CHAPTER XI. In the Signal Tower
"Yes, I heard all about it while you were asleep, as Captain Kendall told you. The men have not yet been informed of the part they have to perform, but I know that they are all ready."
Thus spoke Cyrus the scout when Guy Preston came rushing into his quarters to tell him what Colonel Carrington was going to do with the troops under his command. As he uttered the words, he leaned his cracker box against the jamb of a window and looked at Guy as if to ask him what he thought about it.
"If he is my Colonel I say that he was guilty of doing a mean thing," said Guy, spitefully. "There I was fast asleep, and he never told me a thing about it."
"Of course he didn't. A Colonel, whose right it is to command a thousand men, does not generally look to a Second Lieutenant for advice. We must have wood, and that is the only way to get it."
"I don't expect him to look to me for advice; but when he is going to send my whole regiment away from me, it is high time he was telling me of it."
Cyrus laughed, but made no reply.
"He knew all the time that I wanted a hand in the first fight the regiment got into, because he has often heard me say so; and then to go and send them off into the presence of the Sioux—I think he should have said something to me about it."
"You do your duty faithfully as Second Lieutenant, and when the time comes for you to get in a fight, you'll go. The Colonel will not keep you back. You will be safe up there in the signal tower—"
"And suppose the Sioux get whipped?"