The men tried to take score. This was not easy. Out of the hundred and twelve cartridges with which they had started the fight, there remained sixty-eight. That meant they had expended thirty-nine in the last charge alone. As near as they could make out, they had accounted for eight of the enemy, four in the melee just finished. Besides, there were a number of ponies down. At first glance this might seem like poor shooting. It was not. A rapidly moving figure is a difficult rifle-mark with the best of conditions. In this case the conditions would have rendered an Easterner incapable of hitting a feather pillow at three yards. And now began the most terrible part of this terrible day. A dozen of the warriors dismounted, made a short circle to the left, and disappeared in a thin growth of dried grasses, old mulliens, and stunted, scattered brush barely six inches high. There seemed hardly cover enough to hide a man, and yet the dozen were as completely swallowed up as though they had plunged beneath the waters of the sea. Only occasionally the top of a grass tuft or a greasewood shivered. It became the duty of Alfred and his companion to shoot suddenly and accurately at these motions. This was necessary in order to discourage the steady concealed advance of the dozen, who, when they had approached to within as few yards as their god of war would permit, purposed to rush in and finish their opponents out of hand. And that rush could never be stopped. The white men knew it perfectly well, so they set conscientiously to work with their handful of cartridges to convince the reds that it is not healthy to crawl along ridge-tops on an autumn day. Sundry outlying Indians, with ammunition to waste, took belly and knee rests and strengthened the thesis to the contrary. The brisk fighting had warmed the contestants' blood. Now a cold wind penetrated through their woollens to the goose-flesh. It was impossible to judge of the effect of the shots, but both knew that the accuracy of their shooting was falling off. Clench his teeth as he would, hold his breath as steadfastly as he might, Alfred could not accomplish that steady, purposeful, unblinking pressure on the trigger so necessary to accuracy. In spite of himself, the rifle jerked ever so little to the right during the fall of the hammer. Soon he adopted the expedient of pulling it suddenly which is brilliant but uncertain. The ground was very cold. Before long both men would have felt inclined to risk everything for the sake of a little blood-stimulating tramp back and forth. The danger did not deter them. Only the plainsman's ingrained horror of throwing away a chance held them, shivering pitiably, to their places.