In the voices of the advancing foe there was not an accent of mercy.
Surrender! And be slain afterwards! Before which to be tortured, perhaps dragged at the horse's tail, or set up as a target for the Tenawa sharpshooters to practise at.

No! They would have to die anyhow.

Better now than then.

They were not the men to offer both cheeks to the insulter.

They could resign sweet life, but death would be all the sweeter with corpses of Indians lying thickly around them.
They would first make a hecatomb of their hated foes, and then fall upon it.