across the river the dense
undergrowth moved a little in the gentle wind, but disclosed
nothing.

A few yards more and they would be at the water. Then Dick saw a
long line of flame burst from the bushes, so vivid, so intense
that it was like a blazing bar of lightening, and a thousand
rifles seemed to crash as one. Hard on the echo of the great
volley came the fierce war cry of the ambushed Sioux, taken up in
turn by the larger force on the flank and swelled by the
multitude of women and children farther back. It was to Dick
like the howl of wolves about to leap on their prey, but many
times stronger and fiercer.

The white army shivered under the impact of the blow, when a
thousand unexpected bullets were sent into its ranks. All the
front line was blown away, the men were shot from their saddles,
and many of the horses went down with them. Others, riderless,
galloped about screaming with pain and fright.

Although the little army shivered and reeled for a moment, it
closed up again and went on toward the water. Once more the
deadly rifle fire burst from the undergrowth, not a single volley
now, but continuous, rising and falling a little perhaps, but
always heavy, filling the air with singing metal and littering
the ground with the wounded and the dead. The far side of the
river was a sheet of fire, and in the red blaze the Sioux could
be seen plainly springing about in the undergrowth.

The cavalrymen began to fire also, sending their bullets across
the river as fast as they could pull the trigger, but they were
attacked on the flank, too, by the vast horde of warriors,
directed by the bravest of the Sioux chiefs, the famous Pizi
(Gall), one of the most skillful and daring fighters the red race
ever produced, a man of uncommon appearance, of great height,
and with the legendary head of a Caesar. He now led on the
horde with voice and gesture, and hurled it against Custer's
force, which was reeling again under the deadly fire from the
other shore of the Little Big Horn.

The shouting of the warriors and of the thousands of women
and children who watched the battle was soon lost to Dick
in the steady crash of the rifle fire which filled the whole
valley--sharp, incessant, like the drum of thunder in the ear.
A great cloud of smoke arose and drifted over the combatants,
white and red, but this smoke was pierced by innumerable flashes
of fire as the red swarms pressed closer and the white replied.

S