The impetus of their rush carried them irresistibly forward; over and through tents they rode, across the bodies of living and dead; men reeled and fell from saddle; riderless horses swept on unguided; revolvers emptied were flung aside, and hands closed hard on sabre hilts.

Foot by foot, yard by yard, they drove the wedge of their charge, until they swept through the fringe of tepees, out into the stampeded pony herd.
The bugle rang again, and they turned, facing back, and charged once more, no longer in close formation, but every trooper fighting as he could.

Complete as the surprise had been, the men of the Seventh realized now the odds against them, the desperate nature of the fight.
Out from the sheltering tepees poured a flood of warriors; rifles in hand they fought savagely.

The screams of women and children, the howling and baying of Indian dogs, the crack of rifles, the wild war cries, all mingled into an indescribable din.

Black Kettle was almost the first to fall, but other chiefs rallied their warriors, and fought like fiends, yielding ground only by inches, until they found shelter amid the trees, and under the river bank.
In the cessation of hand to hand fighting the detachments came together, reforming their ranks, and reloading their arms.