Ned did not stay unconscious long. He was half-conscious. He dimly heard the pleading voice of little Mary, he felt her caresses, he was aware that the shots and the shouts and the whoops continued, he felt the throbbing pain of his wound, he felt himself lifted and carried, lax, and deposited again; and he felt a sharper, sickening agony as fingers manipulated the arrow, while a kindly voice soothed him. That must be the surgeon, Dr. Lippincott.

He shut his lips firmly, not even to groan. It was the part of the soldier to bear pain; and if he was only a boy, he also was a soldier. A “snip” sounded, upon the arrow, and for a moment the shock was almost too much to stand. Then the shaft was gently but firmly slipped from the hole. The surgeon had cut off the head and had drawn the arrow out backward, for the point was of course barbed.

“You’ll do nicely, my lad,” spoke the surgeon. “It’s only a flesh wound. It followed outside the skull. Good!”

Soft touch applied a bandage.

“Can’t you see, Ned? Please see!” implored little Mary.

Ned rallied and opened his one eye. He was bolstered up, on a heap of buffalo-robes. Mary was trying to hug him. He hugged Mary. They were in an open space amidst the tipis, where the field hospital had been established. Around-about them were other wounded soldiers. Colonel Barnitz was lying near, as pale as if dead. Doctor Lippincott and his assistants were busy here and there.

The rattle of rifle and carbine, the quick orders, the defiant yells, betokened desperate battle. The strains of “Garryowen” sounded wild and inspiring, as the band, posted on a little knoll by the village, played on and on. But higher, more piercing, penetrating all the clamor, not unlike the howl of wolves rose an incessant chant—the mourning wail of sorrowing squaws.

The charge had been successful. The troops had the village. Now the surrounding hills were alive with Indians; the soldiers were in the center; and the day was not yet noon.

Rapidly came the news, brought in by the wounded, or drifting in hap-hazard from hurrying fighters. Captain Hamilton had been killed—shot through the heart in battle, just as he had desired as a soldier’s end. Bluff Colonel Alfred Barnitz was desperately wounded by a ball through the body. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Custer had been wounded, and Lieutenant March. Nothing had been seen, since the first attack, of Major Elliot or Sergeant-Major Kennedy. Black Kettle and Chief Little Rock were slain. Major Benteen had encountered Black Kettle’s young son, not fourteen years of age, and after being fired upon repeatedly by him and having his horse shot under him, had been obliged to shoot back and kill the gallant young warrior. Squaws and children had fought wickedly, helping the warriors. One squaw, fleeing with a captive little white boy, had stabbed him rather than surrender him. She had been shot down at once; but too late. Romeo the interpreter had gathered the captive squaws into a large tipi, and California Joe had herded nine hundred ponies. This was the Cheyenne village, with a few Arapaho and Sioux tipis in it. But one of the squaws had informed the general (who was unharmed) that below the Cheyenne village extended for ten miles the villages of the Kiowas and of the Comanches, more Cheyennes, the Arapahos, and some Apaches. Aroused by runners and by the noise of conflict, these warriors were rallying by the hundreds to the attack and the rescue.

Captain Smith came riding hastily through; by the motions of his hand he was counting the tipis; and he was in a hurry because every now and then some angry squaw shot at him.

“Fifty-one,” he called, to an orderly.

General Custer himself appeared, flushed and energetic, on Dandy plashed with froth and frozen mud and water.

“Hello,” he cried, at sight of Ned. “Hurt?”

“Yes, sir,” and Ned tried to salute.

“Bullet?”

“No, sir. Arrow.”

“It didn’t go through his head,” piped little Mary, bravely. “It just stuck there.”

“I’ve found my sister, sir,” informed Ned, eager to let him know.

“Good!” And the busy general turned to other matters. His eagle glance measured the hospital. “You must get ready to move out of here, doctor,” he said. “We sha’n’t stay.”

“All right, general.”

And the Yellow Hair dashed away.

More and more Indians were gathering upon the ridges around the village. The head-dresses of the warriors could be seen. Word came that the overcoats and the haversacks which had been left by the center column when it advanced were captured and that the guard was obliged to scud hard for escape. Blucher the stag-hound had run out among the Indians, thinking that they were yelling for a hunt; and now he stiffened up there, with an arrow through him. Maida had not been hurt.

