"Ah! there is the colonel, so I shall report my intention of following Red Hatchet," and, throwing himself into his saddle, Kit Carey rode up to Colonel Forsythe, who was doing all in his power to check the firing, now the Indians were in full flight.
A few words of explanation, and Kit Carey dashed away like the wind, followed by his two Indian guards.
"We must catch Chief Red Hatchet," he explained, and so on they swept, leaving the ravine and riding so as to head off the chief whom the two police had seen take to flight alone, after he had started the deadly combat.
Taking the direction they had seen him disappear in, Kit Carey soon found his trail, and followed it with the horses on a run, and leaving Wounded Knee Creek and its red tragedy rapidly behind him.
But Red Hatchet was splendidly mounted, his horse was fresh, and the cunning chief well knew that his own safety lay in reaching the Bad Lands, and giving to the Sioux there his story of the treachery of the soldiers.
He had planned well not to be looked upon as a deserter from the field, by the few warriors, who, like himself, would escape from the fatal field.
He had hoped, by a perfect surprise, to massacre so many soldiers in the first few volleys that the others would be driven to flight.
Once they stampeded, their camps and weapons would fall into the hands of the Indians, and many of their horses, too, and a quick retreat could be made to the Bad Lands, where the story of the battle would inspire at once courage in the heart of the faintest-hearted brave to resist their foes, the pale-faces.
With this in view to start the attack, and reap its fruits of success, Red Hatchet during the night had instructed the young warriors in the duty each was to perform.
A few were to seize the horses of the cavalry men, others were to kill the officers in their first volley, and more were to make a rush for the soldiers' tents, while the reserve of women and children were to rush up from among the tepees and thus complete the panic that had been started.