"Reno is going in, boys; it will be our turn next."
"Close up! Quiet there, lads, quiet," officer after officer passed the
word of command.
Yet there were those among them who felt a strange dread--that firing
sounded so far up the stream from where Reno should have been by that
time. Still it might be that those overhanging bluffs would muffle and
deflect the reports. Those fighting men of the Seventh rode steadily
on, unquestioningly pressing forward at the word of their beloved
leader. All about them hovered death in dreadful guise. None among
them saw those cruel, spying eyes watching from distant ridges, peering
at them from concealed ravines; none marked the rapidly massing hordes,
hideous in war-paint, crowded into near-by coulées and behind
protecting hills.
It burst upon them with wild yells. The gloomy ridges blazed into
their startled faces, the dark ravines hurled at them skurrying
horsemen, while, wherever their eyes turned, they beheld savage forms
leaping forth from hill and coulée, gulch and rock shadow. Horses
fell, or ran about neighing; men flung up their hands and died in that
first awful minute of consternation, and the little column seemed to
shrivel away as if consumed by the flame which struck it, front and
flank and rear. It was as if those men had ridden into the mouth of
hell. God only knows the horror of that first moment of shrinking
suspense--the screams of agony from wounded men and horses, the dies of
fear, the thunder of charging hoofs, the deafening roar of rifles.
Yet it was for scarcely more than a minute. Men trained, strong, clear
of brain, were in those stricken lines--men who had seen Indian battle
before. The recoil came, swift as had been the surprise. Voice after
voice rang out in old familiar orders, steadying instantly the startled
nerves; discipline conquered disorder, and the shattered column rolled
out, as if by magic, into the semblance of a battle line. On foot and
on horseback, the troopers of the Seventh turned desperately at bay.
It was magnificently done. Custer and his troop-commanders brought
their sorely smitten men into a position of defence, even hurled them
cheering forward in short, swift charges, so as to clear the front and
gain room in which to deploy. Out of confusion emerged discipline,
confidence, esprit de corps. The savages skurried away on their
quirt-lashed ponies, beyond range of those flaming carbines, while the
cavalry-men, pausing from vain pursuit, gathered up their wounded, and
re-formed their disordered ranks.
"Wait till Reno rides into their village," cried encouraged voices
through parched lips. "Then we'll give them hell!"