Puffs of smoke began to rise from the gullies on our left, on our right, and even in our rear. We were completely surrounded by hidden Indians, every one of them a sniper. If a rifleman so much as rose on his elbow to fire, he was the target of a dozen marksmen. Cover we had none. The horses and wagons were just bunched together on the middle of the hill. The air seemed alive with whizzing bullets, and one by one our men were dropping.
Do you wonder what it feels like, to find yourself suddenly for the first time in the middle of a whistling concert of bullets, knowing that any one of them may get you? Well, some are scared for a moment, and a few stay scared. Others are exhilarated by the joy of fighting. On Cutknife Hill that day, I suppose nearly all, though tired with the long night ride, quickly recovered from the shock of surprise, and felt little anxiety except to do their duty as well as they could. Personally, I felt too much interested to be afraid; nor could I be upset by the sight of death in ghastly forms, for my calling had hardened me to that in time of peace. My chief feeling was just a keen desire to see and understand everything that was going on, to gather up all the incidents of the battle into a living and accurate story, so that others could read and realize what I had seen.
The volunteers, whatever they felt, seemed in action cool as veterans; cool of nerve only, for the sun beat down upon them with all its western might. They wasted a monstrous lot of lead at first, but presently settled down to more systematic work, and even imitated a favorite Indian trick—one man holding up a hat as target and his comrade picking off anyone who rose to aim at it. Those clerks from Ottawa and students from Toronto were as steady under the deadly hail as if they had fought through a hundred battles.
A most heroic scene was enacted by a pair of theological students from Toronto. Three of the Battleford Home Guard, trying to clear out the enemy from the creek-bed in our rear, were cut off by a bunch of Indians. Their only way of escape was by reaching and climbing a perpendicular earthen cut-bank. Two of the University Company in the Queen’s Own, Acheson and Lloyd, who had themselves got separated from their comrades, caught sight of the Battleford men from the top of the bank and realized their desperate strait. Acheson stretched himself over the edge and hauled up the refugees by main force as soon as they reached the foot of the cut-bank, while Lloyd took aim in turn at every Indian that rose to fire at the rescuer—took aim, but dared not let fly, for he had only one cartridge left.