But the brave little band sadly disappointed
them. When the charge came it was met with such a deadly fire that a
large number of the fiends were killed, some of them even after
gaining the bank of the island. This check had the effect of making
the savages more wary, but they were still bold enough to make two
more assaults before mid-day. Each of these ending like the first,
the Indians thereafter contented themselves with shooting all the
horses, which had been tied up to some scraggy little
cottonwood-trees, and then proceeded to lay siege to the party.
The first man struck was Forsyth himself. He was hit three times in
all--twice in one leg, both serious wounds, and once on the head, a
slight abrasion of the scalp. A moment later Beecher was killed and
Doctor Mooers mortally wounded: and in addition to these misfortunes
the scouts kept getting hit, till several were killed, and the whole
number of casualties had reached twenty-one in a company of
forty-seven. Yet with all this, and despite the seeming hopelessness
of the situation, the survivors kept up their pluck undiminished, and
during a lull succeeding the third repulse dug into the loose soil till
the entire party was pretty well protected by rifle-pits.
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