The next bore a desperately wounded brave whose
bloodless lips were compressed in agony and dumb as those of the dead.
About these cowered, shivering and whimpering, two or three
terror-stricken squaws, one of them with a round-eyed pappoose staring
at her back. A pony lay struggling in the snow close by. Half a dozen
rough soldier hands were dragging a stricken rider from underneath. Half
a dozen more were striving to control the wild plungings of another
mettlesome little beast, whose rider, sitting firmly astride, lashed
first at his quivering flank and then at the fur gauntleted hands,--even
at the laughing, bearded faces--sure sign of another squaw, and a game
one. Far out to the front the crackle of carbine and rifle told that
Webb was driving the scattered braves before him,--that the comrade
squadron was coming their way,--that Bear Cliff had been sought by the
Sioux in vain,--that Indian wiles and strategy, Indian pluck and staying
power, all had more than met their match. Whatever the fate of Lame
Wolf's fighting force, now pressed by Henry's column, far in the
southward hills, here in sight of the broad Big Horn valley, the white
chief had struck a vital blow. Village, villagers, wounded and prisoners
were all the spoil of the hated soldiery.
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