Not until the last desperate moment would Kit Carey have dealt death upon the Sioux chief. But an Indian officer had been stung to madness by a wound, there were hundreds of Sioux warriors pressing on in hot haste to the rescue, and many men were mounting to aid in tearing their loved leader from his captors. Upon all sides redskins, mounted and on foot, were appearing. They had been the ones to open fire upon the capturers of Sitting Bull, and thus had the struggle for life or death been precipitated in an instant of time. The Indian officer who had fired the shot at the Sioux chief had but avenged himself, for he had received his own death wound and fell from his horse even before the one he had turned his bullet upon did. [Illustration: "'Fire!' The order of Kit Carey was obeyed, and as the fighting became general, the death-knell of Sitting Bull rang out." (See page 29)] Sitting Bull had reeled under the death wound, and then broke from between his teeth his death-cry and another command, his last utterance, calling his braves to the rescue. With firm hand upon the bridle rein Kit Carey led the plunging horse of the chief onward, determined to carry him to safety, for he knew not that the wound was mortal. Then suddenly Sitting Bull straightened up in his saddle, his arms were extended, his lips parted, yet no word came from them, and he fell headlong to the ground beneath the feet of the horses in their mad flight. The Sioux saw their leader fall, and knew that he had gone to the happy hunting grounds of their people. They could not rescue him alive, but they could avenge him dead. And then went up one wild wail of woe, ending in a yell of rage and hatred that was appalling. Kit Carey well knew the meaning of that weird, terrible cry, and the Indian guards knew it but too well also. Was the little band doomed? All glanced into the face of their young leader, who, surrounded now by odds too numerous to break through, had stood at bay. "Stand and die right here, over the body of the Sioux chief!" cried Lieutenant Carey, and his red cavalrymen rallied around him. But though shots rang out thick and fast, though the Indian guards fell dead and wounded, and the Sioux went down under the fire of the little band, they were not doomed to be sacrificed, for with a ringing cheer the gallant Boys in Blue, led by Captain Fechet, came dashing to the rescue, and now the cry became, "Soldiers to the rescue!" Like an avalanche they came on, breaking the Indian line about the little band of captors, hurling back the surprised Sioux, and forcing them upon their village in temporary disorder.