Men were crushed under their falling forms and ridden over in a second.
Many warriors threw up their hands in a wild gesture of despair as they reeled in their saddles, and then fell to the plain dead, wounded or dying.
It had been a deadly, destructive fire, well aimed and hurled in exactly at the right moment, and fully a dozen out of the four different parties were down upon the ground.
But still a volley had been looked for by the desperate leaders, and they had given a desperate order that admitted of no pause:
“If half are killed let the rest dash on to the wagons.”
Thus it was that the terrible charge was not stayed by the volley.
It threw all four divisions into a little confusion for a second, and then they dashed on again.
This was not what Mustang Max had looked for.
He certainly expected that his first fire would break up the enemy’s ranks so badly that the charge would have to be deferred until the parties could be re-organized as well as possible by the living leaders, but he saw instantly that he had made a mistake.
He had underrated the courage of the foe, and that is always a very bad thing to do.