Читать книгу Buffalo Bill, the Border King; Or, Redskin and Cowboy - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 5

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Scarcely had Buffalo Bill uttered these cheering words when a babble of cries arose from the watchers on the towers and the platform over the gate. The redskins were gathering for a concerted charge, maddened by his escape and the loss of their ponies.

Saving a few chiefs, beside Oak Heart and the White Antelope none of the reds were mounted. However, they were so enraged now that they ignored the whites’ accuracy of aim and came on within rifle-shot of the stockade.

The ammunition brought on the packhorse led by the scout was hastily distributed among the defendants of the fort, with orders to throw no shot away. They were to shoot to kill, and Major Baldwin advised as did “Old Put” at the first great battle in United States history—the Battle of Bunker Hill—“to wait till they saw the whites of the enemies’ eyes!”

Powder was as precious to that devoted band as gold-dust, and bullets were as valuable as diamonds.

Major Baldwin took his position on the observation platform above the gate, Buffalo Bill by his side, repeating rifle in hand, and near them stood a couple of young officers as aids, and the bugler. All were armed with rifles, and every weapon for which there was no immediate need in the fort was loaded and ready. The women were in two groups—one ready to reload the weapons tossed them by the men, and the other to assist the surgeon with the wounded.

The Indians came swarming across the valley in a red tidal wave. They were decreasing their circle, and expected to rush the stockade walls in a cyclonic charge.

They quickened their pace as they came, and the weird war-whoop deafened the beleaguered garrison. They came with a rush at last, showering the walls with arrows and bullets, some of which found their way into the loopholes.

It was a grand charge to look upon; it was a desperate one to check.

The whites had their orders and obeyed them. Not a rifle cracked until the Indians were under the stockade walls, scrambling through the ditch. Then the four six-pounders roared from the block-towers, their scattering lead and iron mowing down the yelling redskins in the ditches.

Then volley upon volley of carbines, repeating rifles, and muskets echoed the rolling thunder of the big guns.

Not a few of the bullets and arrows entered the loopholes, and many dead and wounded were numbered among the whites; but the carnage among the redskins was awful to contemplate.

The thunder of the big guns, the popping of the smaller firearms, the screaming of the wild ponies corraled in the fort, and the demoralized shrieks of the Indians themselves made a veritable hell upon earth!

Above all rose the notes of the bugle sending forth orders at Major Baldwin’s command. Now and then that piercing, weird war-cry of the Border King was heard—a sound well known and feared by the Indians. They recognized it as the voice of he whom they called Pa-e-has-ka—“The Long Hair.”

Indian nature was not equal to facing the deadly hail of iron and lead, and the red wave broke against the stockade and receded, leaving many still and writhing bodies in the ditches which surrounded the fort, and scattered upon the plain. Slowly at first the redskins surged backward under the galling fire of the whites but finally the retreat became a stampede.

The rout was complete. All but the dead and badly wounded escaped swiftly out of rifle-shot, save one mounted chief. He was left alone, struggling with his mount, trying to force the animal to leave the vicinity of the fort gate.

This was Oak Heart himself, the king of the Sioux, and his mount was a great white cavalry charger that he had captured months before. This was no half-wild Indian pony; yet the Indian chief, without spurs and a proper bridle, could not control the beast. The horse had heard the bugle to which he had been so long used. He was determined in his equine mind to rejoin the white men who had been his friends, instead of these cruel red masters, and he made a dash for the gate of the fortress.

In vain did Chief Oak Heart try to check him. He would have flung himself from the horse’s back, but the creature was so swift of foot and the ground was so broken here, that such an act would have assured Oak Heart’s instant death. Besides, being the great chief of his tribe, Oak Heart had bound himself to the horse that, if wounded or killed, he would not be lost to his people which—according to Indian belief—would be shame.

Oak Heart had lost his scalping-knife, and could not cut the rawhide lariat that held him fast. He writhed, yelling maledictions in Sioux upon the horse; but he could neither check the brute nor unfasten the lariat.

His warriors soon saw Chief Oak Heart’s predicament, and they charged back to his rescue. The White Antelope led them on, for she was as brave as her father.

Buffalo Bill had been first to see the difficulty into which the chief had gotten himself, and springing down from the platform he threw himself into the saddle, shouted for the gates to be opened, and spurred his horse out of the fort.

“Don’t shoot the girl!” the scout yelled to the soldiers lining the walls above him. “Have a care for the girl!”

But there was scarcely chance for the whites to fire at all at the oncoming White Antelope and her party, before Buffalo Bill was beside the big white charger and the struggling king of the Sioux.

Out flashed the scout’s pistol, and he presented it to the red man’s head.

“Oak Heart, you are my prisoner! Yield yourself!” he cried, in the Sioux tongue.

At the same moment he seized the thong by which the Indian was wrenching at the jaw of the white horse, snatched it from Oak Heart’s grasp, and gave the big charger his head. The white horse sprang forward for the open gate of the fort, and Buffalo Bill’s mount kept abreast of him. The redskins dared not fire at the scout for fear of killing Oak Heart.

A volley from the soldiery sent the would-be rescuers of the chief back to cover. Only the beautiful girl, White Antelope, was left boldly in the open, shaking her befeathered spear and trying to rally her people to the charge. The white men honored Buffalo Bill’s request and did not shoot at her, or the Sioux would have lost their mascot as well as their great chieftain.

In a moment the scout with his prisoner dashed through the open gates, which were slammed shut and barred amid the deafening acclamations of the garrison. Major Baldwin was on hand to grasp Buffalo Bill’s hand again, and as he wrung it he cried:

“Another brave deed to your credit, Cody! It was cleverly done.”

He turned to the chief whom the scout was freeing from the lariat that had been the cause of his capture. The redskin king had accepted his fate philosophically. His look and bearing was of fearlessness and savage dignity. He had been captured by the palefaces, and so humbled in the eyes of a thousand braves; but he was defiant still, and his features would not reveal his heart-anguish to those foes that now surrounded him with flushed faces.

The stoical traits of the Indian character cannot but arouse admiration in the white man’s breast. From babyhood the redskin is taught—both by precept and instinct—to utter no cry of pain, to reveal no emotion which should cause a foe pleasure. When captured by other savages, the Indian will go to the fire, or stand to be hacked to pieces by his enemies, with no sound issuing from his lips but the death-chant.

And this Spartan fortitude is present in the very papooses themselves. A traveler once told how, in walking through an Indian village, he came upon a little baby tied in the Indian fashion to a board, the board leaning against the outside of a wigwam. The mother had left it there and the white man came upon it suddenly. Undoubtedly his appearance, and his standing to look at the small savage, frightened it as such an experience would a white child. But his voice was not raised. Not a sound did the poor little savage utter; but the tears formed in his beady eyes and ran down his fat cheeks. Infant that he was, and filled with fright of the white man, he would not weep aloud.

Oak Heart, the savage king, looked abroad upon his enemies, and his haughty face gave no expression of fear. He was a captive, but his spirit was unconquered.

“This is a good job, Cody,” whispered Baldwin, glancing again at the chieftain. “We can make use of him, eh?”

“We can, indeed, major,” returned the scout.

“But that crowd out yonder will be watching us all the closer now. How under the sun anybody can get through them after this——”

“Leave it to me, major,” interrupted Buffalo Bill firmly. “I am ready to make the trial—and make it now!”