“Shall I take any men along, sir?” said Casey in his soldier's machine voice.
“Er—yes. Er—no. Er—do as you please.”
The six troopers stepped forward to go, for they loved Casey; but he ordered them sharply to fall back. Then, looking in their eyes, he whispered, “Good-bye, boys, if it's to be that way,” and walked to the lodge, lifted the flap, and fell, shot instantly dead through the heart. “Two bullets into him,” muttered a trooper, heavily breathing as the sounds rang. “He's down,” another spoke to himself with fixed eyes; and a sigh they did not know of passed among them. The two chiefs looked at Augustus and grunted short talk together; and one, with a sweeping lift of his hand out towards the tepee and the dead man by it, said, “Maybe Ute Jack only got three—four—cartridges—so!” (his fingers counted it). “After he kill three—four—men, you get him pretty good.” The Indian took the white man's death thus; but the white men could not yet be even saturnine.
“This will require reinforcement,” said Augustus to the audience. “The place must be attacked by a front and flank movement. It must be knocked down. I tell you I must have it knocked down. How are you to see where he is, I'd like to know, if it's not knocked down?” Augustus's voice was getting high.
“I want the howitzer,” he screeched generally.
A soldier saluted, and Augustus chattered at him.
“The howitzer, the mountain howitzer, I tell you. Don't you hear me? To knock the cursed thing he's in down. Go to Captain Duane and give him my compliments, and—no, I'll go myself. Where's my horse? My horse, I tell you! It's got to be knocked down.”
“If you please, Lieutenant,” said the trooper, “may we have the Red Cross ambulance?”
“Red Cross? What's that for? What's that?”
“Sergeant Casey, sir. He's a-lyin' there.”