From the painted, parted lips of the two squaws issued a wilder, different note, and little Dave again felt like cheering; for from their saddles had lurched three of the Cheyennes, and a pony also had pitched in a heap. Cut Nose swerved; he and every warrior flung themselves to the pony side opposite the fort, and parting, the column split as if the fort were a wedge. In two wings they went scouring right and left of it. Around and around the mule-body triangle they rode, at top speed, in a great double circle, plying their bows. Their arrows streamed in a continuous shower, pelting the fort. They struck, quivering, in the mule bodies and in the ground. Now from every savage throat rang another shout――high, derisive. On their ponies the squaws capered, and shook their blanket ends. An arrow was quivering in a new spot――the shoulder of one of the whites. Now Davy felt like sobbing. But it was not in the shoulder of the boy; it was in the shoulder of the man beyond him, and facing the other way. However, that was bad enough. Still, the man was not disabled; not he. His gun remain levelled, and neither the boy nor the other man paid any attention to him. The three occasionally shot, but lying low against their ponies’ sides the Indians, galloping fast, were hard to hit. Cut Nose raised his hand again, and from the circle he veered outward. The circle instantly scattered, and after their chief galloped every warrior. Forward hammered the two squaws, with vengeful look at little Dave which bade him not to lag. The warriors had gathered in a group, out of gunshot from the fort. Cut Nose was furious. Indians hate to lose warriors; and there were three, and a pony, stretched upon the plain. “Are you all old women?” scolded Chief Cut Nose, while Dave tried to guess at what was being shouted, and his two guardians pressed to the edge of the circle. “You let three whites, one of whom is very little, beat us? The dogs will bark at us when we go back and the squaws will whip us through the village. Everybody at home will laugh. They will say: ‘These are not Cheyennes. They are sick Osages! They are afraid to take a scalp, and when an enemy points a stick at them, they run!’ Bah! Am I a chief, and are you warriors, or are we all ghosts?” Panting, the warriors listened. They murmured and shrugged, as the words stung. “Those whites shoot very straight. The little one shoots the straightest of any. They must have many guns. They shoot once and without loading they shoot again,” argued Lame Buffalo.