commanding the battalion, and Burroughs was hurried forward with Sanders
and a squad of men, while O'Brien, proud of his prominence, rode by the
general's side and told the story of the sharp and sudden fight.

"They came down on us like a crowd of grasshoppers so soon as it was
light enough to see anything, but they couldn't get near us without our
bowling over bucks and ponies. The prairie's dotted with the corpses of
the poor beggars, sir,--the ponies, that is; they never left an Indian.
We stood 'em off first rate. Loot'nant Boynton and Loot'nant Davies was
everywhere at once, and after trying two dashes the Indians gave it up
and kept at long range. They was a thousand strong at least, and Elk
came in with a white flag for a parley, and Mr. Boynton ordered him
back, but McPhail let him in. He said we must give up Red Dog or they'd
burn the agency over our heads and massacre every man, and McPhail was
for letting him go then, but Mr. Boynton and he had words over it, and
they kept him. That night was cloudy and the moon was hid, and sure
enough at ten o'clock they crawled in on the storehouse side and heaped
up timber under them flimsy pine boards, and no one could see them on
that side until everything was in a broad blaze. It was when trying to
bucket out the fire the lieut'nant was shot, and it was a roaring
conflagration in five minutes, and from that it spread to the agency and
the other shebangs, and it was all we could do to get the women and
children out of the cellars and into the corral, and them bucks firing
from every sage brush for a mile around. The whole thing was down by
midnight, but it didn't do them no good: we was really better off with
less to take care of and more men to do it with, and we had wather in
the well and rations for all hands, and the agent and his non-combatants
under cover in one corner of the stockade, and Red Dog tied up in
another. All Sunday they kept up a long-range fire, and five or six
times made as though they was going to charge, but Loot'nant Davies was
on all four sides of that square from dawn till dark, sir, and they
never got within four hundred yards that we didn't drop them. Sure it
was just pie, general. The only trouble was, could they set fire to the
stockade at night? The loot'nant had buckets of water all around inside,
and every little while a patrol ran round on the outside, and half the
fellows kept watch at the loop-holes while the others slept, and Mr.
Da