had scarcely opened when a great hubbub and popping of carbines broke out behind the wagon train, and a large body of Indians made their appearance, as if springing out of the ground, and bore down upon the rear guard. Immediately one of Jones' guns limbered up and came galloping back to reinforce the hard-pressed companies covering the train.