So heavy had this volley been that the Indians decided that the bullets had done their work, and a wild yell broke from them.

Suddenly the yell changed to another sort of outcry, and the firing abruptly ceased.  Peering out, De Rudio saw Captain Benteen’s column coming up over the hill.  He began to hope that his rescue was at hand.  But in a few minutes the soldiers disappeared and the Indians all started off after them.

Just beyond the hill was the noise of a lively battle, and he made up his mind that Reno’s command had rallied, and that if he could join them he might be saved.

Working his way softly through the brush he was nearing the summit of the slope when he heard his name whispered and saw three of his own company in the brush.  Two of them were mounted.  The horse of the third had been killed.

The three men remained in the bushes, lying as low as they could and making no sound.  Looking out now and then, they could see an old Indian woman going about, taking scalps and mutilating the bodies of the soldiers who had been slain.  Most of the warriors were occupied with the battle, but now and then a warrior, suspicious that soldiers were still lurking in the brush, would ride over in their direction and fire a few shots that whistled uncomfortably close to their heads.

Presently the firing on the hill ceased, and hundreds of Indians came slowly back.  But they were hard pressed by the soldiers, and the battle was soon resumed, to break out intermittently through the entire night.

In a quiet interval the two soldiers got their horses, and with their companion and De Rudio holding to the animals’ tails forded the river and made a detour round the Indians.  Several times they passed close to Indians.  Once or twice they were fired on and answered the fire, but their luck was with them and they escaped bringing a general attack down upon them.

As they were making their way toward the edge of the clearing they saw directly before them a party of men dressed in the ragged uniforms of American cavalrymen, and all drew deep breaths of relief.  Help seemed now at hand.  But just as they sprang forward to join their supposed comrades a fiendish yell broke from the horsemen.  In another instant the four unfortunates were rushing to cover, with a dozen Indians, all dressed in the clothing taken from dead soldiers, in hot pursuit.

The Indians had been planning a characteristic piece of Sioux strategy.  As fast as it could be accomplished they had been stripping the clothing from dead and wounded soldiers and garbing themselves in it with the purpose of deceiving the outposts of Reno’s command and surprising the Americans as soon as day broke.  Had it not been for the accidental discovery of the ruse by De Rudio’s party it might have succeeded only too well.

The lieutenant and his companions managed to get away safely and to find shelter in the woods.  But the Indians immediately fired the underbrush and drove them further and further on.  Then, just as they had begun to despair of their lives, their pursuers, who had been circling around the tangle of scrub growth, began singing a slow chant and withdrew to the summit of the hill.