As the troops pressed onward the marching became harder. They were nearing the hill country lying between the Knife and the Little Missouri, full of precipices and deep ravines. That night they camped in the hills, with pickets and camp guards out. Each man slept with his sabre and revolver buckled to his waist and the bridle of his saddled horse in his hand. The next night they camped on the Knife River under similar conditions, after a hard march of twenty-seven miles, and as no fires were allowed, the weary men sorely missed their strong, hot coffee. As soon as he could do so, Al rolled himself in his blanket and stretched out on the ground. It seemed to him that he had but just closed his eyes when he heard the bugles ringing out reveille in the chill darkness. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, hearing a confusion of voices around him, the trampling of horses and jingle of accoutrements. Then he felt Cottontail's nose push against his cheek and, slowly unbending his stiffened limbs, he rose to his feet.

"Well, old boy," said he, putting his arm around his horse's neck, "I wonder what's in store for us to-day?"

"Plenty, probably," said Lieutenant Dale's voice, close beside him. "I've an idea we'll strike the redskins to-day."

It was three o'clock, and in the black darkness the lines were formed, not by sight but by hearing. For an hour they stumbled onward through the darkness before the first streaks of dawn began to give the men vague glimpses of their comrades and of other objects around. A little after sunrise a halt was made on a small branch of the Knife River for a quick breakfast of hardtack and coffee, and then the army pushed on again. The hour approached noon and the sun beat down hot on the long columns of horsemen toiling over the hills on each side of the small train of wagons and artillery.

General Sully, with one or two officers, was riding in an ambulance at the head of the train and others were on their horses near by, Al being with them, when they saw a party of several of the Indian scouts come galloping back through the advance guard. They did not slacken pace until they reached the General's ambulance, when their leader, much excited, began gesticulating and talking rapidly in his own tongue.

"Halt the advance guard! Tell Colonel Pollock to halt the First Brigade! Tell Colonel Thomas to halt his brigade!" cried the General to three different orderlies, who dashed away in as many different directions.

The moving columns became stationary, every eye turning in excited speculation on the General's ambulance, toward which the field officers of the different organizations were galloping from every direction. They found the staff eagerly gathered around the interpreter, who, catching the words from the lips of the chief scout, repeated to the General,

"He says, 'We have found the hostiles. They are just ahead, in great numbers, waiting us. We have seen their camps. They are in big hills a few miles from here. It is a very strong place.'"

"How far are the Indians ahead?" asked the General.

"A mile, maybe two miles. They keep moving."

"Gentlemen," said the General, turning to the field officers around him, "the enemy is found. Return to your commands and prepare for action. I will send you orders for battle formation in a few moments."

The officers went flying back to their regiments, and as they reached them and gave the stirring news to their men, volleys of cheers broke forth and went rolling up and down the long lines. There could be no doubt of the anxiety of the troops to come to blows with the foe they had been so long hunting. The men dismounted and began tightening up saddle cinchas and sabre belts, arranging their ammunition conveniently and giving a last inspection to carbines, sabres, and revolvers, all the while keeping up an energetic buzz of conversation.

In a few moments orderlies and staff officers began to fly along the lines with oral or written orders. Al went galloping over to Colonel Pattee with instructions to dismount his battalion of the Seventh Iowa and deploy it forward into line of battle on the left of the Sixth Iowa, of which six dismounted companies were already deploying on the right wing. Lieutenant Dale carried word to Colonel Rogers to deploy six companies of the Eighth Minnesota forward by the right, thus forming the left wing. Another officer instructed Captain Pope to throw his battery into the interval between the Seventh Iowa and the Eighth Minnesota; while Wallace Smith was intrusted with the order to Major Brackett to close in column upon the right flank, in rear of the Sixth Iowa, to cover the train and to be prepared to charge when ordered. Of the remaining commands, the Second Minnesota was formed on the left flank, in rear of the Eighth Minnesota; the Dakota Cavalry and a company of the Sixth Iowa were placed as supports for Pope's battery; Jones's battery was held in reserve with an escort of four companies of the Sixth Iowa; the wagon train was massed and closed up on the artillery reserve; and behind the train was placed a rear guard of two companies of the Eighth and one of the Second Minnesota. Several companies of skirmishers ran out and deployed in front of the main line of battle; and then the General, surveying his dispositions and finding them complete, gave the order to advance.

