“Oh no, sir,” said Murphy. “It takes more than one little whack like that to kill an Indian. He will come out all right. Here’s his knife, sir—as a present from me,” he continued, taking off his hat and giving the weapon to Parker. “Hold on a minute and I will get you his scabbard.”
The Indian was too far gone to make any resistance as he took the sheath and belt off, and presenting them to Lieutenant Parker, he mounted his horse and rode back with him to the camp.
CHAPTER XXX.
Off For Home.
“Hurry up there, sir. The colonel is anxious to get all his men in. We are going to have a blizzard.”
It was Colonel Forsyth’s bugler who hailed them. He was going over the field in a gallop, blowing his trumpet as he went, in hope of getting his men all in camp before the storm struck them. The lieutenant stopped in surprise and looked all around him. Sure enough, there was a blizzard coming. The air was filled with fine snow which he had not noticed before; and, now that he began to get over his excitement, he found that his summer blouse afforded him but a poor protection against the wind that was blowing. They put their horses into a lope in obedience to the order; but, fast as they went, Lieutenant Parker took notice of the havoc that was done by the Hotchkiss guns during the twenty minutes that the fight continued. He saw that there were about as many women dead as there were men, and that some of them held repeating rifles in their hands.
“That beats me,” said he, in profound astonishment. “The squaws meant to fight, too.”
“You will always find that the case when troops attack a home camp,” said Carl. “Some of these women are wounded. They will freeze to death during this blizzard.”
“That fight was a massacre and nothing else,” said Parker in disgust. “Why could not the women have kept out of the way?”
“Well, I suppose every man on our side was thinking ‘Remember Custer’ while that fight took place, sir,” said Murphy, in a tone which showed that he did not care anything for the Indians, so long as they were dead. “I know I did, and I don’t believe that any Sioux that I pulled on got away.”