had me so I swung and charged right at the nearest Indian. He was fifty yards ahead of the nearest Ute and which shot got his horse I don't know, but I fired three or four shots at him.
Dust jumped from the horse's side and the horse went down throwing his rider over his head into the grass, and when I went by at a dead run I shot into that Indian as I rode.
They were all messed up for a minute or two, switching directions and running into each other, but meanwhile I rode through a small creek and was out on the open prairie beyond.
We were eight to ten miles from camp and I wasn't about to lead these Utes full tilt into my friends. And then I saw a buffalo wallow.
Slowing Montana horse we slid into that wallow and I hit ground and threw my shoulder into the horse and grabbed his off foreleg, hoping to throw him, but Montana horse seemed to know just what I wanted and he went down and rolled on his side like he had been trained for it ... which he probably had, the Nez Perce using appaloosas for war horses.
Dropping to one knee, the other leg stretched out ahead of me, I drew a careful bead on the chest of the nearest Ute and squeezed off my shot. There was a minute when I believed I'd missed, and him coming right into my sights, then his horse swung wide and dumped a dead Ute into the grass. There was a bright stain of blood on the horse's side as he swung away.
It was warm and still. Patting Montana horse I told him, 'You rest yourself, boy, we'll make out.'
He rolled his eyes at me like he understood every word.
You would never have believed that a moment ago there was shooting and killing going on, because suddenly everything was still. The hillside was empty, those Indians had gone into the ground faster than you would believe. Lying there, knowing any moment might be my last, I liked the feel of the warm sun on my back, the smell of parched brown grass and of dust.
Three of the Utes were down in the grass and there were six left. Six to one might seem long odds but if a man has nerve enough and if he thinks in terms of combat, the advantage is often against sheer numbers. Sheer numbers rob a man of something and he begins to depend ... and in a fighting matter no man should depend. He should do what has to be done himself.
My canteen was full and I'd some jerked meat in my saddlebag, lots of fresh meat, and plenty of ammunition.
They would try to come over the rise behind me. That crest, only a couple of feet away, masked my view of the far slope. So I had out my bowie knife and began cutting a trench. That was a nine-inch blade, sharp enough to shave with, and I worked faster than ever in my born days.
It took me only minutes to have a trench that gave me a view of the back slope, and I looked around just in time. Four of them were coming up the slope toward me on foot and running bent over. My shot was a miss ... too quick. But they hit dirt. Where there had been running Indians there was only grass stirring in the wind.
They would be creeping on their bellies now, getting closer. Taking a chance, I leaped up. Instantly, I spotted a crawling Indian and fired, then dropped into my hole with bullets spearing the air where I'd been. That was something I couldn't try again, for now they'd be expecting.
Overhead there were high streamers of white clouds. Turning around I crawled into my trench, and just in time. An Indian was coming up that back slope, bent over and coming fast and I let him come. It was high time I shortened the odds against me, so I put my rifle in position, reached down to ease my Colt for fast work in case the others closed in at the same time. That Ute was going to reach me with his next rush. Some were down, but I doubted if more than one was actually dead. I wasn't counting any scalps until I had them.
Minutes loitered. Sweat trickled down my cheeks and my neck. I could smell the sweat of my own body and the hot dust. Somewhere an eagle cried. Sweat and dust made my skin itch, and when a big horsefly lit on Montana, my slap sounded loud in the hot stillness.
Eastern folks might call this adventure, but it is one thing to read of adventure sitting in an easy chair with a cool drink at hand, and quite another thing to be belly down in the hot dust with four, five Indians coming up the slope at you with killing on their minds.
A grasshopper flew into the grass maybe fifteen yards down slope, then took off at once, quick and sharp. That was warning enough. Lifting the rifle I steadied it on that spot for a quick shot, then chanced a glance over my shoulder. Just as I looked back that Ute charged out of the grass like he was bee-stung.
My guess had been right, and he came up where that grasshopper had lit. My sights were on the middle of his chest when I squeezed off my shot and he fell in plain sight.
Behind me their feet made a whisper in the dry grass and rolling over I palmed my Colt and had two shots off before I felt the slam of the bullet. The Utes vanished and then I was alone but for a creeping numbness in my left shoulder and the slow welling of blood.
Sliding back from the trench I felt sickish faint and plugged the hole with a handkerchief. The bullet had gone through and I was already soaked with blood on my left side. With bits of handkerchief I plugged the bullet hole on both sides and knew I was in real trouble.
Blinking against the heat and sudden dizziness I fed shells into my guns. Then I took the plug from my canteen and rinsed my mouth. It was lukewarm and brackish.
My head started to throb heavily and it was an effort to move my eyebrows. The smell of sweat and dried grass grew stronger and overhead the sky was yellow and hot as brass. From out of an immeasurable distance a buzzard came.
Suddenly I hated the smells, hated the heat, hated the buzzard circling and patient--as it could be patient-- knowing that most things die.
Crawling to the rim of the buffalo wallow my eyes searched the terrain before me, dancing with heat waves. I tried to swallow and could not, and Tennessee and its cool hills seemed very far away.
Through something like delirium I saw my mother rocking in her old chair, and Orrin coming up from the spring with a wooden bucket full of the coldest water a man could find.
Lying in a dusty hole on a hot Colorado hillside with a bullet hole in me and Utes waiting to finish the job, I suddenly remembered what day it was. It had been an hour ... or had it been more? It had been at least an hour since the last attack. Like the buzzards, all those Utes needed was time, and what is time to an Indian?
Today was my birthday ... today I was nineteen years old.
Chapter VIII
Long fingers of shadow reached out from the sentinel pines before I took my next swallow of water. Twice I'd sponged out the mouth of that Montana horse, who was growing restless and harder to keep down.
No chance to take a cat nap, or even take my eyes off the country for more than a minute because I knew they were still out there and they probably knew I was hurt. My shoulder was giving me billy-hell. Even if I'd had a chance to run for it Montana horse would be stiff from lying so long.
About that time I saw the outfit coming up the slope. They rode right up to that buffalo wallow bold as brass and sat their horses grinning at me, and I was never so glad to see anybody.
'You're just in time for tea,' I said, 'you all just pull up your chairs. I've got the water on and she'll be ready any minute.'
'He's delirious,' Tom Sunday grinned like a big ape. 'He's gone off his rocker.'
'It's the heat,' Orrin agreed. 'The way he's dug in you'd think he'd been fighting Indians.'
'Hallucinations,' Rountree added, 'a plain case of prairie sickness.'
'If one of you will get off his horse,' I suggested, 'I'll plain whip him till his hair falls out, one-handed at that. Where've you been? Yarning it in the shade?'
'He asks us where we've been?' Sunday exclaimed. 'And him sitting in a nice cool hole in the ground while we work our fool heads off.'
Rountree, he cut out and scouted around, and when he rode back he said, 'Looks like you had yourself a party. By the blood on the grass you got two, anyway.'
'You should backtrack me.' I was feeling ornery as a stepped-on baby. 'If I didn't score on five out of nine Utes, I'll put up money for the drinks.'
'Only three took off when we showed up,' Sunday agreed.
Grabbing my saddle horn I pulled myself into the leather; for the first time since I'd sighted those Utes I could count on another day of living.
For the next three days I was cook which comes of having a bum wing on a cow outfit. Cap was a fair hand
