The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier | Page 5

stream. So the scouts mounted, and the war party
jogged leisurely northward and took stand opposite the bend in the trail.

On came Loving and Jim, unwarned and unsuspecting, their animals
jaded from the long night's ride. They reached the bend. And just as
Jim, pointing to a low round hill a quarter of a mile to the west of them,
remarked, "Thar'd be a blame good place to stan' off a bunch o' Injuns,"
they were startled by the sound of thundering hoofs off on their right to
the east. Looking quickly round they saw a sight to make the bravest
tremble.
Racing up out of the valley and out upon them, barely four hundred
yards away, came a band of forty or fifty Comanche warriors,
crouching low on their horses' withers, madly plying quirt and heel to
urge their mounts to their utmost speed.
Their own animals worn out, escape by running was hopeless. Cover
must be sought where a stand could be made, so they whirled about and
spurred away for the hill Jim had noted. Their pace was slow at the best.
The Indians were gaining at every jump and had opened fire, and
before half the distance to the hill was covered a ball broke Loving's
thigh and killed his mule. As the mule pitched over dead, providentially
he fell on the bank of a buffalo-wallow--a circular depression in the
prairie two or three feet deep and eight or ten feet in diameter, made by
buffalo wallowing in a muddy pool during the rains.
Instantly Jim sprang to the ground, gave his bridle to Loving, who lay
helpless under his horse, and turned and poured a stream of lead out of
his Henry rifle that bowled over two Comanches, knocked down one
horse, and stopped the charge.
While the Indians temporarily drew back out of range, Jim pulled
Loving from beneath his fallen mule, and, using his neckerchief,
applied a tourniquet to the wounded leg which abated the hemorrhage,
and then placed him in as easy a position as possible within the shelter
of the wallow, and behind the fallen carcass of the mule. Then Jim led
his own horse to the opposite bank of the wallow, drew his bowie knife
and cut the poor beast's throat: they were in for a fight to the death, and,
outnumbered twenty to one, must have breastworks. As the horse fell
on the low bank and Jim dropped down behind him, Loving called out
cheerily:

"Reckon we're all right now, Jim, and can down half o' them before
they get us. Hell! Here they come again!"
A brief "Bet yer life, ole man. We'll make 'em settle now," was the only
reply.
Stripped naked to their waist-cloths and moccasins, with faces painted
black and bronze, bodies striped with vermilion, with curling buffalo
horns and streaming eagle feathers for their war bonnets, no warriors
ever presented a more ferocious appearance than these charging
Comanches. Their horses, too, were naked except for the bridle and a
hair rope loosely knotted round the barrel over the withers.
On they came at top speed until within range, when with that wonderful
dexterity no other race has quite equalled, each pushed his bent right
knee into the slack of the hair rope, seized bridle and horse's mane in
the left hand, curled his left heel tightly into the horse's flank, and
dropped down on the animal's right side, leaving only a hand and a foot
in view from the left. Then, breaking the line of their charge, the whole
band began to race round Loving's entrenchment in single file, firing
beneath their horses' necks and gradually drawing nearer as they
circled.
Loving and Jim wasted no lead. Lying low behind their breastworks
until the enemy were well within range, they opened a fire that knocked
over six horses and wounded three Indians. Balls and arrows were
flying all about them, but, well sheltered, they remained untouched.
The fire was too hot for the Comanches and they again withdrew.
Twice again during the day the Indians tried the same tactics with no
better result. Later they tried sharpshooting at long range, to which
Loving and Jim did not even reply. At last, late in the afternoon, they
resorted to the desperate measure of a direct charge, hoping to ride over
and shoot down the two white men. Up they came at a dead run five or
six abreast, the front rank firing as they ran. But, badly exposed in their
own persons, the fire from the buffalo-wallow made such havoc in their
front ranks that the savage column swerved, broke, and retreated.

Night shut down. Loving and Jim ate the few biscuits they had baked
and some raw bacon. Then they counselled with one another. Their
thirst