"I am, and Cyrus is waiting to see how the fight comes out before he makes the start. Now we must keep that train in sight as long as we can," said the Colonel, pulling his binoculars from its case. "The trouble is that we cannot see them after they get into a fight."
"We shall have to depend upon the picket tower after they have disappeared from our view," said Colonel Fetterman. "My command has been informed and is all ready to start."
"I hope I shall not have to send you out," said the Colonel honestly. "They are all good men in that escort, and I think they ought to come through."
The commanding officer seated himself and awaited the issue of events with his feelings worked up to the highest point at which they could go and not drive him wholly frantic. He knew that some of his men were going to their death, but he had expected that. Not one wagon train had ever gone out from that Fort after fuel but it had always come back and reported that the Sioux had fired into them, and that so many were dead and so many wounded. But there was one thing that he always thought of with satisfaction: the train always brought their dead and wounded back with them. They left none of them for the Indians to maltreat after they had gone. The two officers saw the train when it reached the signal tower, and the men who had been on watch there for twenty-four hours were relieved by Lieutenant Preston and his squad. Five minutes more and the wagons were out of sight.
"There now," said the Colonel. "Half an hour more will tell the story."
"Yes, and I might as well get ready to move when I get your orders," said Colonel Fetterman. "You are bound to give them and I know it."
"Let us hope not, Colonel; let us hope not. It seems as though I ought to have more men than I can muster to send out there. It is like sending a boy to mill."
The officers relapsed into silence and sat with their glasses to their eyes watching the signal tower. It came in a good deal less than half an hour. It seemed to them that the wagon train had scarcely got out of sight before the white flag, with a star in the middle of it, began to wave frantically from the top of the picket tower: "About one hundred Indians going to attack the train."
"All ready with that gun down there?" shouted the Colonel, jumping to his feet.
"All ready, sir," was the response.