"Do you find that fellow here?" asked Reuben, riding up at this moment.
"No; he is in the Fort," said Winged Arrow. "I think that letter did him some good."
The two friends stayed by each other while the plundering was going on, and their hearts grew sick when they saw the mutilations which some of the warriors practiced upon the dead bodies of the soldiers. At length the lookout (for the Indians always have them when they are engaged in a massacre), told them that still another squad of re-enforcements was leaving the Fort, a large squad it was too, fully equal to the one they had whipped, and in an instant all was confusion again. The Indians were getting ready to retreat, and as soon as Major Powell's troops appeared above the summit of the swell upon which stood the picket tower, they took a few shots at him by way of farewell, and speedily went out of sight. Not a single prisoner had been taken by the Indians. To quote from one of the chiefs, who afterward told the story to one of our soldiers, "the Sioux were too mad." They killed every one they came to, hoping that the whites would get weary of trying to open the road and that they would abandon the Fort in disgust.
And this was the way that John Turner and Reuben Robinson behaved in every fight in which they were engaged. They always made two of the attacking party, and whooped and yelled as loud as anybody, and always took their chances of death with the others; but every bullet they fired went wild, and they never had to say when they returned to camp, "There was one fellow that I wiped out." They could not forget the kindness and favors they had experienced at the hands of the whites.
While the troops under Major Powell had passed the picket tower and were hesitating whether or not to go down to the battlefield and run the risk of bringing off the dead, Guy and Amos were seated on the steps, while the latter's arm was thrown around him protectingly, and Amos was relating the story of the massacre.
"You have seen more of it than I did, for you were up here where you had a good view," said Amos. "But the Colonel thought I had better come and tell you that the Fort was keeping watch over you."
"I am grateful to know that," said Guy between his sobs. "I did the best I could."
"Of course you did, and the Colonel appreciates it; but the only thing you are sorry for is that you asked for help when nobody told you to. Don't let that worry you. The Colonel will not say a word to you about it."
"If you please, sir," said the soldier, who had been left on the top of the tower to watch Major Powell's movements, "The Major has left the ridge."
Guy and Amos jumped to their feet and went up to the top, and a signal to that effect was at once sent to the Fort. No answer came in response to it, and the young officers became aware that it was all right. For two hours they turned their glasses first toward the swells to see that the Sioux did not come back to assault them, and then toward the soldiers who were tenderly gathering up the dead, but nothing occurred that was worthy of note. All the soldiers obtained were a hundred dead bodies, but not a single thing in the way of arms or ammunition. Everything had gone with the retreating Sioux. They came along on their way to the Fort after a while, and seeing that Guy was watching them with interest, Major Powell sent an officer to communicate with him.