Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/330

 received by General Crook notifying him that all able-bodied male Indians had left the Red Cloud Agency, and that the Fifth Cavalry had been ordered up from Kansas to take post in our rear; also that the Shoshones had sent one hundred and twenty of their warriors to help him, and that we should look for their arrival almost any day. They were marching across the mountains from their reservation in the Wind River range, in the heart of the Rockies.

June 9, 1876, the monotony of camp life was agreeably broken by an attack upon our lines made in a most energetic manner by the Sioux and Cheyennes. We had reached a most picturesque and charming camp on the beautiful Tongue River, and had thrown out our pickets upon the hill tops, when suddenly the pickets began to show signs of uneasiness, and to first walk and then trot their horses around in a circle, a warning that they had seen something dangerous. The Indians did not wait for a moment, but moved up in good style, driving in our pickets and taking position in the rocks, from which they rained down a severe fire which did no great damage but was extremely annoying while it lasted. We had only two men wounded, one in the leg, another in the arm, both by glancing bullets, and neither wound dangerous, and three horses and two mules wounded, most of which died. The attacking party had made the mistake of aiming at the tents, which at the moment were unoccupied; but bullets ripped through the canvas, split the ridge poles, smashed the pipes of the Sibley stoves, and imbedded themselves in the tail-boards of the wagons. Burt, Munson, and Burroughs were ordered out with their rifles, and Mills was ordered to take his own company of the Third Cavalry and those of Sutorius, Andrews, and Lawson, from Royall's command, and go across the Tongue and drive the enemy, which they did. The infantry held the buttes on our right until after sundown.

This attack was only a bluff on the part of "Crazy Horse" to keep his word to Crook that he would begin to fight the latter just as soon as he touched the waters of the Tongue River; we had scoffed at the message at first, believing it to have been an invention of some of the agency half-breeds, but there were many who now believed in its authenticity. Every one was glad the attack had been made; if it did nothing else, it proved that