During all this time Roman Nose and his horsemen had withdrawn around the bend up the river, which screened them from the island. At this juncture they appeared in full force, trotting up the bed of the river in open order in eight ranks of about sixty front. Ahead of them, on a magnificent chestnut horse, trotted Roman Nose. The warriors were hideously painted, and all were naked except for moccasins and cartridge belts. Eagle feathers were stuck in their long hair, and many of them wore gorgeous feather war bonnets. They sat their horses without saddles or stirrups, some of them having lariats twisted around the horses’ bellies like a surcingle. Roman Nose wore a magnificent war bonnet of feathers streaming behind him in the wind and surmounted by two buffalo-horns; around his waist he had tied an officer’s brilliant scarlet silk sash, which had been presented to him at the Fort Ellsworth conference. The sunlight illumined the bronze body of the savage Hercules, exhibiting the magnificent proportions of the man. Those who followed him were in every way worthy of their leader. As the Indian cavalry appeared around the bend to the music of that bugle, the fire upon the island from the banks redoubled in intensity. Forsyth instantly divined that Roman Nose was about to attempt to ride him down. He also realized that, so soon as the horses were upon him, the rifle fire from the bank would of necessity be stopped. His order to his men was to cease firing, therefore; to load the magazines of their rifles, charge their revolvers, and wait until he gave the order to fire. The rifles of the dead and those of the party too severely wounded to use them were distributed among those scouts yet unharmed. Some of the wounded insisted upon fighting. Forsyth propped himself up in his rifle-pit, his back and shoulders resting against the pile of earth, his rifle and revolver in hand. He could see his own men, and also the Indians coming up the river. Presently, shouting their war songs, at a wild pealed whoop from their chief, the Indian horsemen broke into a gallop, Roman Nose leading the advance, shaking his heavy Spencer rifle—captured, possibly, from Fetterman’s men—in the air as if it had been a reed. There was a last burst of rifle fire from the banks, and the rattle of musketry was displaced by the war songs of the Indians and the yells of the squaws and children on the slopes of the hills. As the smoke drifted away on that sunny September morning, they saw the Indians almost upon them. In spite of his terrible wounds the heroic Forsyth was thoroughly in command. Waiting until the tactical moment when the Indians were but fifty yards away and coming at a terrific speed, he raised himself on his hands to a sitting position and cried, “Now!” [Illustration: _Copyright, 1900, by Charles Schreyvogel_ ROMAN NOSE LEADING THE CHARGE AGAINST FORSYTH’S DEVOTED BAND _Drawing by Charles Schreyvogel_ ]