To dart on in chase of the three warriors would simply result in the
scattering of his own people and their being individually cut off and
stricken down by circling swarms of their red foes. To gather his men
and attempt to force the passage of the Elk Tooth ridge meant certain
destruction of the whole command. The Sioux would be only to glad to
scurry away from their front and let them through, and then in big
circle whirl all about him, pouring in a concentric fire that would be
sure to hit some, at least, exposed as they would be on the open
prairie, while their return shots, radiating wildly at the swift-darting
warriors, would be almost as sure to miss. He would soon be weighted
down with wounded, refusing to leave them to be butchered; unable,
therefore, to move in any direction, and so compelled to keep up a
shelterless, hopeless fight until, one by one, he and his gallant
fellows fell, pierced by Indian lead, and sacrificed to the scalping
knife as were Custer's three hundred a decade before.
No, Ray knew too much of frontier strategy to be so caught. There stood
the little grove of dingy green, a prairie fortress, if one knew how to
use it. There in the sand of the stream bed, by digging, were they sure
to find water for the wounded, if wounded there had to be.
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