At that time the Pawnee village was encompassed by a high sod wall, and some of Crooked Hand's people wished to await the charge of the Sioux behind this shelter, but their leader would not permit this. He said to them, "We can conquer the Sioux anywhere." So _Ska-di´ks_ led his forces out to meet the attack in fair open combat on the plain, on the same ground where so many times the Pawnees had routed their enemies. As the Pawnees passed out of the village on to the plain, the Sioux saw for the first time the force they had to meet. They laughed in derision, calling out bitter jibes, and telling what they would do when they had made the charge; and, as Crooked Hand heard their laughter, he smiled, too, but not mirthfully. He knew what perhaps the Sioux had forgotten, that his people were single-minded, and that they would fight until they died. Their strokes would be for their homes and lives.
The battle began. It seemed like an unequal fight. Surely one charge would be enough to overthrow this motley Pawnee throng, who had ventured out to try to oppose the triumphal march of the Sioux. But it was not ended so quickly. The fight began about the middle of the morning, and, to the amazement of the Sioux, these old men with shrunken shanks and piping voices, these children with their small white teeth and soft round limbs, these women clad in skirts, and armed with hoes, held the invaders where they were; they could make no advance. A little latter it became evident that the Pawnees were driving the Sioux back. Presently this backward movement became a retreat, the retreat a rout, the rout a wild panic. Then, indeed, the Pawnees made a great killing of their enemies. Many an old man, whose feeble legs had long refused to bear him on the warpath, again quavered his war cry, again counted _coup_ upon his enemy. Many a boy, who had never shed the blood of any creature larger than a prairie chicken, that day struck his enemy, and with shrill childish voice shouted his whoop of triumph, as he tore away the reeking scalp. More than one woman, used only to pounding corn and dressing robes, that day counted her _coup_, and when the tribe returned, told what she had done, and changed her name like a warrior.