The Indians came swarming across the valley in a red tidal wave. They were decreasing their circle, and expected to rush the stockade walls in a cyclonic charge. They quickened their pace as they came, and the weird war-whoop deafened the beleaguered garrison. They came with a rush at last, showering the walls with arrows and bullets, some of which found their way into the loopholes. It was a grand charge to look upon; it was a desperate one to check. The whites had their orders and obeyed them. Not a rifle cracked until the Indians were under the stockade walls, scrambling through the ditch. Then the four six-pounders roared from the block-towers, their scattering lead and iron mowing down the yelling redskins in the ditches. Then volley upon volley of carbines, repeating rifles, and muskets echoed the rolling thunder of the big guns. Not a few of the bullets and arrows entered the loopholes, and many dead and wounded were numbered among the whites; but the carnage among the redskins was awful to contemplate. The thunder of the big guns, the popping of the smaller firearms, the screaming of the wild ponies corraled in the fort, and the demoralized shrieks of the Indians themselves made a veritable hell upon earth! Above all rose the notes of the bugle sending forth orders at Major Baldwin’s command. Now and then that piercing, weird war-cry of the Border King was heard--a sound well known and feared by the Indians. They recognized it as the voice of he whom they called Pa-e-has-ka--“The Long Hair.” Indian nature was not equal to facing the deadly hail of iron and lead, and the red wave broke against the stockade and receded, leaving many still and writhing bodies in the ditches which surrounded the fort, and scattered upon the plain. Slowly at first the redskins surged backward under the galling fire of the whites but finally the retreat became a stampede. The rout was complete. All but the dead and badly wounded escaped swiftly out of rifle-shot, save one mounted chief. He was left alone, struggling with his mount, trying to force the animal to leave the vicinity of the fort gate. This was Oak Heart himself, the king of the Sioux, and his mount was a great white cavalry charger that he had captured months before. This was no half-wild Indian pony; yet the Indian chief, without spurs and a proper bridle, could not control the beast. The horse had heard the bugle to which he had been so long used. He was determined in his equine mind to rejoin the white men who had been his friends, instead of these cruel red masters, and he made a dash for the gate of the fortress.