Then came a quick command, and the Sioux chief was seized, disarmed, and fairly thrown upon the back of a pony, for the whole camp was wild with excitement now.
Leaping into his saddle, Kit Carey seized the rein of Sitting Bull's horse, and cried:
"Come!"
As the daring redskin soldiers, under their dashing young commander, closed in around the captive, a yell of fury, wild, startling, terrible, went up from the warriors, who had been almost stunned by the sudden capture of their chief, and then in a voice like a trumpet, burst from the lips of Sitting Bull a ringing command.
He had called to his faithful braves to rescue him, his voice had sounded the tocsin of war to the death, and if the Indians were to be swept off the face of the earth they must die in a noble cause.
And that weird, wild call to rescue was heard, and responded to.
But too well did the daring lieutenant know its meaning, and driving his spurs deep into the flanks of his own horse, he pricked the pony of Sitting Bull with his sword, and grasping more firmly the rein, dashed on in the flight for life.
But the Sioux braves were upon the gallant band like an avalanche of death, an Indian police officer upon the other side of Sitting Bull was shot through the heart, and that one crack of a rifle opened the crash of battle.
"We must beat them back! Turn your Winchesters upon them. Fire!"
The order of the gallant soldier of the Seventh was obeyed, as the rush of the braves was made upon the little band fighting against such desperate odds, and then the death-knell of the mighty medicine man rang out, for in the battle to rescue their chief, he received a bullet in his heart.