Sweet Savage Surrender Read Free Page B

and the contented hoot of an owl far away soothed him.  The early morning hours seemed quie t, p eaceful. Suddenly Major Hanlen was dis turbed by another noise .  Reaching down , he patted his trusty Spencer rifle which was alway s at his side .  As he listened , he heard the sound  of horses' hooves coming closer and closer until they echoed in his ears.  Indians!  It had to be.  No crickets or birds or owls. Owls were night birds !  Why hadn't he realized? That peaceful sound had been the Indians way of signa ling his advancing party.               
    "Ho ....!"  Ride!  Get the hell out of here, men!"   He'd been instructed not to issue the first shot.  If they could only outride the Indians they might have a chance .  Thank God it was daylight!.
    John Hanlen rode with his men at a furious pace.  Their death sentence--t hat was what it could mean if they were caught.   Drenched in perspiration from the exertion of the chase , he looked over his shoulder and saw the band of war-painted Indians coming upon him from the rear.  No peaceful hunters these!  Feeling the pulsating rhythm of his horse's flanks beneath the high leather of his boots, he plunged onward but the Indians, about fifty of them, had taken advantage of a ravine and had managed to approach quite close before being discovered and thus held the advantage .  There was no way his soldiers could outride them now.  One of his men had already been run down and the entire war party had galloped ruthlessly over his body.  The speed of the Indian ponies and the expert horsemanship of the Indian warriors was too much to compete with, but t hey couldn't just giv e up and be slaughtered .  At least they would go down fighting, he thought.  Hanlen ordered his men to dismount and form a circle, using the horses as a barrier between themselves and the redskins. The war-whoops were falling clearer and louder upon the soldiers' ears, mingli ng with the sound of gunfire.
    Soon the soldiers were surrounded by the s uperior force of the savages as t he Indians circled around and around.  It was obvious that they were on the war path.  The loss of two of their warriors , both slain by one trigger-happy soldier, compounded their hostility. A fter several warriors had dismounted and dragged the bodies of their fallen companions from the field of battle , they soon were back in the saddle again , Dangerously eyeing their captives. Hanlen knew it was an Indian custom in battle that warriors would risk their own lives to prevent a warrior's body from falling into enemy hands.  They believed that if a slain warr i or were not retrieved, he could not go to the Happy Hunting Ground but would be suspended between earth and sky in a sort of limbo.
    John Hanlen  searched the area with his eyes for his men and was thankful to see that most of them had made it safely to the circle. They had miraculously survived this long. 
    "I'll be g oddamned, major ," a soldier next to him was saying.  "I've never seen the like.  Just look at them Red skinned bastards."
    The Indians were arrayed in full war costume . Their faces, arms, legs, bodies and even their horses were painted various bright colors and on their heads were brightly colored war bonnets .  They had a hi deous, repulsive appearance now that he could see them from a closer distance .  Some were carrying lances and a ll had round bullet proof buffalo hide shields fastened to their left arms.  The bullets seemed to just glance off the shields.  They were well armed , which made for a more precarious position f or his soldiers, Hanlen thought.  They carried n ot only bows and arrows but carbines and revolvers as well.
    Despite the India ’s weapons, however, he held off the order to fire. . Suddenly with a wild ringing war cry the Indians bore down upon the little party of defenders , shattering any hope whatsoever that there could be any peace. .  They rode boldly forward as if preparing to