Suddenly from out of the darkness, two hundred yards south of the wagon train, started the thunder of beating hoofs and the fierce yells of at least three hundred red warriors.
But almost at the same instant, above the shrill, savage yells, arose the penetrating notes of the bugle in triumphant “charge.”
Like an avalanche thundered the half-hundred heavy cavalry horses, and before the Indians could be fully aware of their presence the soldiers were upon them.
Tootsie clung to his horse, and when he saw the dark forms of the savages scudding before him, he fired as fast as he could pull the trigger of his revolver, and occasionally added a blast from his bugle.
The boy bugler felt his horse overtake the Indian ponies and plunge among and over them, and then he found himself alone on the prairie beyond them, and heard the continuous crash of revolvers and the clank and clash of sabres on lances and shields.
He would have emptied his rifle into the black mass, but he could not tell friend from foe. He had entered the volcano by the side of Buffalo Bill, but the scout was back there in the midst of it now, and the boy wondered how he had been belched out beyond the rim.
Then out by him tore a maddened horde, the first part of it in full flight and the last part of it spitting flame and lead at the fugitives and hoarsely cheering as they rode after, relentlessly cutting down man and beast of the red marauders.
It was Tootsie’s first real taste of battle, and though it was tempered by the kindly gloom, it turned the boy’s soul sick—this useless waste of life, because of what?
Well, older heads than his have tried to reach the right of this question and failed. But it is always safe to assume that somebody was wrong, and with greed at the bottom of it and vengeance to drive it on, the soil of the great Western plains is soaked in human blood.
For another sickening hour the running battle raged, with the badly whipped Indians in full flight and their numbers constantly growing less until the scattered remnants were lost in the night and darkness had saved many lives.