That was bad, to lose the overcoats and the haversacks of rations—although of course here in the village was plenty of furs and food. But what of the supply train, which Lieutenant Mathey was bringing on? From the hills the Indians would soon sight it, and while a thousand of them fought the cavalry, another thousand would attack the eighty men guarding the wagons.

The warriors surrounding the village did not seem ready to storm it and retake it; while a circle of the troopers, dismounted, kept them at long range, field squads sought among the tipis for the dead and the wounded on both sides.

A lull had occurred in the fighting. Now 200 soldiers were set at work heaping high the plunder from the tipis, and tearing the tipis down, to burn them. General Custer, in plain view, on restless Dandy, delivering rapid orders right and left to his aides, received report of the battle results.

There were 875 ponies and mules; 241 saddles, some (as could be seen in the pile gathered) very finely decorated; 573 dressed buffalo robes—some of these, also, very fine; 390 lodge hides; 160 raw robes, untanned; thirty-five bows, thirty-five revolvers, forty-seven rifles, 360 axes and hatchets, twelve shields, seventy-five lances, ninety bullet molds, thirty-five pounds of powder, 1050 pounds of lead, 300 pounds of bullets, 4000 arrows and arrow-heads, 470 Government blankets, ninety-three coats, 775 hide lariats or picket-ropes, 940 skin saddle-bags, 700 pounds of tobacco, and moccasins and dried meat and flour and so forth.

One hundred and three Indians had been killed, including sixteen chiefs; three squaws and a boy and two girls had been wounded; fifty-three were prisoners. Captain Hamilton had been killed, and three other soldiers; Colonel Barnitz, Colonel Tom Custer, Lieutenant March, and eleven men wounded; Major Elliot and Sergeant-Major Kennedy and fourteen men were still missing. It was rumored that they had pursued some Indians escaping down the stream.

After a few things had been picked out, to keep, the piles of lodges and belongings were set on fire. At sight of the flames, from the Indians upon the hills swelled a great cry of rage, and down they came, in party after party, charging the cavalry lines. The general ordered his mounted squadrons to charge back. Outfought, the Indians were forced to open a way wherever led the guidons. Thus breathing space was again given.

The whole column was being put in marching formation. The hospital had been broken—when now from the column’s rear sounded sharp volleys, and continued heavy firing.

An attack? Or was it Major Elliot and men cutting their way through to join their comrades? Or was it the supply train, in peril? No. Swiftly passed the word that the general had directed that all the captured ponies and mules be shot, except those needed to carry the prisoners. Eight hundred were being killed, by four companies detailed to do the firing.

This was cruel, but necessary in war. What could the column do, with all those wild ponies and mules? The Indians would fight fiercely to retake them; the Indians would be badly crippled, without them. So the general had set his heart hard, and had given the order. When the firing ceased, all the column was glad, for killing horses is not soldiers’ work.

Major Elliot and his fifteen had not been heard from. To delay and seek them might mean the loss of the whole column and of the supply train. How thick the Indians were swarming! Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Apache and Cheyenne, in their war-dress they were rallying to avenge their fellows. Upon the tops of the hills they had posted lookouts, to watch the country around about, and the next movement of the invaders.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The battle had lasted nine hours. At signal from the general pealed clear and defiant the bugle call of “Advance”; “For—r’d—march!” sounded the command.

The worst wounded, and the body of Captain Hamilton wrapped in a blanket, were in the ambulance. Ned could ride his horse; and beside him rode upon a pony little Mary, with her Indian finery and her white girl face and hair. The Osage scouts bearing many scalps—the mourning warrior now in war-paint like the rest—led; the captive squaws and children, on ponies, under guard closed in at the rear. Skirmishers rode the flanks.

Thus, in close order, with flags streaming and band playing, as if to attack the other villages down the stream forth from the battle-field and the lodge ashes marched all boldly the Seventh Cavalry.

Away hastened the Indians, to rescue what they could before the merciless Chief with the Long Yellow Hair should strike there also. They went scurrying down the valley, and the most of them disappeared. But the Yellow Hair was wily. When darkness fell, without having attacked the other villages he turned his men about, and on the back trail marched fast until two in the morning. The men without overcoats or haversacks suffered. Colonel West was sent on to meet the wagon train and reinforce it; the rest of the column camped about huge fires, here in the valley of the Washita ere yet the trail veered off for the Canadian, northward.

The Osages hung their captured scalps to a pole in front of their fire, and discharged several volleys over them. Highest of all was hung Black Kettle’s grayed scalp, the prize of the proud young brave Koom-la-Manche.

