appened that toward ten o'clock of that blithe, sunshiny
summer morning, when all nature was at its loveliest along the broad
winding valley of the Cheyenne,--all save that cloud of black smoke that
soared high into the otherwise unclouded heavens and there flattened out
like some gigantic pall,--the bold heights that framed the wide bottom
lands, the crags at Warrior Bluff, crowned with shrill yelling,
applauding squaws and children, the grim, smoke-veiled walls of the
remaining buildings at the agency all on a sudden awoke to the maddening
chorus of renewed battle. There had been a lull to the fight. The shops
had burned like tinder, and were a heap of smoldering ruins in a dozen
minutes. The stampeded horses had rushed away over the prairie, to be
rounded up and driven by Indian boys, with keen rejoicing, away toward
the dismantled villages, for already the old men and most of the
families were in full flight up the valley. If headed off from the hills
they could scatter over the prairies and mingle with their red kindred
at the other agencies, whence, indeed, came not a few young men to take
a hand in the scrimmage. The agent's house, spared until after nine, had
gone up in smoke. It covered too much of the charging front, and finally
was blown to flinders at an expense of four kegs of rifle powder,
borrowed for the occasion from the Indian supplies. Now, when the
warriors rallied and charged and strove to reach Ray's wooden walls, it
had to be over a dead level only faintly obscured by smoke, and dotted
here and there by the corpses of war ponies lost in previous attempts.

Half-hearted, possibly, at dawn, old Wolf was all fire and fury now. One
after another four assaults had been beaten back by the slow, sure,
steady aim of the defense, and unless he could reduce that little
fortress at once his power and prestige as a war chief were gone for all
time, and a good name and reputation for all manner of deviltry in the
past was utterly blasted for the future.

Of the defenders only three, besides Skelton, were out of the fight. A
chance shot from the Indian circle had pierced the brain of one stout
soldier, who never knew what hit him. Others had wounded two of the men,
and Skelton, himself, who, in spite of his wounds, had crawled to a
loophole to have a share in the fight, was now prostrate with a shot
through the shoulder. It was God's mercy and Ray's fortune that that
bullet was not through the head.

Water an