"Colonel, with your permission I will protest against sending them any help," said the Major. "The Colonel may be retreating, but he is retreating toward the ridge where he knows he will be comparatively safe. I tell you that man can't be whipped."
"Well, we will wait and see," said the Colonel. "I hope he has men enough with him to resist them, but I am afraid. I think I should have sent more."
"And if you had, you would certainly have left the Fort at the mercy of the thievish Sioux. You have done the best you could. Leave Fetterman alone. He is going to come out all right."
If Major Powell believed this, he was certainly doomed to be disappointed. Colonel Fetterman was whipped almost at the start, and there was no one to lend him a helping hand. In response to the signals "How goes the battle?" the reply was the same as it had always been, "He needs re-enforcements," and then Colonel Carrington got up and paced the platform in agony. The help was repeatedly called for and several times the Colonel was on the point of exerting his authority as post commander and sending the re-enforcements that Colonel Fetterman so much needed; but each time the calm voice of Major Powell was raised in protest, and the commander thought it best to wait a little longer and see how the fight was coming out.
"It seems to me that Fetterman has been allowed all the time he wanted to get back to the ridge and hold the Sioux at bay," he often said. "Do you not think so, Major?"
It was almost half an hour since the signal had been made that the Sioux were attacking the re-enforcements, and something should have been done in that time; but the next signal that was made fairly took his breath away: "All killed. Field covered with more than a thousand Sioux."
"Oh, heavens and earth!" groaned Colonel Carrington. "I wish I had died before I had seen that signal."
Major Powell turned away to hide the tears that streamed from his eyes, and could not say a word in reply. He had protested against the sending out of help, and he would do it again under the same circumstances; but at what cost? Fully a third of the men that composed the garrison had been sacrificed, and surely that was better than to send out another hundred to share the same fate. Colonel Carrington buried his face in his hands, and it did not seem to him that he could ever look up again; while Major Powell, after subduing the first violence of his grief, raised his eyes to watch the tower again and saw another signal waving to them.
"The wagon train is coming, having beaten off its assailants," said he. "If we can save that much, we will do well."