With flags and guidons flaunting proudly in the breeze, the sunlight dancing on sabre scabbards and carbine barrels, men cheering and horses prancing under the impulse of excitement on all sides of the great martial square, the army rolled forward across the swelling, verdant hills, a huge living engine of destruction moving onward to crush, or to be crushed by, the barbaric host in its front. Al, riding in the centre, behind the General, looked around him with flashing eyes, for never before had he viewed so inspiring and majestic a scene. It was, in fact, by far the largest and best appointed army which ever went into battle against the hordes of the great Sioux Nation, not even excepting the columns that followed Terry and Crook and Gibbon twelve years later when, in 1876, the gallant Custer and five troops of the Seventh United States Cavalry lost their lives in the battle of the Little Big Horn. More than twenty-two hundred men were in battle formation on that twenty-eighth day of July, 1864. As Wallace Smith exclaimed to Al, riding along beside him,

"By George, Al, isn't this a sight worth seeing and worth remembering, too? I'm glad I'm here."

"See!" cried Al, too startled to reply, suddenly pointing ahead. "There they are!"

Over the crest of a hill which the skirmish line was ascending, a dense, confused mass of mounted warriors came pouring like a torrent. Farther and farther to the right and left its flanks spread with lightning rapidity, breaking over the hill as an ocean roller curls and breaks upon a beach; farther and farther, till it stretched far beyond the utmost extremes of the line of battle. The hundreds of ponies were running at topmost speed, heads down and necks outstretched, the ground shaking beneath their thundering hoof-beats; the hundreds of warriors were brandishing guns and revolvers and plumed lances above their heads, their many-colored war bonnets streaming behind them in the hurricane of the charge, their voices upraised in a tempest of terrific, blood-curdling yells. So the savage host came on, straight for the thin thread of skirmishers and the solid line of battle behind it, as if they would sweep over them both and engulf the whole army at once in utter destruction. It seemed that nothing could stand before them, and they towered above the skirmish line like a wall.

Wallace clutched Al's arm, exclaiming, hoarsely,

"My God, what will the skirmishers do?"

"Watch them! Watch them!" answered Al, his whole mind centred on the impending collision.

The skirmish line came to a halt. Here and there it receded a little, then swung forward again, like a rope whipping back and forth. At one point and then at another a white puff of smoke spurted out, and in an instant they rippled all along the line, plain to the eye even before the spattering pop of the carbines reached the ear. It seemed a puny challenge to be flung in the face of that imposing mass of horsemen, but it was enough. They checked in their ponies, broke into fragments and either galloped back as they had come or else swung off to right and left and, running along in front of the line of battle, swept away beyond its flanks.

Al's pulses were pounding with excitement as he glanced at the General, riding now on his horse. Sully's face was as calm as if he were reviewing a dress parade. He stroked his beard slowly as he looked at the skirmish line and remarked,

"That was well done." Then, turning to one of his aides, he said, in his usual tone, "Tell Colonel Rogers to incline a little more to the left. He is crowding Pope's battery."

On up the hill just vacated by the Indians moved the main body of the army and down into the valley in front of it hurried the skirmishers. As the General and his staff reached the crest, a wonderful scene lay spread before them. It was a great plain, much cut up by ravines and hillocks but appearing from their position to be almost level, and it extended from the hill they were on to the base of another range, several miles away, which rose sheer from the valley in a mighty mass of abrupt ridges and rocky peaks from four hundred to eight hundred feet high. It was Tahkahokuty, or Kill-deer, Mountain. From base to summit it was covered with brush and timber; and among the trees on its top as well as on the low ridge along its base could be seen hundreds upon hundreds of Indian lodges, the women and children, the horses and dogs, running about among them, mere specks in the distance. To the left of the advancing army, a sharp upheaval of hills fell away from the flank of Tahkahokuty, lower than the main ridge but still formidable; and in front of this, in front of the mountain itself and of the camps at its base and extending far away to the right, the plain was covered with thousands of mounted warriors, some scattered and some in masses, but nearly all of them in rapid motion toward the small, compact army marching steadily forward upon their stronghold.

