l commotion,
that savage council burst asunder, and, riding at speed, a dozen braves
went lashing away to the westward side, while with fierce brandishing of
arms and shields and much curveting and prancing of excited ponies, the
wild battle lines were formed again. The Sioux were coming for the
second trial.

"Meet them as before! Make every shot tell!" were the orders passed from
man to man and heard and noted amidst the whistling of the wind and the
sounds of scurry and commotion at the front. Then, silent and crouching
low, the soldiers shoved the brown barrels of their carbines forth again
and waited. And then the grim silence of the little fortress was
broken, as, with startling, sudden force there went up a shout from the
westward side:--

"My God, boys, they're setting fire to the prairie!"

Ray sprang to his feet and gazed. Away out to the west and southwest,
whence came the strong breeze blowing from the Sweetwater Hills, half a
dozen dark, agile forms, bending low, were scudding afoot over the
sward, and everywhere they moved there sprang up in their tracks little
sheets of lambent flame, little clouds of bluish, blinding smoke, and
almost in less time than it takes to tell it, a low wall of fire,
started in a dozen places, reaching far across the low ground, fencing
the valley from stream bed to the southward slopes, crowned by its
swift-sailing crest of hot, stifling fume, came lapping and seething and
sweeping across the level, licking up the dry buffalo grass like so much
tow, mounting higher and fiercer with every second, and bearing down
upon the little grove and its almost helpless defenders in fearful
force, in resistless fury--a charge no bullet could stop, an enemy no
human valor could hope to daunt or down.

"Quick, men!" yelled Ray. "Out with you, you on the west front! Stay you
here, you others! Watch the Sioux! They'll be on us in an instant!" And
away he sped from the shelter of the bank, out from the thick of the
cottonwoods, out to the open prairie, straight toward the coming torrent
of flame still, thank God, full seven hundred yards away, but leaping
toward them with awful strides. Out with him rushed Field, and out from
Clayton's front sped half a dozen old hands, every man fumbling for his
match box; out until they had reached a line with their captain, already
sprawled upon the turf, and there, full an hundred yards from the grove,
they spread in rude skirmish line and, reckless of t