AFTER THE MASSACRE
The night that followed the massacre was passed by those who took part
in it in a very different manner. The dead had all been brought in and
were laid out in three several rooms until the time of their burial,
covered by all the flags that the Fort could raise, and sentries were
keeping guard over them. Colonel Carrington had been in once to see
them, but the sight was almost too much for him. He left hastily bathed
in tears, and everybody who had business with him that night took note
of the fact that he was a very different man from what he had seemed to
be before he ordered out the re-enforcements. He continually said to
Major Powell, who stayed with him almost all night:--
"I don't care one cent what the authorities say to me. If some of them
had been here, they would have done just the same as I did. But sending
out all these men who have obeyed my every order for so long a time is
what grieves me. I wish I had been out there with them."
In the Sioux camp there was a big pow-wow held by those who had been
in the massacre, if we except Winged Arrow and his friend. They sat a
little apart from the others and watched the scalp dance, but took no
part in it. Their feelings went out to the mourners who were gathered
in their lodges and were sending up loud wails of grief over the sons
and brothers whose medicine had not been strong enough to protect them
from the bullets of the doomed soldiers. Winged Arrow and Reuben said
not a word to each other, and when they grew tired of watching the
scalp dance, they went to bed; but slumber was something that would not
come at call. All night long the yells and whoops of the triumphant
Indians rang in their ears, but they were not thinking of them.
"All this amounts to nothing," was what Winged Arrow kept saying to
himself. "They are making a big noise over the death of one hundred
soldiers, but they do not take into consideration the thirty-six
millions that are to come after them. Where they kill one now, ten will
spring up to take their place. As soon as this gets to Washington, the
enemy will send re-enforcements here that the Sioux never dreamed of.
We are doomed; I can see that plainly enough."
To go back to the Fort again--there was Cyrus, the scout, lying on
his bunk, sadly shaken up by this day's work. He glanced at the empty
cracker boxes on which Tony and Mike had sat the evening before. They
were laid out with the others, and to-morrow would see them covered by
the earth over which they had often trod full of health and strength.
How long would it be before such would be his fate? But Cyrus did not
stop to think of that. His companions had fallen by the Sioux, and
there was nothing for him to do but to avenge them. From that day Cyrus
resolved that no Sioux should cross his trail and live to tell of it.
No matter what treaties the government entered into with them, there
would be always one who did not sign it.
"Cyrus, the Colonel wants to see you," said an Orderly, breaking in on
his meditations.
"That's me," said Cyrus, getting up and putting on his moccasins,
which he had thrown off on lying down. "If anybody asks you to-morrow
where Cyrus is, tell him that you don't know. I will either get those
dispatches through, or I will be in the same boat with Tony and Mike."
"Are you going to try them again?" asked the Orderly.
"Yes, sir. And I am going through with them. Do you understand?"
Cyrus followed the Orderly, who led the way to the Colonel's quarters
and found him in his shirt sleeves pacing up and down his narrow room.
He could not be easy unless he was in motion, and even then he would
stop occasionally, take his hands from his pockets and rumple up his
hair as though he did not know what he was doing with himself. Major
Powell was there, seated on a camp chair, with his head resting on
his hands. The Major could not get over the massacre. Every time he
tried to talk about it, he was obliged to stop, for his sobs broke his
utterance.
"Sit down, Cyrus," said the Colonel in a husky voice. "Are you all
ready to start now?"
"As ready as I ever shall be, Kurn," replied Cyrus. "But I don't want
to sit down."
"Then there are your dispatches. I don't need to tell you----"
"You don't need to tell me anything, Kurn. I know just what you want
to say. Those dispatches shall go through, or you will never see Cyrus
again. Tony and Mike are killed, and I don't see that there is anything
left for me."
"Be careful that you don't get yourself into trouble, while you are
avenging them," said the Major, lifting his head for a moment from his
hands. "We cannot afford to spare you."
"I shall take good care of myself, Major. Whenever you hear that I am
gone, you may know that two Indians have gone with me."
Cyrus took the papers that the Colonel handed him and proceeded to look
them over. The first one he came to was Winged Arrow's letter. This
one he laid on the table. The next one was the "bogus dispatch," and
this one he placed by the side of the first. The third was the dispatch
which the Colonel was so anxious to have go through, and that he put
into his pocket.
