Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/323

 the poor mail-rider, and drove off his horses. That was the meaning of the smoke puff at Red Cloud; it was, as we learned long afterwards, the signal to the conspirators that Crook and his party were leaving the post.

We passed through Laramie and on to Fetterman as fast as horses and mules could draw us. Not all the troops had yet reached Fetterman, the condition of the road from Medicine Bow being fearfully bad. Crook, after some difficulty, had a cable ferry established, in working order. The first day sixty thousand pounds of stores were carried across the river; the second, one hundred thousand pounds, besides soldiers by solid companies. Every wagon and nearly every mule and horse had to be carried over in the same manner, because the animals would not approach the swift current of the swollen Platte; here they showed more sense than the men in charge of them, and seemed to know instinctively that the current of the river was too strong to be breasted by man or horse. One of the teamsters, Dill, fell into the river, and was swept down before the eyes of scores of terrified spectators and drowned. The current had the velocity of a mill-race, and the depth was found to vary from ten to twelve feet close to the shore. Frank Gruard was sent across the North Platte with a small party of scouts and soldiers to examine into the condition of the road, and while out on this duty came very near being cut off by a reconnoitring band of the enemy.

General Crook assumed command in General Orders, No. 1, May 28, 1876. Colonel William B. Royall, Third Cavalry, was assigned to the command of the fifteen companies of cavalry forming part of the expedition, having under him Colonel Alexander W. Evans, commanding the ten companies of the Third Cavalry, and Major H. E. Noyes,' commanding the five of the Second Cavalry.

Five companies of the Ninth and Fourth Infantry were placed under the command of Colonel Alexander Chambers, of the Fourth Infantry; Captain Nickerson and Lieutenant Bourke were announced as Aides-de-Camp; Captain George M. Randall, Twenty-third Infantry, as Chief of Scouts; Captain William Stanton as Chief Engineer Officer; Captain John V. Furey as Chief Quartermaster; First Lieutenant John W. Bubb as Commissary of Subsistence; Assistant Surgeon Albert