"They've been here," said Auberry, grimly. "Who'd have thought the Sioux
would be this far east?"

He circled his horse out across the valley, riding with his head bent
down. "Four days ago at least," he said, "and a bunch of fifty or more
of them. Come on, men."

We rode up to the station, guessing what we would see. The buildings lay
waste and white in ashes. The front of the dugout was torn down, the
wood of its doors and windows burned. The door of the larger dugout,
where the horses had been stabled, was also torn away. Five dead horses
lay near by, a part of the stage stock kept there. We kept our eyes as
long as we could from what we knew must next be seen--the bodies of the
agent and his two stablemen, mutilated and half consumed, under the
burned-out timbers. I say the bodies, for the lower limbs of all three
had been dismembered and cast in a heap near where the bodies of the
horses lay. We were on the scene of one of the brutal massacres of the
savage Indian tribes. It seemed strange these things should be in a spot
so silent and peaceful, under a sky so blue and gentle.

"Sioux!" said Auberry, looking down as he leaned on his long rifle.
"Not a wheel has crossed their trail, and I reckon the trail's blocked
both east and west. But the boys put up a fight." He led us here and
there and showed dried blotches on the soil, half buried now in the
shifting sand; showed us the bodies of a half-dozen ponies, killed a
couple of hundred yards from the door of the dugout.

"They must have shot in at the front till they killed the boys," he
added. "And they was so mad they stabbed the horses for revenge, the way
they do sometimes. Yes, the boys paid their way when they went, I
reckon."

We stood now in a silent group, and what was best to be done none at
first could tell. Two of our party were for turning back down the
valley, but Auberry said he could see no advantage in that.

"Which way they've gone above here no one can tell," he said. "They're
less likely to come here now, so it seems to me the best thing we can do
is to lay up here and wait for some teams comin' west. There'll be news
of some kind along one way or the other, before so very long."

So now we, the living, took up our places almost upon the bodies of the
dead, after giving these the best interment possible. We hobbled and
side-lined our horses, and kept our guards both day and night; and so we
lay here for three days.

The third day passed