Again and again as the line of battle pressed on, the masses of warriors hurled themselves upon its front, only to break and retire before the deadly fire poured into them. But ever farther the red horsemen overlapped the flanks; in spite of the fact that the line of battle was being constantly extended to meet them. The soldiers, parched with the heat of the day and the exertion of marching and fighting over the rough ground, often at the double-quick, were suffering with thirst, but no water was to be found. As the army approached nearer and nearer to Tahkahokuty, the Indians began to fight with more stubbornness. They galloped up close to the lines, halted and fired, then dashed away again. Now and then a soldier fell and was lifted by some of his comrades and carried back to an ambulance.

At length two great masses of Indians began gathering, one out beyond the left flank, the other, beyond the right, and both near the front of the camps along the mountain's base. General Sully, as calm as ever, surveyed them deliberately through his glasses. Then suddenly he lowered his hand, straightened up in his saddle and spoke to an aide with a ring in his voice which had not been there before. The decisive moment had come. Pointing a steady finger at the crowd of Indians on the right, he cried,

"Tell Major Brackett to charge those fellows with the sabre! Tell him to drive it home; clear the valley and force them up the ridge."

Like a flash he turned to another officer and, pointing to the mass on the left, said,

"Order Colonel McLaren to charge that party and drive them to the ridge, and not to stop till he has forced them clear away from their camps."

Once more his words flashed out like a whip-lash, and Wallace Smith, quivering to be off, caught them as they came from his lips,

"Tell Captain Pope to advance at a gallop through the skirmish line and give them shell. Tell him to clear the valley and sweep the ridge in front of Brackett and McLaren."

Wallace dashed away and the General relapsed into his former attitude of silent, intent watchfulness. All his officers and orderlies were now gone somewhere with orders, excepting Al and Lieutenant Dale, who still rode behind him. But he paid no more heed to them than to the grass under his horse's feet. His whole attention was concentrated on the great game he was playing with living men for pawns, as the skilful chess player centres his thought upon the board before him at the crisis of the game.

Far to the right and left fronts, beginning in a low rumble and rising rapidly to a steady, pounding thunder above the crackle of the musketry, sounded the hoof-beats of McLaren's and Brackett's squadrons as they passed from the trot to the gallop and from the gallop to the charge and, a forest of flashing sabres circling above their heads, bore down with fierce cheers upon the foe. Straight ahead, through the gap in the battle line, could be seen the guns of the Prairie Battery, going forward, the cannoneers clinging to the limbers, the cavalry escort galloping furiously on either side. A moment more, and the boom of a howitzer rose above the lesser noises of battle, followed by another and another, and the shells, circling high, burst like great, white flowers against the rugged, dark green front of Tahkahokuty. A terrified commotion could be seen among the people in the camps on its crest. Here and there fires burst out among the lodges and smoke began to pour aloft through the foliage.

quoted Lieutenant Dale, pointing upward, and Al, catching the inspiration of the great poet of border warfare, who had thrilled him since childhood, went on,

Before the resistless rush of the Minnesotans, the savages on either flank broke and fled wildly back to the higher ground, the cavalry hard on their heels. Here, backed literally against their camps, they turned amid the rocks and trees and ravines, like wolves at bay, to protect for a few minutes the squaws and children, who were frantically striking the tepees and running or driving their travois up the ravines and into the impenetrable mountain fastnesses beyond. Farther and still farther along the crest of the lower ridge puffed out the little, cotton-like jets of carbine and rifle smoke. At length, nearly at the foot of the mountain on the right they began to increase in rapidity until they were floating off in a mass of thin vapors, while the sound of the fire became a shrill, continuous rattle. Above it rose the yells of the Indians, answered now and then by a disjointed cheer. General Sully's eyes narrowed, and his jaws set hard.

"Brackett's struck a hornet's nest," he ejaculated. "By George, that begins to sound like Fair Oaks!"

