reckon, and he quick had to pull off the left one and pitch it out the window.
Well sir, what do you know but when the closest Indians come upon that boot, two of them reined in and dismounted to study it. That give me an idea, so I clumb outside, with one foot in the window, which ain’t easy when a coach is running full tilt, and hailed the fellows outside. The driver didn’t have no time to gab, and that guard put his shotgun on me as my head come level of the roof and I figure he would of blown my face off were it not he had spent his shells. He thought I was an Indian.
It took a while and a good bit of breath to be heard above his hysterics and the rush of the wind, but finally I got my plan across to him, and he crept back to where the baggage was strapped, opened it piece by piece, and begun flinging out the clothes and such therefrom. That drummer’s trunk yielded the greatest variety: coats and suits and collars, bolts of cloth that rolled out in the wind and went sweeping back-one of them lashed across an Indian, streaming out on both sides, and he swathed the ends around him on the gallop, but then didn’t have the nerve to keep on but stopped to get out his mirror. Well, the trunk had mirrors, too, but they broke in glitters as they struck the ground and so did the bottles of hair oil, but the tin dishes didn’t, and when a Cheyenne would reach one, he’d halt and pick it up, but that ain’t nothing to the effect created when the ladies’ hats went sailing back. Them and the contents of our carpet bag which was opened next, is what ended that phase of the pursuit. When last I saw, before the coach dipped into descending ground, two Cheyenne was quarreling over Olga’s ribbon-trimmed drawers, stretched from one horse to the other, and a half-dozen of them had got into the hats, which was all trimmed with furbelows and flounces.
Then a wheel come off the stage and we tore up two hundred yards of prairie before the animals could be halted, for that team was tired but panicky, and as soon as the driver unhitched them they run off, harnessed together.
The driver and me had some confab as to whether we should stand where we was or hike for it. We was located on the upland above the river, for the bottom had been too soft as this point to bear a vehicle. Across the Arkansas, very shallow in winter and thinly crusted with ice, lay a stretch of sand hills where we might be able to hold out till the failure of schedule was noted and troops come out from Fort Larned, though that might take a time for nobody got worried them days when a stage was up to a day late.
One thing sure, the Cheyenne would not be permanently distracted by them new possessions of theirs. They’d come along directly, though being we was in a shallow valley below them they would not yet have seen our accident.
Nobody was damaged in the wreck, for the coach didn’t roll over, and maybe the slight shaking-up done some good to our little party, at least for Perch and the drummer, jostled them into reality so to speak. And Olga herself seemed less worried than when it had looked like we was getting away. Everybody piled out and I had had the talk with the driver, when I noticed that Black had not clumb from the coach, so I looked within, it leaning crazy, and there he was still in his corner, staring straight ahead out of that mean face, only his eyes was now filmed like a scummy pond. So I waved my hand in front of them without effect, and took the Colt’s off of him and got the ammunition from his pocket and searched a little for his papers but couldn’t waste much time at it and never found none.
I reckon he had died of heart failure sometime back, whether from fright or not nobody could say, and I didn’t mention it to them others at that moment, for we was soon wading the Arkansas, getting our feet wet with chill water and no means of drying them, because at first we didn’t dare to light a fire and then, when discovered, was too busy with other matters. It was shortly after getting into the sand hills on the south shore that we saw the Cheyenne clear the rise and ride down upon the abandoned stage, which they figured was still occupied, and circled it and whooped at it, and then they got down and pulled Black’s body out, stripped him, throwed a lariat over his head and pulled him around the prairie back of a pony until he come apart. But I reckon he was beyond caring.
A good many of them was dressed in particles of female clothing: fancy hats, as I have said, and some corset covers, and the brave what finally won Olga’s drawers had ripped them in two and wore each leg as a sleeve. The tin plates they had punctured with knives and run red ribbons through, tying them on their animals to clatter. Some was wound in yardgoods. Not all the hair-tonic bottles had busted, for I saw certain Indians drinking from them, and asked the drummer as to the contents. Since he couldn’t sell them now, he told the truth for once: nought but colored water, and I says thank God for that.
