the firing on his left increasing. He felt'his master
make ready to return it. He saw others
around him, twisting vengefully into position, open
with repeating rifles. Then the cavalrymen, evidently
forced into it by the others, swung to the
fray with their carbines, which began to boom on
his right. The whole basin echoed and re-echoed
sharp reports. Across his eyes burst intermittent
flames. His ears rang with shots and yells. The
shooting became heavier. Bullets sang close about
him -- seemed centered -- as if the enemy would
cut down his master at once and disrupt the others
through his loss. The bullets sang closer still.
And now immediately about him men and horses
dropped, upsetting other riders, tumbling over
sound horses -- all in a seething chaos. He became
dazed. His eyes were blinded with the
flashes, and his ears ached with the crash and
tumult. He grew faint. A dizziness seized him.
But on he labored, his head aching, his eyes growing
dimmer, his limbs numb and rebellious, his
heart thumping in sullen rebellion, his ears bursting
with the uproar.

Another change swept over him. Mist leaped
before his eyes. The roaring in his ears subsided.
His legs flew off -- he had no legs! The mist became
a film. Yet he could see -- see faintly. He
saw a mad jumble of flying men and horses -- a
riotous mixture of color, arms, and firearms whirling
and interlaced, a grim, struggling mass in
death-grips. It swept close -- crashed over him,
struck him full. He felt the impact -- then another.

[[253]]

p252 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p253w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p254

v?