This latter appeared to be the case sooner than I had figured. We run for maybe half a mile along open prairie, keeping our distance, but then the Cheyenne ponies commenced rapidly to gain. I was facing backwards, in the front left corner of the coach, and when the leading Indian got within a hundred yards I leaned out and fired at him, for while there had been no point to wasting shell like the guard had, it was wise now that the range had shortened to let them know we was capable.

I come nowhere near that brave, but he swerved and rode to the other side of the coach. I says to Black: “You try him now, partner.” But he responded in no fashion, just kept looking ahead real mean. And I thought, if we get out of this I’m going to see about you, boy, but there wasn’t no time for suchlike now, so I let it go, and anyway the little drummer was jerking at my sleeve.

He says: “I got a combination gun oil and solvent right here what will take the lead fouling out’n any barrel.” He pulls a little bottle from his case of wares and tells me to go ahead, take a sample cleaning with it free of charge, and if I liked it he would make me a good price on a pint.

You see what use my companions proved. I struck the bottle from his hand and the cork come out, with the contents spilling on Perch’s boots, where I swear it immediately ate through the end of his toe, being pure acid I reckon, and he quick had to pull off the left one and pitch it out the window.

Well sir, what do you know but when the closest Indians come upon that boot, two of them reined in and dismounted to study it. That give me an idea, so I clumb outside, with one foot in the window, which ain’t easy when a coach is running full tilt, and hailed the fellows outside. The driver didn’t have no time to gab, and that guard put his shotgun on me as my head come level of the roof and I figure he would of blown my face off were it not he had spent his shells. He thought I was an Indian.

It took a while and a good bit of breath to be heard above his hysterics and the rush of the wind, but finally I got my plan across to him, and he crept back to where the baggage was strapped, opened it piece by piece, and begun flinging out the clothes and such therefrom. That drummer’s trunk yielded the greatest variety: coats and suits and collars, bolts of cloth that rolled out in the wind and went sweeping back-one of them lashed across an Indian, streaming out on both sides, and he swathed the ends around him on the gallop, but then didn’t have the nerve to keep on but stopped to get out his mirror. Well, the trunk had mirrors, too, but they broke in glitters as they struck the ground and so did the bottles of hair oil, but the tin dishes didn’t, and when a Cheyenne would reach one, he’d halt and pick it up, but that ain’t nothing to the effect created when the ladies’ hats went sailing back. Them and the contents of our carpet bag which was opened next, is what ended that phase of the pursuit. When last I saw, before the coach dipped into descending ground, two Cheyenne was quarreling over Olga’s ribbon-trimmed drawers, stretched from one horse to the other, and a half-dozen of them had got into the hats, which was all trimmed with furbelows and flounces.

Then a wheel come off the stage and we tore up two hundred yards of prairie before the animals could be halted, for that team was tired but panicky, and as soon as the driver unhitched them they run off, harnessed together.

The driver and me had some confab as to whether we should stand where we was or hike for it. We was located on the upland above the river, for the bottom had been too soft as this point to bear a vehicle. Across the Arkansas, very shallow in winter and thinly crusted with ice, lay a stretch of sand hills where we might be able to hold out till the failure of schedule was noted and troops come out from Fort Larned, though that might take a time for nobody got worried them days when a stage was up to a day late.

One thing sure, the Cheyenne would not be permanently distracted by them new possessions of theirs. They’d come along directly, though being we was in a shallow valley below them they would not yet have seen our accident.

Nobody was damaged in the wreck, for the coach didn’t roll over, and maybe the slight shaking-up done some good to our little party, at least for Perch and the drummer, jostled them into reality so to speak. And Olga herself seemed less worried than when it had looked like we was getting away. Everybody piled out and I had had the talk with the driver, when I noticed that Black had not clumb from the coach, so I looked within, it leaning crazy, and there he was still in his corner, staring straight ahead out of that mean face, only his eyes was now filmed like a scummy pond. So I waved my hand in front of them without effect, and took the Colt’s off of him and got the ammunition from his pocket and searched a little for his papers but couldn’t waste much time at it and never found none.

I reckon he had died of heart failure sometime back, whether from fright or not nobody could say, and I didn’t mention it to them others at that moment, for we was soon wading the Arkansas, getting our feet wet with chill water and no means of drying them, because at first we didn’t dare to light a fire and then, when discovered, was too busy with other matters. It was shortly after getting into the sand hills on the south shore that we saw the Cheyenne clear the rise and ride down upon the abandoned stage, which they figured was still occupied, and circled it and whooped at it, and then they got down and pulled Black’s body out, stripped him, throwed a lariat over his head and pulled him around the prairie back of a pony until he come apart. But I reckon he was beyond caring.

A good many of them was dressed in particles of female clothing: fancy hats, as I have said, and some corset covers, and the brave what finally won Olga’s drawers had ripped them in two and wore each leg as a sleeve. The tin plates they had punctured with knives and run red ribbons through, tying them on their animals to clatter. Some was wound in yardgoods. Not all the hair-tonic bottles had busted, for I saw certain Indians drinking from them, and asked the drummer as to the contents. Since he couldn’t sell them now, he told the truth for once: nought but colored water, and I says thank God for that.

Then they saw our trail across the river. We had thrown a line of defense along the highest sand hill, with Olga, Gus, and the drummer, who wasn’t yellow but rather unarmed, down behind it. The driver had him a carbine and the guard luckily carried a pair of revolvers besides that useless shotgun. I give my pocket Remington to Perch and used the big Colt’s I took off Black. The Cheyenne possessed only two-three rifles, probably in bad condition. If we organized our volleys for greatest effect, at a distance beyond arrow range, the Human Beings might take discouragement from it.

So to each of our boys I give a specific target among the leading riders as their animals crunched through the ice-rim of the stream, stepping gingerly there so as not to cut their feet, and then as they reached the free water and kicked into the gallop, we fired.

I wasn’t familiar with my weapon, so shot too high and clipped the white end-plume off a brave’s head-feather. But with my tiny pistol and sheer luck, Perch hit a horse’s knee, likely chipping rather than breaking the bone, but it pitched its rider splashing, and in avoidance two more braves collided, and our driver splintered the bow in the hand of one and he dropped it as if hot.

This was enough to slow that flank of the charge and disaffect the general spirit, but two Indians was out for coup, so would have come on into the mouth of a cannon. Well, our driver was reloading our only long-range weapon, the guard was firing wild after his habit, and Perch had no more luck.