He wheeled his horse and galloped back to Captain Jones, whose battery was a short distance behind him.

"Captain," he cried, pointing to the spot where the heaviest fight seemed to be raging, "get out there as quick as the Lord'll let you, close to the base of the mountain, and shell out those redskins in front of Brackett."

The Captain saluted and spurred his horse around to the flank of his command.

"On right sections;—to twenty-five yards, extend intervals;—" he shouted. "Trot;—march!" Then, as the battery resolved itself into the new formation, he continued, "Right oblique,—march! Trot! Gallop!"

The guns went racing away, swung into battery, and in a moment their shells were searching the ravines in Brackett's front. They had scarcely opened when a great hubbub and popping of carbines broke out behind the wagon train, and a large body of Indians made their appearance, as if springing out of the ground, and bore down upon the rear guard. Immediately one of Jones' guns limbered up and came galloping back to reinforce the hard-pressed companies covering the train.

At this moment the General raised his glasses with a frown and looked toward the bluffs where McLaren was advancing, then swept his glasses around to Pope's battery and the Dakota Cavalry, which had charged ahead of the guns and become heavily engaged among the rocks in a ravine running back through the centre of the enemy's lower camps. The General turned to Lieutenant Dale.

"Warn Pope not to fire so far to the left," he said. "He's endangering McLaren's advance."

Then he called to Al,

"Ride up there to those Coyotes and scouts and tell Miner not to push too far ahead of the flanks. He'll be surrounded."

The two couriers galloped off together, leaving the General for the moment alone. As they pushed through the gap in the centre of the main battle line, Lieutenant Dale exclaimed,

"Don't these fellows fight splendidly considering most of them have never been under fire before?" Then he laughed. "Look at Pattee over there! His coat's off and he's fanning himself with his hat. It's a hot day for a fat man to fight."

The line of sweating, panting soldiers, closely followed by their comrades who were holding the horses, was plodding steadily ahead, firing at intervals upon the scattered warriors still circling in their front, as yet unrouted by the movements which had swept back their extreme flanks. Having passed the line of battle and the skirmishers ahead of it, the Lieutenant changed his course toward the left, where Pope's men were working methodically around their guns, while Al galloped straight on. He passed a small, detached butte from whose crest the shells of Pope's guns had just driven a crowd of squaws and children who were watching the battle from that elevation. He encountered no warriors, though some were so near that he drew his revolver before entering the rocky, timbered mouth of the ravine where the Coyotes were engaged.

Few soldiers were to be seen at first, but sounds were arising from among the rocks resembling those of a small volcano in eruption, and as Al pushed on into the broken ground he began to meet here and there troopers of the Dakota Cavalry, each holding four or more horses of the men on the firing line, which was still farther ahead. He soon found that he could not continue mounted, so, hooking up the sabre he had worn ever since leaving Fort Rice, he dropped Cottontail's reins over his head and hurried forward on foot, stumbling over roots and dodging rocks, in search of Captain Miner. Bullets and occasionally arrows whistled by him and the yells of the Indians seemed not fifty feet away. In a moment he came upon Corporal Wright and two men of his squad, crouching behind a broad rock and firing whenever they saw a target. Just as Al reached them the Corporal cried to his men,

"Now!"

They leaped from their concealment and ran forward with a shout to another rock, some thirty feet ahead, while four Indians, who had been hidden on its further side, jumped back and bolted for other cover higher up the ravine. The troopers fired and one warrior fell, but was snatched up by his companions and dragged along. Al followed the soldiers and cried in the Corporal's ear,

"Charlie, where is Captain Miner?"

"Captain Miner?" said Wright. "I don't know. He's somewhere around but we're all scattered out here."

Al could see other soldiers behind trees and rocks off to the right across the ravine, and, dodging from one cover to another, he started in that direction. After going a few yards he nearly fell over a man lying flat on the ground, peering ahead around the corner of a stone with his cocked carbine at his shoulder.

"Hi, Wallace!" exclaimed Al. "What are you doing here? Why don't you go back to the General?"

Wallace shot a resentful glance at him.

