ounded. This appalling story the girls heard with
faces blanched with horror. Passionate weeping came to Jessie's relief,
but Pappoose shed never a tear. The courier's dispatches were taken in
to the colonel, and Folsom, trembling with mingled weakness and
excitement, followed.

It was an impressive scene as the old soldier read the sad details to
the rapidly growing group of weeping women, for that was Emory's
garrison now, while the official reports were hurried on to catch the
General on his way to Cheyenne. Some one warned the band leader, and the
musicians marched away to quarters. Some one bore the news to town where
the flags over the hotel and the one newspaper office were at once
lowered to half staff, although that at Emory, true to official
etiquette and tradition, remained until further orders at the peak,
despite the fact that two of the annihilated companies were from that
very post. Some one bore the news to Burleigh's quarters at the depot,
and, despite assertions that the major could see no one and must not be
agitated or disturbed, disturbed and agitated he was beyond
per-adventure. Excitedly the sick man sprang from his bed at the tidings
of the massacre and began penning a letter. Then he summoned a young
clerk from his office and told him he had determined to get up at once,
as now every energy of the government would doubtless be put forth to
bring the Sioux to terms. It was the young clerk who a few weeks back
had remarked to a fellow employe how "rattled" the old man was getting.
The major's doctor was not about. The major began dictating letters to
various officials as he rapidly dressed, and what happened can best be
told in the clerk's own words: "For a man too sick to see any one two
hours before," said he, "the major had wonderful recuperative powers,
but they didn't last. He was in the midst of a letter to the chief
quartermaster and had got as far as to say, 'The deplorable and tragic
fate of Lieutenant Dean points, of course, to the loss of the large sum
intrusted to him,' when I looked up and said, 'Why, Lieutenant Dean
ain't dead, major; he got in all right,' and he stared at me a minute as
if I had stabbed him. His face turned yellow-white and down he went like
a log--had a fit I s'pose. Then I ran for help, and then the doctor came
and hustled everybody out."

But not till late that night did these details reach "Old Pecksniff" at
the post. A solemn time was that veteran having, for