Roman Nose next lined the banks of the river on both sides with dismounted riflemen, skilfully using such concealment as the ground afforded. The banks were slightly higher than the island, and the Indians had a plunging fire upon the little party. The riflemen on the banks opened fire at once. A storm of bullets was poured upon the devoted band on the island. The scouts, husbanding their ammunition, slowly and deliberately replied, endeavoring, with signal success, to make every shot tell. As one man said, they reckoned “every ca’tridge was wuth at least one Injun.” The horses of the troop, having no protection, received the brunt of the first fire. They fell rapidly, and their carcasses rising in front of the rifle-pits afforded added protection to the soldiers. There must have been a renegade white man among the savages, for in a lull of the firing the men on the island heard a voice announce in perfect English, “There goes the last of their horses, anyway.” Besides this, from time to time, the notes of an artillery bugle were heard from the shore. The casualties had not been serious while the horses stood, but as soon as they were all down the men began to suffer.[33] During this time Forsyth had been walking about in the little circle of defenders encouraging his men. He was met on all sides with insistent demands that he lie down and take cover, and, the firing becoming hotter, he at last complied. The rifle-pit which Surgeon Mooers had made was a little wider than that of the other men, and as it was a good place from which to direct the fighting, at the doctor’s suggestion some of the scouts scooped it out to make it a little larger, and Forsyth lay down by him. The fire of the Indians had been increasing. Several scouts were killed, more mortally wounded, and some slightly wounded. Doctor Mooers was hit in the forehead and mortally wounded. He lingered for three days, saying but one intelligent word during the whole period. Although he was blind and speechless, his motions sometimes indicated that he knew where he was. He would frequently reach out his foot and touch Forsyth. A bullet struck Forsyth in the right thigh, and glancing upwards bedded itself in the flesh, causing excruciating pain. He suffered exquisite anguish, but his present sufferings were just beginning, for a second bullet struck him in the leg, between the knee and ankle, and smashed the bone, and a third glanced across his forehead, slightly fracturing his skull and giving him a splitting headache, although he had no time to attend to it then. III. The Charge of the Five Hundred