This shooting, explained California Joe, who knew everything, was done to drive away the spirits of old Black Kettle and the others, who would be hovering about, trying to take their scalps back again.

California Joe was in great glee, and talked constantly.

“Fightin’?” he demanded, for general answer. “Call that fightin? I call it jest reg’larly wipin’ out the varmints. Yes, an’ sich a one as they won’t hev agin, I tell ye. I rather ’spec’ now them Injuns would be powerful glad to call it quits for a spell.”

Joe seemed to be right, for morning broke clear, cold, but peaceful. At noon the wagon-train was met safe and whole. Hurrah for blankets and tents and supplies.

That night California Joe and Jack Corbin rode off with dispatches announcing to General Sheridan the battle of the Washita. ’Twould be a long perilous ride, across the miles of hostile wintry country.

The wounded were doing well. Even Colonel Barnitz, who was thought to be mortally wounded, had survived all the jolting and according to the reports of Doctor Lippincott was likely to recover. Ned’s head of course ached considerably, and he could not blow his bugle or use the eye on the bandaged side, but he was able to ride, and soon would be as good as new—save for the scar. He and Mary had much to talk about.

When Camp Supply was almost in sight, California Joe and Corbin and another scout came riding with answering dispatches from headquarters. Joe and Jack had gone through in thirty-six hours, travelling mostly by night; here they were again.

That evening at guard-mount, with all the troops in line, by direction of General Custer, Adjutant Moylan read the dispatch received from General Sheridan: “General Field Orders No. 6,” dated “Headquarters Department of the Missouri, in the Field, Depot on the North Canadian, at the Junction of Beaver Creek, Indian Territory, November 29, 1868.”

It officially announced the defeat “by the Seventh regiment of cavalry, of a large force of Cheyenne Indians, under the celebrated chief Black Kettle, re-enforced by the Arapahos under Little Raven, and the Kiowas under Satanta, on the morning of the 27th instant, on the Washita River, near the Antelope Hills, Indian Territory;” and, like all such official reports of engagements in the army or navy it told the losses and the gains. But the last paragraph, read by Adjutant Moylan in voice emphatic, was what brought from the ranks the cheers:

“Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” cheered the ranks. It was good to be appreciated by such a soldier as Phil Sheridan.

Word was sent ahead by courier, that the next day the expedition would enter Camp Supply, and soon everybody knew that the entry was to be made in style. There was a busy evening and early morning applied to scouring weapons and buttons and patching clothing.

The day was beautiful. The sun shone bright, the snow had melted, the air felt warm. Just at noon the head of the column topped the ridge below which lay Camp Supply. The glad firing of rifles, by the Osages, who led, announced that the camp was in sight.

Over the crest of the ridge, and down the long sunny slope into the tent-dotted valley marched as for review the victorious eight hundred. General Sheridan and his staff, in full dress, were waiting, posted on their horses where the column would pass.

First rode on their prancing ponies the Osage scouts. They and their ponies were brightly painted and fluttered with strips of red and blue, with feathers and trinkets; they had donned their gayest finery; from their spears dangled scalps—the spear of young Koom-la-Manche waving the scalp of Black Kettle. As they rode they brandished their weapons, they fired their guns, and sung wild songs of triumph. Little Beaver led. He tried to sit stiff and proud; but once he must beat his swelling chest and cry loudly: “They call us Americans. We are more. We are Osages!”

Behind rode in a line the white scouts, they also proud, but California Joe on his old mule smoking his black pipe as usual.

Then came the Indian families, gazing curiously, some of the squaws and children three on a pony, many in blankets scarlet and blue.

Then rode the general and his staff. After them marched the band playing “Garryowen.” In columns of platoons followed the troops, rank by rank, their officers in command.

Higher rose the yells and chants of the Osages; faster California Joe puffed his pipe; more stirring played the band. Weapons sparkled, the bright blankets and the Indian ornaments of silver and copper gleamed, the sabres flashed in a “present,” as rank after rank the victorious column passed in review before General Sheridan, repeatedly lifting his cap.

Not the least prominent in the ceremony were Ned and the other wounded, who felt themselves heroes all.

When the Seventh had gone into camp, here at the rendezvous again, there was a great time of congratulations and shaking of hands. That night the Osages gave a tremendous scalp dance, which lasted until morning and kept many people awake.