“I know you, Great White Chief Buffalo Bill! Oak Heart never forget. You save your people—kill my young men—make Sioux run! Me remember, Pa-e-has-ka!”
“He’s got it in for you, Bill, sure enough!” cried Texas Jack.
Raising his trumpetlike voice, the great scout replied to the threat of the beaten Indian chief:
“Pa-e-has-ka knows the voice of Oak Heart—and the heart of Oak Heart. He will not forget!”
The Border King might have picked off the chief with his rifle as he climbed the farther bank of the stream on his wearied pony. But he scorned to do such an act. Besides, far up the river he saw a slender figure dive down the bank, plunge into the stream, and fight the fierce current to the other side, where it quickly scrambled out, up the bank, and ran to join the fleeing Indians.
“What become of the girl, Cody?” whispered Dick Danforth, getting him aside.
The Border King pointed to this figure following the trail of the defeated warriors.
“There she goes, Dick,” he whispered. “Remember your promise!”
It was indeed a great victory for the whites. The Sioux had lost many ponies and more than a hundred slain, although some of the dead had been taken away. In wounded the Indians had suffered more heavily still.
However, it was a costly victory for the whites. More than twenty troopers lay dead within the fort, and several were scattered upon the plain. There were more than half a hundred seriously injured, while of minor casualties there were so many that the garrison had ceased to note them. Almost everybody within Fort Advance showed, at least, some slight mark of the conflict.