"How can I go back?" he asked. "We're cut off. There's redskins all along the rear."

"But I just came through," objected Al.

"Oh, don't bother me!" cried Wallace, impatiently, quite beside himself with the fascination of the struggle. "Can't you let a fellow alone? There!"

At the last word his carbine cracked and an Indian, his arm dangling at his side, darted away from a tree ahead. Wallace sprang up and followed, taking possession of the nearer side of the tree.

"Say, Wallace, where's Captain Miner?" shouted Al after him.

"Aw, how do I know?" replied Wallace, without looking around. Then he added, "Oh, yes; he was just over there a minute ago." He jerked his head vaguely to the right.

Al went on and almost immediately encountered the Captain, accompanied by eight or ten men, in a little gully where they had stopped to breathe. Though panting and soaked with perspiration, the men were firing up at the rocks above them but, at the moment when Al arrived, the Captain's revolver lay on the ground at his feet and his drawn sabre was thrust under one arm while he was picking with his right thumb and forefinger at a tiny splinter in the palm of his left hand. His face wore an absorbed expression and he moved his head slowly from side to side as he worked. He seemed entirely unconscious that anything was happening around him.

"Captain Miner," said Al, hardly able to repress a laugh as he saluted, "General Sully says for you not to get too far ahead of the flanks. He is afraid you will be surrounded."

The Captain looked up at him with a glance of pathetic helplessness.

"Why, my boy," said he, "how can I help it? We are already surrounded. We must keep going ahead or we shall be cleaned out. I'm sorry. I wish the General understood the situation."

Having extracted the splinter, he picked up his revolver again, stepped to a rock and peered around it.

"They seem to be afraid to go out of there, don't they?" he said to his men, thoughtfully, after a moment's inspection of the enemy's position. "I believe perhaps we'd better drive them. Yes, let's do that. Come on, boys. Charge!"

The soldiers gave a yell and scrambled out of the gully, Al with them, and the Captain climbing and jumping over the rocks just ahead. On either side of them other men of the Coyotes sprang up to join the advance; and farther to the right, up the side of the ravine, the Winnebago scouts of Captain Stufft, and Captain Williams's company of the Sixth Iowa, surged forward also. A hundred or more Indians sprang away from their hiding-places beyond and hurried higher up the ravine, some of them pausing to fire at their pursuers.

Al, being strong and quick, was soon abreast of the Captain. He was just pulling himself up on hands and knees over a ledge when he saw a tall, broad-shouldered Indian step into view from behind a rock not thirty feet ahead and raise his rifle to fire. As he stood, his left side was turned slightly toward Al, and what the latter saw as he looked made him gasp as though he had been struck in the face. A long, livid scar ran down the cheek and neck of the savage and out upon his shoulder.

He was just pulling himself up

For an instant Al's head swam, as he realized that before him stood Te-o-kun-ko, the captor of his brother Tommy. Then, with no thought in his mind other than that he must catch up with the Yanktonais and demand his brother, he began running and climbing ahead again with frantic energy. The Indian had fired and disappeared; but to Al's excited imagination it seemed almost as if in overtaking him he would overtake Tommy himself. He paid no heed to Captain Miner and his men nor to Wallace Smith, who had joined them, all of whom were shouting to him to come back. He leaped over the rock where Te-o-kun-ko had stood but the warrior was not in sight. He ran up a little, steep depression beyond and swung around a tree-trunk at its head. An Indian behind a stone a few feet to one side, who had not noticed him so far in front of the line, gave him a terrified glance and fled like a rabbit. Al did not pause to fire at him; but another warrior on his opposite side sent a bullet so close that the wind of it brushed his face sharply, and he stopped long enough to reply with his revolver; whereupon the savage dived between two boulders and vanished. Al rushed on, totally oblivious of the fact that he was getting far within the retreating Indian lines.

Just then, in climbing over a boulder, his foot slipped and he pitched forward and rolled into the narrow crevice between two rocks beyond, where, for a moment, he was held securely, despite his struggles. He twisted himself around in an effort to grasp a point of the stone above him, and found himself staring into the face of Te-o-kun-ko, hardly fifteen feet away, looking at him down the barrel of his rifle.

