Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/100

94 Back to the hills they dash, with reeking trophies around them: But swift on their trail the cavalry ride, and their trumpets Break on the ears of the braves with a threat of oncoming vengeance.

At last they are bayed and barred—corralled in a straight-walled valley,— The Indians back to the cliffs with the shattered rocks as a breastwork, The soldiers in lined stockades across the mouth of the valley.

Hungrily hiss the bullets, not wasted in random firing, But every shot for a mark,—thrice their number of soldiers Raking the Cheyenne rocks with a pitiless rain of missiles,