Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/370

 Word came in from General Crook to send pack mules to a locality indicated, where the carcasses of fourteen elk and other game for the command had been tied to the branches of trees. It was not until the 10th of July, 1876, that Louis Richaud and Ben Arnold rode into camp, bearing despatches from Sheridan to Crook with the details of the terrible disaster which had overwhelmed the troops commanded by General Custer; the shock was so great that men and officers could hardly speak when the tale slowly circulated from lip to lip. The same day the Sioux made their appearance, and tried to burn us out: they set fire to the grass near the infantry battalions; and for the next two weeks paid us their respects every night in some manner, trying to stampede stock, burn grass, annoy pickets, and devil the command generally. They did not escape scot-free from these encounters, because we saw in the rocks the knife left by one wounded man, whose blood stained the soil near it; another night a pony was shot through the body and abandoned; and on still another occasion one of their warriors, killed by a bullet through the brain, was dragged to a ledge of rocks and there hidden, to be found a week or two after by our Shoshone scouts.

The Sioux destroyed an immense area of pasturage, not less than one hundred miles each way, leaving a charred expanse of territory where had so lately been the refreshing green of dainty grass, traversed by crystal brooks; over all that blackened surface it would have been difficult to find so much as a grasshopper; it could be likened to nothing except Burke's description of the devastation wrought by Hyder Ali in the plains of the Carnatic. Copious rains came to our relief, and the enemy desisted; besides destroying the pasturage, the Sioux had subjected us to the great annoyance of breathing the tiny particles of soot which filled the air and darkened the sky.

Hearing from some of our hunters that the tracks of a party—a large party—of Sioux and Cheyennes, mounted, had been seen on the path taken by Crook and his little detachment of hunters, going up into the Big Horn, Colonel Royall ordered Mills to take three companies and proceed out to the relief, if necessary, of our General and comrades. They all returned safely in the course of the afternoon, and the next day, July 11th, we were joined by a force of two hundred and thirteen Shoshones, commanded by their head-chief, "Washakie," whose resemblance in