I was no soldier then, and knew little of military formation; but his criticism seemed just, and I ventured not upon answering it. Indeed, at that very moment some confusion far in front, where Captain Wells led his scouts, attracted my attention. We must have been a mile and a half from the Fort by this time, and I recalled to memory the little group of trees standing beside the trail where we had halted on our journey westward to enjoy our earliest glimpse of Dearborn. At first I could make out little of what was taking place ahead; then suddenly I saw the squad of Miamis break hastily, like a cloud swept by a whirling wind, and the next instant could clearly distinguish Captain Wells riding swiftly back toward the column of infantry, his head bare, and one arm gesticulating wildly. In a moment the whole line came to a startled and wondering pause.
"What is it?" questioned Mademoiselle anxiously, shading her eyes.
"Have the Indians attacked us?"
"God knows!" I exclaimed, clinching my rifle firmly. "But it must be,—look there!"
Wheeling rapidly into line, as if at command, although we could hear no sound of the order, the soldiers poured one quick volley into the sand-ridge on their right, and then, with a cheer which floated faintly back to us, made a wild rush for the summit. This was all I saw of the struggle in front,—for, with a cry of dismay, the Miamis composing the rearguard broke from their posts beside the wagons and came running back past us in a panic of wild terror. I saw Sergeant Jordan throw himself across their line of flight, striking fiercely with his gun, and cursing them for a pack of cowardly hounds; but he was thrown helplessly aside in their blind rush for safety.
"Wayland! De Croix!" he shouted, staggering to his knees, "help me stop these curs, if you would save our lives!"
It was a fool thing, yet in the excitement I did it, and De Croix was beside me. Two or three of the settlers on foot rallied with us, and together we struck so hard against those cowering renegades that for the moment we held them, though their fear gave them desperation difficult to withstand. I recall noticing De Croix, as he pressed his rearing horse into the huddled mass, lashing at the faces of the fellows mercilessly with his riding-whip, as if thinking Mademoiselle would admire his reckless gallantry.
A wild yell, with the mad thrill of the war-whoop in it, suddenly assailed our ears; the Miamis broke to the left like a flock of frightened birds, and my startled glance revealed a horde of naked Indians, howling like maniacs, and with madly brandished weapons, pouring over the sand-ridge not thirty feet away from us. With a shout of warning, which was half a curse at my own mad folly, I drove the spurs deep into my horse's side in a vain endeavor to fling myself between them and the girl. Hardly had the startled animal made one quick plunge, when we were locked in that human avalanche as if gripped by a vise of steel. A dozen dark hands grasped my bridle or clutched at me, their swarthy faces fierce with blood-lust, the eyes that fronted me cruel with passion and inflamed by hate. I heard shots not far away; but we were all too closely jammed to do more than fight in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with club and knife.
The saddle is a poor place from which to swing a rifle, yet I stood high in my wooden stirrups and struck madly at every Indian head I saw, battering their faces till from the very horror of it they gave slowly back. I won a yard—two yards—three,—my horse biting viciously at their naked flesh, and lashing out with both fore-feet like a fiend, while I swept my gun-stock in a widening circle of death. For the moment, I dreamed we might drive them back; but then those devils blocked me, clinging to my horse's legs in their death agony, and laughing back into my face as I struck them down.
Once I heard De Croix swearing in French beside me, and glanced around through the mad turmoil to see him cutting and hacking with broken blade, pushing into the midst of the mêlée as if he had real joy in the encounter. While I thus had him in view, a knife whistled through the air, there was a quick dazzle in the sunlight, and he reeled backward off his horse and disappeared in the ruck below.
Never in a life of fighting have I battled as I did then, feeling that I alone might hope to reach her side and beat back these foul fiends till help should come to us. The stock of my rifle shattered like glass; but I swung the iron barrel with what seemed to me the strength of twenty men, striking, thrusting, stabbing, my teeth set, my eyes blurring with a mist of blood, caring for nothing except to hit and kill. I know not now whether I advanced at all in that last effort, though my horse trod on dead bodies. Only once in those awful seconds did I gain a glimpse of Mademoiselle through the mist of struggle, the maze of uplifted arms and striking steel. She had reined her horse back against a wheel of the halted wagon, and with white face and burning eyes was lashing desperately with the loaded butt of her riding-whip at the red hands which sought to drag her from the saddle.