“They rallied and again circled around us, with their white shields protecting their bodies, tossing their spears, and showing off their beautiful horses, and their own graceful persons, to the best advantage. Their intention was to make a charge on the first vulnerable point, but we, being too well guarded, they, after many feints, fell back. I sat flat on the ground, my rifle resting on the spoke of a wagon-wheel--firing as often as an Indian came within range--and, when the painted, warwhooping target _vamosed_ for safer quarters, at the crack of the gun, certainly no other than a smile of satisfaction lit up my face. If none fell outright, it was not that any qualms of conscience prevented my taking cool and sure aim, at those who, after chasing a mile, and nearly scaring the life out of us, were then keeping us penned in the hot sun without water.
“One Indian, who, from his distinguished, though scanty, dress, was a ‘brave’ of the first order, came close into our lines, throwing himself behind the body of his horse, so as to show nothing but a hand and foot; but, as he raised himself, one of the colonel’s men cut, with his rifleball, a neatly-dressed skin, that hung at his neck, which we picked up after the fight, as our only trophy. They now tossed their balls into us from a long distance, by elevating their pieces, being convinced that our corâl could not be broken without great loss of life. Two teamsters, about this time getting scared at the whistling missiles, crept, for security, into an empty wagon. They had scarcely made themselves comfortable, when a ball, crashing through both sides of their defense, buried itself in the side of a poor steer. The terrified Neds tumbled out, greeted by the roars of the men around.
“‘That’s what you get for your cussed cowardice,’ drawled out one of the fellows.
“‘Well, I’ll be darned, if that wasn’t a grazer,’ ejaculated Charley McCarty. ‘Feel if you haven’t got a hole in your dogskin--I’d hate to be as bad scared as you, by thunder!’
“We were detained upward of two hours. Our fatigued and heated oxen were nearly dropping with thirst. The savages filed slowly up the sand buttes on the other side of the river, and we proceeded to camp, each man talking of his own shots.