gone.
I got Smith again and made my best time in, but before I could reach
the wallow another gang came for me. I had only one or two ca'tridges
left in my pistol, so I didn't stop to fight, but ran for it. When I
was in about twenty yards of the wallow a little old scoundrel that I'd
fed fifty times rode almost on to me and fired. I fell, with Smith on
top of me; thought I'd stepped into a hole. The Indians didn't stay
around there a minute; the boys kept it red-hot; so I jumped up, picked
up Smith, and got safe into the wallow."

There--

"You're hurt, Amos! You're hurt bad, man!"

That was Billy Dixon.

"No, I'm not. Why?" panted Amos.

"You aren't? Why, look at your leg!"

Sure enough! One leg was shot in two at the ankle joint, and Scout
Chapman had run twenty yards, with Private Smith pick-a-back--dragging
his loosened foot and stepping at every stride on the end of the
leg-bone!

"I never knew it," he said. And strange to add, from that day onward
he never felt any pain.

The six were together again. Private Smith was conscious, but couldn't
handle himself. He was fatally wounded. That didn't daunt his courage.

"Prop me sitting, boys," he begged. "Put me up where I'll do some
good. You can shoot from behind me and I'll stop a few bullets,
anyway."

"We'll not use you like a dead horse."

But he insisted on sitting with a pistol in his lap. He would have sat
on top of the wallow, if they had let him. Amos Chapman tried to
conceal his broken ankle; not a man there gave out a sign of wounds, to
the enemy. While Billy Dixon dug with his knife and tin cup, the four
others hastened hither-thither, serving the carbines. The Indians
circled closer, swerving in and out, firing. It looked like a combat
to the death. But the earth had been dug out and piled up, and just
before sunset the Indians suddenly wheeled and raced away.

Pretty soon distant shooting was heard. Troops were coming? Rescue
was due! No; for the darkness gathered, and although the Indians did
not appear, no soldiers appeared, either.

This night a cold rain drenched the wallow and all the country around.
The six had no food; their rations had been in the saddle-pockets of
the horses. They would have had no water, except for the rain. They
drank and washed in the puddles that collected; but they all, save
Billy Dixon, were wounded, and the puddles colored red.

They did their best for George, who lay dying. F