Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/149

Rh save ammunition, and now, as the boy walked up and down the h'ne of his grim fighters, his eyes were serious; for he knew that only five rounds of cartridges remained for each rifle, and that most of the rifles were in the hands of squaws whose zeal far outweighed their marksmanship.

The Mooseheads were forming, now—scattering out among the stumps of the clearing—yelling and exposing themselves to draw the fire at long range—but no shots were fired and, tiring of these tactics, the painted savages advanced. Only one hundred yards separated the nearest Indian from the barricade and Connie was about to give the order to fire, when, from the timber beyond the clearing, came a chorus of the wildest, most blood-curdling yells and whoops that ever assailed the ears of mortal man, and the next instant the whole clearing was filled with howling, shooting forms, and the crashing reports of their rifles drowned all other sounds. Connie stared in horror at what appeared to be the reinforcements of the enemy, while all about him the Brushwoods were dropping the rifles from their nerveless hands: "The Yellow Knives!" "The Yellow Knives!" "We die!" "Nesika memaloose—"we die!" "They are the