Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/560

76 firing then became general along the whole line. Some of the sharpest shooting was done by the Sioux, and many officers only escaped "close calls" by the ends of their hair. Two enlisted men were wounded. Finally, Sitting Bull, finding his old plan of battle frustrated by that solid infantry skirmish line advancing upon him with the relentless sternness of fate, began a general and precipitate retreat."

The pursuit was resolutely kept up. The Indians fled down Bad Route Creek and across the Yellowstone, a distance of 42 miles, abandoning tons of dried meat, lodge-poles, camp equipments, ponies, etc. The troops on foot followed rapidly, not stopping to count the dead or gather the plunder; and the result was, that on the 27th of October five principal chiefs surrendered themselves to Col. Miles, on the Yellowstone, opposite the mouth of Cabin Creek, as hostages for the surrender of their whole people, represented as between 400 and 500 lodges, equal to about 2,000 souls. The hostages were sent under escort to Gen. Terry, at St. Paul, and the Indians were allowed five days in their then camp to gather food, and thirty days to reach the Cheyenne Agency on the Missouri River, where they were to surrender their arms and ponies, and remain either as prisoners of war or subject to treatment such as is usually accorded to friendly Indians.

Sitting Bull was not among the chiefs who surrendered; during the retreat, they said, he had slipped out, with thirty lodges of his own special followers, and gone northerly.