Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/319

 that was a great deal. The same praise belongs to the little detachments of infantry, who rendered yeoman service. Egan was fortunate enough to come up just in the nick of time, as a train was surrounded and fired upon by six hundred warriors; he led the charge, and the Indians took to flight.

There were attacks all along the line: eastward in Nebraska, the Sioux became very bold, and raided the horse and cattle ranchos in the Loup Valley; they were pursued by Lieutenant Charles Heyl, Twenty-third Infantry, with a small detail of men mounted upon mules from the quartermaster's corral, and compelled to stand and fight, dropping their plunder, having one of their number killed, but killing one of our best men—Corporal Dougherty. In Wyoming, they raided the Chug, and there killed one of the old settlers—Huntoon—and ran off thirty-two horses. Lieutenant Allison, Second Cavalry, took the trail, and would have run his prey down had it not been for a blinding snow-storm which suddenly arose and obliterated the tracks of the marauders; sufficient was learned, however, to satisfy Allison that the raiders were straight from the Red Cloud Agency. When the body of Huntoon was found, it had eleven wounds—three from arrows. The same or similar tales came in from all points of the compass—from the villages of the friendly Shoshones and Bannocks in the Wind River Mountains to the scattered homes on the Lodge Pole and the Frenchman.

A large number of the enlisted men belonging to the companies at Fort D. A. Russell (near Cheyenne, Wyoming) deserted, alleging as a reason that they did not care to serve under officers who would abandon their dead and dying to the foe. Every available man of the mounted service in the Department of the Platte was called into requisition for this campaign; the posts which had been garrisoned by them were occupied by infantry companies sent from Omaha, Salt Lake, and elsewhere. The point of concentration was Fort Fetterman, and the date set as early as practicable after the first day of May. Two other strong columns were also to take the field—one under General John Gibbon, consisting of the troops from the Montana camps; the other, under General Alfred H. Terry, to start from Fort Lincoln, and to comprise every man available from the posts in the eastern portion of the Department of Dakota. While the different detachments were marching to the point of rendezvous, Crook hurried to Fort