"Sit down, Preston," said the Colonel, waving his hand toward a chair. "You saw it all, did you not?"
"The smoke would not let me see a great deal of it, sir," said Guy. "I want to say that I have got back and that I repeated every one of your signals that I saw."
"And some you did not see," put in the Colonel. "However, that was all right. I am not going to find any fault with you for that. Sit down. Now begin at the beginning and tell me all that you saw."
It did not take Guy long to do that, for, as he dwelt upon it, the scenes of the massacre came so vividly to his mind that he did not want to speak of them at all. The officers listened, the Colonel now and then making some marks on a piece of paper which he drew toward him. He took Guy's recital down as a part of the report he was going to make out for his superior officer. When Guy was through they asked him some questions in regard to the massacre which he did not see on account of the smoke, and then told him that he could go. Guy went, feeling a great deal better than he did while he was making those signals from the tower. He went in alone to view the officers and men who had fallen in the massacre of the day before, and what he saw there is beyond our power to describe. Perkins and Brigham were not scalped, and the smiles he saw on their faces reminded him of the one Arthur wore when he told Guy that he was not to ask the Colonel for anything on his part,—he was bound to go with his Company and take part in the fight, and the first fight he got into was the last. Guy did not look any further. Tears blinded his eyes and he came out and went into the mess room. But he could not stay there long either. The vacant chairs called to mind those who were gone, and he finally turned into his own room, where he tumbled into bed with his face toward the wall.
"They are all gone, and there's no telling how soon I may be in their place," he moaned.
Filled with such thoughts as these he soon fell asleep.
CHAPTER XVII. Re-enforcements Arrive
For a week after the massacre, Guy Preston and all the other officers and men of the Fort acted as if they were in a dream. The orders were given in a low tone of voice, the men responded to them with a silent touch of their caps, for every one seemed to think that it would not be long before they would be laid out awaiting burial, or be doomed to a worse fate in the Sioux camp. Guy was there during the burial of the men—he was one of twenty soldiers who fired the shots over their graves—and then he braced up, dashed the tears from his eyes, and tried to do his duty as he did before. He had ten men who had been detailed for various other duties when the Company was ordered out, and he was the sole officer in command of them.