"I am a little afraid of an ambush down where they are," said the Colonel, after a few moments pause. "If Fetterman runs into it, we are gone."
"But Fetterman will not run into it. He has too much at stake for that."
Major Powell's words were intended to be encouraging, and in almost any other case they would have been so; but this time they did not have any effect upon the Colonel. He was disheartened before he sent him off to face that unknown danger, and now that he was out of sight and almost within sight of it, he felt more distress than ever he did before.
"Why don't they signal to me?" he exclaimed, when he had watched the top of the tower in vain for a sign of the white flag. "I want to know what is going on there."
"Probably there has nothing happened yet," said the Major. "If the Indians are retreating——"
The Major suddenly paused, for at that moment the flag came into view from the top of the tower. He paused to read the signal it conveyed and as he spelled it slowly out that there were large bodies of Indians who were assaulting the re-enforcements, the Colonel jumped to his feet and seized the flag that lay near him.
"I think you said that Fetterman would not run into an ambush, if there was one formed for him," said he angrily. "He is in it now."
Then went up the signal from the Fort: "Tell them not to leave the ridge," but it was a signal that came too late to be of any use. Colonel Fetterman and all his men were so busy at that time charging down upon the enemy, that no one thought of looking for signals in their rear. But Guy saw and understood and did his best to turn the column to a place of safety, but the waving of his flag was time and strength wasted. With a yell, which Guy had often helped raise when the troops were drilling on the parade ground, and which the men now gave in order to let the Sioux know they were coming to save the wagon train, they charged down the ridge and into the ambush. It was too late to do anything then, and Colonel Carrington leaned back in his camp chair and looked at Powell. Not another word was said by either of them, and pretty soon there came another signal from the tower: "Fetterman needs re-enforcements."
"It will take the last hundred men I have, and the Fort with every one in it will be at their mercy," said the Colonel. "You will have to go with them. Go down and call the men together——"