"Cyrus, you mean to see the commanding officer of Fort Robinson before
you see us again, don't you?" said the Colonel, who had watched the
scout's movements. "You don't mean to fall into the hands of the Sioux
again."
"No, sir, I don't. I will leave that first paper here and I will
trouble you to place it in the hands of the owner when he comes. This
war is not yet over."
The post commander seated himself in the nearest chair, while the Major
raised his head and looked hard at Cyrus.
"Do you think we are going to have another massacre?" was the question
that arose to the lips of both of them.
"I don't know about that; but you know that the Sioux won't be
satisfied with one killing. If Guy happens to fall into their hands, he
will need something to bring him out. Good-by, I may not see you again,
but you may bet your bottom dollar that I will get through, if I am
alive."
The scout seized the Colonel's hand, and the length of time he held
fast to it was all the evidence that anybody needed to show him the
consideration in which he held him. The Colonel told him that he was
his only hope, but Cyrus shook his head and did not say anything in
reply. The Major could not say anything. He arose and shook him hastily
by the hand, and then seated himself on his chair as before, and rested
his head on his extended palms. Another moment and the scout was gone.
"This will kill me and I know it," said the Colonel, resuming his walk
about the room. "I don't wish any harm to befall those superior in
power to myself, but I wish that General could be down here for about
five minutes and feel the responsibility that rests upon me. He would
send some help without any asking."
That was a long night to the two officers commanding the Fort, for
neither of them thought of going to bed. The Colonel paced the room,
and the Major sat with his head resting on his hands. It was longer
still to the lonely watcher on the picket tower, who kept close view of
the prairie surrounding him, lest the Sioux should slip up and try to
add to the number of victims by taking a sly shot at him or his men
when they did not think there was any one around. He had appealed to
his men time and time again to know if he did his full duty when posted
there to pass the signals, but their assurance that his conduct could
not be blamed and that any other officer placed in the same position
would do the same, did not fully satisfy him. He had been up there
while a hundred men were massacred almost within reach of him, and had
not done a thing to prevent it. The two young officers, for whom he
cherished an affection of which some brothers might have been proud
were gone and why should he be left?
"Why did not one of them change places with me?" he kept constantly
repeating to himself. "I would have gone readily, and now I would have
been beyond the reach of the Colonel's reprimand or his frown. But
there are the folks at home. What would they have said about it?"
Daylight came at last, and once more Guy leveled his binoculars on the
prairie, but no signs of the Sioux could be seen. Then he looked at the
Fort, and saw preparations for guard mount going on, and that a Company
was ready to keep guard over them while his relief was coming out to
the tower. It came at last and a sorry-looking lot of men they were.
They had seen the bodies laid out in the store rooms, and they could
not get over it. In reply to Guy's hurried questioning, the Lieutenant
said:--
"You would have thought, if you could have seen the smiles that were on
Perkins's and Brigham's faces, that they had furloughs to go home and
see the friends from whom they have been so long separated. They didn't
act scared a bit. But I tell you, it is just awful. Captain Brown and a
few old timers must have killed themselves, for they were not mutilated
in the least. The other officers were all scalped."
"Did the Colonel have anything to say about my signaling?" asked Guy.
It was all he could do to ask this question, but he managed to get it
out at last.
"Not a word. You did the best you could, and that is all anybody can
do. You have nothing to do but to look out for the Sioux, I suppose?"
"And keep a watch on the Fort for signals," added Guy. "I hope your
stay up here will be more pleasant than mine has been. Fall in, men,
and we will go down to the Fort."
The Adjutant and the officer of the day met him when he came in and
reported, and after saying "Very good, sir," continued in a solemn
tone:--
"You saw more of that fight than we did. It is awful, is it not? The
Colonel wants to see you."
"He wants to know why I made some signals, I suppose," said Guy.
"What signals?"
"Why, I told him that Fetterman needed help, when that signal was not
made to me at all."
"Oh, that is all right. The Colonel will not say anything about that.
You saw what a fix he was in."
Guy found the Colonel as we have seen him before, and the Major still
sitting in his camp chair. They had been out to breakfast to drink a
cup of coffee, and that was all.
"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.