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“Kill! Kill!” shrieked the squaws, glaring.

The warriors were shooting in earnest; arrows flew, the two guns again belched. The charge seemed almost upon the fort, when from it puffed the jets of smoke. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” drifted dully the reports; and with scarce an interval followed other jets, rapid and sharp: “Bang! Bang-bang! Bang! Bang!”

From the painted, parted lips of the two squaws issued a wilder, different note, and little Dave again felt like cheering; for from their saddles had lurched three of the Cheyennes, and a pony also had pitched in a heap.

Cut Nose swerved; he and every warrior flung themselves to the pony side opposite the fort, and parting, the column split as if the fort were a wedge. In two wings they went scouring right and left of it. Around and around the mule-body triangle they rode, at top speed, in a great double circle, plying their bows.

Their arrows streamed in a continuous shower, pelting the fort. They struck, quivering, in the mule bodies and in the ground. Now from every savage throat rang another shout—high, derisive. On their ponies the squaws capered, and shook their blanket ends. An arrow was quivering in a new spot—the shoulder of one of the whites. Now Davy felt like sobbing. But it was not in the shoulder of the boy; it was in the shoulder of the man beyond him, and facing the other way. However, that was bad enough.