Perhaps no other men on the face of the earth, save those of British extraction, would have stood by uncomplainingly during those next five minutes without returning a shot. Every man had a loaded musket in his hand, except the two or three who were in attendance on the howitzer, ready at a second's notice to fire. Another flight of arrows came; then one more, and the schooner's spars and bulwarks were bristling with them. "Two more minutes!" said Throckmorton. "Look out; they're firing again." The volley came. One man fell dead, and another had his hat carried away; but still no one spoke. Captain Throckmorton beckoned a sailor to him and bade him take the wheel; and again expectant eyes were turned on him. Suddenly he returned his watch to his pocket, and everyone gave a little gasp of relief. The Captain nodded to the men at the howitzer, and instantly a shell flew among the trees; and, before the echo of the report had died away, the sailors' muskets began an incessant fire. Indians appeared from everywhere--from tree-branches, grass, sedge, in many cases only to fall before the steady rain of bullets. Some ran north, others south, and these latter suddenly found their retreat cut off by a heavy fire from the other bank; for Colonel Dodge, whom Atkinson had left in charge, had only waited for the men on the schooner to begin firing to get his own carabineers to work. "Where can my waggons ford it?" asked Atkinson significantly. Captain Throckmorton soon produced a soundings-chart and showed that, at about a mile higher up, the waggons could easily cross, now that the tide was running down. "Put me ashore, then." In a very few minutes the old fighting-man was in the saddle again; and, while the baggage was moved on to the ford, he and a hundred light-armed cowboys were swimming their horses across the river. The shelter from which the Indians had fired proved to be a narrow, copse-like strip which separated the river from an undulating prairie. "There they go, General!" cried a young fellow, Captain Dixon, who rode behind the leader. "Ay; making for the hills. _I_ know; the same old plant. We must pretend to be taken in.--Go on, Dixon; after 'em with twenty men." The General knew well enough, from bygone experience, that the spot from which the score or so of redskins were fleeing was probably that at which the bulk of their army lay _perdu_, and that they were merely trying their old trick of getting a pursuing force between the two halves of their own. He rode steadily on, and, before he reached the hills, saw that he had not been mistaken. The fleeing Indians had suddenly wheeled and were bearing down furiously on Captain Dixon's few men. "Forward!" shouted Atkinson. "He can take good care of himself. We want Black Hawk.... And here he is, by the living Jingo!"