A SONG FOR THE SOLDIERS.
95
One to three in the firing, but every Cheyenne bullet
Tumbled a reckless trooper behind his fence in the stockade.
"God! they are brave!" cried the captain. "Seven hours we've held them,
Three, ay, five to one, if you count their dead and their wounded:
Damn them! why don't they yield for the sake of their lives and their wounded?"
But never a sign but flame and the hiss of the leaden defiance
Comes from the Cheyenne braves, though their firing slackens in vigor
To grow in fatal precision—grim as the cliff above them
They fight their fight, and the valley is lined with death from their rifles.