"Te-o-kun-ko! Wait!" shouted Al. "Te-o-kun-ko, where is Tommy,—Tommy Briscoe?"

The tense muscles of the Indian's features relaxed. His finger did not press the trigger which would have forever ended Al's search. Across his face came an expression of intense bewilderment, mixed, it seemed to Al's fascinated gaze, with grief or remorse. The levelled rifle barrel wavered and then sunk. He half turned away, hesitatingly, then looked again at Al with a keen, searching glance, as the latter lay helpless between the rocks. Finally, with a gesture half defiant and half despairing, he made a few quick, cat-like springs across the rocks and disappeared once more.

With a mighty effort Al succeeded in grasping the jutting point of the stone and drew himself up from the crevice. He was none too soon, for two Indians, whom he had distanced in his rapid climb, coming along the slope near him with guns evidently empty, saw him and leaped at him with clubbed muskets. He fired his revolver at one of them and missed, then jerked out his sabre and swung it in a left parry just in time to save his head from the blow of a musket butt. Three more warriors coming behind and afraid to shoot lest they hit their friends, came bounding down to join the hand-to-hand struggle.

In a few seconds more all would have been over but at this crucial instant the four men leading the wild scramble of the Coyotes after Al, caught up with him. They were Wallace, and Troopers Will Van Osdel, Lank Hoyt, and George Pike. Van Osdel leaped in beside Al, his sabre knocking the gun clear from the hands of one of the Indians, Hoyt crouched and fired his carbine at another, who sunk to the ground with a grunt, and Pike and Wallace, giving as loud a shout as they had breath for, climbed on after the remaining warriors, who had taken to their heels.

No sooner had the Indians fled than Van Osdel turned on Al.

"You crazy jack-rabbit," he cried, "what are you trying to do? Have you gone plumb out of your head? It's the biggest wonder ever happened you're not dead."

"I saw the Indian that captured my brother," returned Al, dejectedly. "But he's gone now."

"Well," interjected Hoyt, mopping his streaming face, "he came near getting two brothers, instead of one. Anyhow, you've led a lovely charge. We've nearly cleared the ravine."

They looked ahead. It was true. The crest of the mountain was towering above them through the trees and they were actually ascending its base, for, though Al's foolhardy pursuit of Te-o-kun-ko had taken hardly five minutes from the time he started until he was overtaken by his comrades, he had climbed so fast and so far that the Dakota and Iowa Cavalry and the Indian scouts, in following him had penetrated clear through the Sioux camps lying above the ravine on either side.

His right senses came back to Al the moment he realized that he had failed in his purpose of capturing or killing Te-o-kun-ko, and he knew that he ought to return at once to General Sully. But he could not resist the temptation to go on now to the top of the ravine and see what was there, and he had, moreover, a lingering hope of catching another sight of Te-o-kun-ko. The stragglers of the cavalry were now closing up on those who had gained the advance, and, the Indians having practically given up the contest, a few moments of hard climbing brought them to the top of the ravine.

An astonishing sight met their eyes. As far as they could see over the sloping ridge, the ground was covered with a city of lodges. A few had been struck and dragged away for a distance, but most of them were still standing, though deserted. Over at the farther side of the camp could be seen the last of the squaws and children, flying into the bewildering maze of ravines leading up the rugged face of Tahkahokuty, protected by the scattered fire of the warriors who had just been routed by the cavalry. Off to the right and left, where the shells of Jones and Pope had but just ceased to burst, the little group of soldiers could see the columns of Brackett and McLaren pouring with exultant shouts into other parts of the immense, abandoned Sioux camps, while, in their own rear, the main line of battle was approaching up the ridge. Though the mountain had not yet been ascended, plainly the field itself had been completely conquered, and the battle of Tahkahokuty Mountain, the greatest and most picturesque conflict of the American Northwest, had become a part of history. Al and Wallace, tardily recollecting their duties, made haste in descending the ravine to find their horses and return to General Sully, with such explanations as they could devise for their long absence while carrying orders to the firing line.