For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts. Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waiting their time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day of September, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we should have gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was, Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little band slept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night, the redskins moved upon our borders.
Morning was gray in the east and the little valley was full of shadows, when suddenly the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!" aroused the sleeping force. The shouts of our guards, the clatter of ponies' hoofs, the rattling of dry skins, the swinging of blankets, the fierce yells of the invading foe made a scene of tragic confusion, as a horde of redskins swept down upon us like a whirlwind. In this mad attempt to stampede our stock nothing but discipline saved us. A few of the mules and horses not properly picketed, broke loose and galloped off before the attacking force, the remaining animals held as the Indians fled away before the sharp fire of our soldiers.
"Well, we licked them, anyhow," I said to myself exultantly as we obeyed the instant orders to get into the saddle.
The first crimson line of morning was streaking the east and I lifted my face triumphantly to the new day. Sharp Grover stood just before me; his hand was on Forsyth's shoulder.
Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation. "Oh, heavens! General, look at the Indians."
This was no vision of brown rock and sun-blinded eyes. From every direction, over the bluff, out from the tall grass, across the slope on the south, came Indians, hundreds on hundreds. They seemed to spring from the sod like Roderick Dhu's Highland Scots, and people every curve and hollow. Swift as the wind, savage as hate, cruel as hell, they bore down upon us from every way the wind blows. The thrill of that moment is in my blood as I write this. It was then I first understood the tie between the commanding officer and his men. It is easy to laud the file of privates on dress parade, but the man who directs the file in the hour of battle is the real power. In that instant of peril I turned to Forsyth with that trust that the little child gives to its father. How cool he was, and yet how lightning-swift in thought and action.