about noon
The Sioux , I should have said , when retreating , had carried off their dead and wounded , to save them from the ignominy of being scalped , which would to a certainty have been their fate had our Indian allies found them on the ground . We were thus saved the horror of witnessing the spectacle , as also the trouble of burying the dead . The Indians would probably also have killed all the wounded , in spite of the efforts we should have made to save them . At length , about noon the watchman in the tower shouted out that he saw a party approaching from the south-west -- the direction the Sioux had probably taken . We were for some time in doubt whether they were friends or foes . At length Martin , who was on the lookout with me , exclaimed : `` Hurrah ! I 'm sure that 's old Sandy marching ahead , with an Indian chief by his side ; and there come the men .