Then they saw our trail across the river. We had thrown a line of defense along the highest sand hill, with Olga, Gus, and the drummer, who wasn’t yellow but rather unarmed, down behind it. The driver had him a carbine and the guard luckily carried a pair of revolvers besides that useless shotgun. I give my pocket Remington to Perch and used the big Colt’s I took off Black. The Cheyenne possessed only two-three rifles, probably in bad condition. If we organized our volleys for greatest effect, at a distance beyond arrow range, the Human Beings might take discouragement from it.
So to each of our boys I give a specific target among the leading riders as their animals crunched through the ice-rim of the stream, stepping gingerly there so as not to cut their feet, and then as they reached the free water and kicked into the gallop, we fired.
I wasn’t familiar with my weapon, so shot too high and clipped the white end-plume off a brave’s head- feather. But with my tiny pistol and sheer luck, Perch hit a horse’s knee, likely chipping rather than breaking the bone, but it pitched its rider splashing, and in avoidance two more braves collided, and our driver splintered the bow in the hand of one and he dropped it as if hot.
This was enough to slow that flank of the charge and disaffect the general spirit, but two Indians was out for coup, so would have come on into the mouth of a cannon. Well, our driver was reloading our only long-range weapon, the guard was firing wild after his habit, and Perch had no more luck.
Twice I missed clean, by when the braves, keeping lateral of each other, one on a galloping pinto and one a black, splashing through the shallow Arkansas, was at a range of seventy yards and proceeding strong. I had my belly in the sand and my chin, too, and a few grains had got into my mouth and felt like little pimples under the tongue. The fellow on the paint commenced to howl his victory song, and I of course understood it and felt right strange, knowing he was in the Cheyenne frenzy and wouldn’t be stopped short of being blasted out of life.
Forty yards, and my target had now cleared the water and was quirting his animal up our sand slope. I then missed with my last round, but the driver had got his carbine loaded now and with it hit the Cheyenne dead in the midsection, a fine, difficult shot even so close, and over the pony’s tail he went in a flutter of the flounces on the lady’s hat he wore but which I had not marked till then, tumbling almost back to the river, losing the hat, losing his song, and never got up though he was still alive at twilight when it had got so quiet we could hear his gasping breath.
I don’t recall what become of the other: turned back, maybe, his medicine gone bad. There was two more charges before twilight and in these the whole bunch participated. There are more pleasant experiences than lying on cold sand with fifty screaming Cheyenne heading towards you. But we turned them back, wounding a few in the process, though the second time before retiring they got Perch in the shoulder with an arrow.
As the sun fell the Indians lined the other bank, no longer yelling taunts or waving spears; they was bored with that aspect of the quarrel so far as that day went. We could expect a resumption by first light, next morning. Meanwhile they stared quietly across, and then some started fires as the light waned, for it was right cold and getting more so. Then they all wrapped themselves in blankets and ate pemmican from their rawhide parfleches.
There we sat as darkness worked in and the wind rose, and it grew too cold to snow. Perch had got his shoulder wound and his foot was froze on account of having to discard one boot and then wade the river. I reckoned he’d lose that hoof, but at the moment he refused crude surgery, claiming the pain was equalized to a standoff by that from his shoulder. He was a tougher old bird than I had took him for.
The driver had brung along a big canteen, so we had sufficient water at least for the night. But no grub. Nor could we make a fire with nought to burn in them barren hills of sand. However, everybody wore their heavy winter clothes, and the hollow behind our ridge was protection against the wind and so we all went down into it after the dark become impenetrable, taking turns as single sentry up top.
I have mentioned that Olga calmed down soon as the wheel come off the stage and our situation turned critical. She continued in that wise, and bandaged Perch’s shoulder with strips off her petticoat and tried to chafe the blood back into his frozen foot. And that guard, skinny, long-nosed, nervous fellow who fired wild and in between the charges he jerked and sniffed and scratched his body like he was lousy, well, when he come into the
