"You're hurt, Amos! You're hurt bad, man!"
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."
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. For the rest there was nothing but watching and waiting, and wondering what would happen in the morning. They had scarcely two dozen cartridges.
At last the day dawned, lowering and dark and wet. No Indians were in sight; nothing was in sight but the sodden grass and the equally cheerless sky. George was dead; four out of their remaining five were so sore and stiffened that they could barely move.
"I'm going to leave you, boys," spoke Billy Dixon. "I'm not hurt yet, and it's up to me to take the back trail and find Miles. If I get through I'll find him within thirty-six hours. If you don't hear from him with relief soon after that, you'll know I didn't get through. But there's a chance."