place was approached with care and trepidation, but was empty. Two
Indian boys, with their feet frozen, had been left as decoys, and after
standing off four troops of cavalry for hours, they too had in some
mysterious way departed.

[Illustration: 16 THROUGH THE SMOKE SPRANG THE DARING SOLDIER]

But the pursuit was relentless; on, on over the rolling hills swept the
famishing troopers, and again the Spartan band turned at bay, firmly
intrenched on a bluff as before. This was the last stand--nature was
exhausted. The soldiers surrounded them, and Major Wessells turned the
handle of the human vise. The command gathered closer about the doomed
pits--they crawled on their bellies from one stack of sage-brush to the
next. They were freezing. The order to charge came to the Orphan Troop,
and yelling his command, Sergeant Johnson ran forward. Up from the
sage-brush floundered the stiffened troopers, following on. They ran
over three Indians, who lay sheltered in a little cut, and these killed
three soldiers together with an old frontier sergeant who wore long
hair, but they were destroyed in turn. While the Orphans swarmed under
the hill, a rattling discharge poured from the rifle-pits; but the troop
had gotten under the fire, and it all passed over their heads. On they
pressed, their blood now quickened by excitement, crawling up the steep,
while volley on volley poured over them. Within nine feet of the pits
was a rim-rock ledge over which the Indian bullets swept, and here the
charge was stopped. It now became a duel.

Every time a head showed on either side, it drew fire like a flue-hole.
Suddenly our Virginian sprang on the ledge, and like a trill on a piano
poured a six-shooter into the intrenchment, and dropped back.

Major Wessells, who was commanding the whole force, crawled to the
position of the Orphan Troop, saying, "Doing fine work, boys. Sergeant,
I would advise you to take off that red scarf "--when a bullet cut the
major across the breast, whirling him around and throwing him. A
soldier, one Lannon, sprang to him and pulled him down the bluff, the
major protesting that he was not wounded, which proved to be true, the
bullet having passed through his heavy clothes.

The troops had drawn up on the other sides, and a perfect storm of
bullets whirled over the in-trenchments. The powder blackened the faces
of the men, and they took off their caps or had them shot off. To raise
the head for more than a fraction o