Buffalo Bill, the Border King; Or, Redskin and Cowboy

by Prentiss Ingraham

Powder was as precious to that devoted band as gold-dust, and bullets were as valuable as diamonds.

Major Baldwin took his position on the observation platform above the gate, Buffalo Bill by his side, repeating rifle in hand, and near them stood a couple of young officers as aids, and the bugler. All were armed with rifles, and every weapon for which there was no immediate need in the fort was loaded and ready. The women were in two groups—one ready to reload the weapons tossed them by the men, and the other to assist the surgeon with the wounded.

The Indians came swarming across the valley in a red tidal wave. They were decreasing their circle, and expected to rush the stockade walls in a cyclonic charge.

They quickened their pace as they came, and the weird war-whoop deafened the beleaguered garrison. They came with a rush at last, showering the walls with arrows and bullets, some of which found their way into the loopholes.

It was a grand charge to look upon; it was a desperate one to check.

The whites had their orders and obeyed them. Not a rifle cracked until the Indians were under the stockade walls, scrambling through the ditch. Then the four six-pounders roared from the block-towers, their scattering lead and iron mowing down the yelling redskins in the ditches.

Then volley upon volley of carbines, repeating rifles, and muskets echoed the rolling thunder of the big guns.

Not a few of the bullets and arrows entered the loopholes, and many dead and wounded were numbered among the whites; but the carnage among the redskins was awful to contemplate.

The thunder of the big guns, the popping of the smaller firearms, the screaming of the wild ponies corraled in the fort, and the demoralized shrieks of the Indians themselves made a veritable hell upon earth!

Above all rose the notes of the bugle sending forth orders at Major Baldwin’s command. Now and then that piercing, weird war-cry of the Border King was heard—a sound well known and feared by the Indians. They recognized it as the voice of he whom they called Pa-e-has-ka—“The Long Hair.”