d
Indians. As if from one throat, pealed the double shout of defiance;
and, as if by one hand, knives, pistols, and tomahawks were drawn
together. The next moment we closed and battled!

Oh! it was a fearful strife, as the pistols cracked, the long knives
glittered, and the tomahawks swept the air; a fearful, fearful strife!

You would suppose that the first shock would have prostrated both ranks.
It was not so. The early blows of a struggle like this are wild, and
well parried, and human life is hard to take. What were the lives of
men like these?

A few fell. Some recoiled from the collision, wounded and bleeding, but
still to battle again. Some fought hand to hand; while several pairs
had clutched, and were striving to fling each other in the desperate
wrestle of death!

Some rushed for the door, intending to fight outside. A few got out;
but the crowd pressed against it, the door closed, dead bodies fell
behind it; we fought in darkness.

We had light enough for our purpose. The pistols flashed at quick
intervals, displaying the horrid picture. The light gleamed upon
fiend-like faces, upon red and waving weapons, upon prostrate forms of
men, upon others struggling in every attitude of deadly conflict!

The yells of the Indians, and the not less savage shouts of their white
foemen, had continued from the first; but the voices grew hoarser, and
the shouts were changed to groans, and oaths, and short, earnest
exclamations. At intervals were heard the quick percussions of blows,
and the dull, sodden sound of falling bodies.

The room became filled with smoke and dust, and choking sulphur; and the
combatants were half-stifled as they fought.

At the first break of the battle I had drawn my revolver, and fired it
in the face of the closing foemen. I had fired shot after shot, some at
random, others directed upon a victim. I had not counted the reports,
until the cock "checking" on the steel nipple told me I had gone the
round of the six chambers.

This had occupied but as many seconds of time. Mechanically I stuck the
empty weapon behind my belt, and, guided by an impulse, made for the
door. Before I could reach it, it was closed, and I saw that to get out
was impossible.

I turned to search for an antagonist; I was not long in finding one. By
the flash of a pistol I saw one of the Indians rushing upon me with
upraised hatchet. Up to this time something had hindered me from
drawing my knife.