The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1901-03-09
ine my surprise when Learned that the

party had stopped to make coffee.
Lieut.. Sibley admitted his inexperience
in running fight and had yielded to
the importunings of his men, who
wanted breakfast. / told him the
chances were that none of us would
eat any more between that time and
kingdom come, as the Indians were
probably waiting for us at the point
we should have passed long ago.
made a wide detour from the trail as
we toiled up the mountain-very for
tunately, for they were ambushed for
us at the crossing of the trails between
two high tree-crowned buttes. If we
hard passed through that natural gate
none of us would have been left to tell
about it. As we passed up the noun
tain to the left they got on to our
curves, and about 200 did some wild
target practice in our direction.
Strange to say, not man was hit.
Correspondent John Finerty's horse
was shot, and he came up and Joined
me in leading the line. The horses
were inclined to stampede at the first
fire, so at the beginning of the thick
timber / ordered the stock tied in
bunch. The Indians tried in every way
to draw our fire, but Sibley, at my sug-
gestion, ordered no firing unless they
charged right up to us, which is not
the way an Indian fights.
1--WE got to the timber at ten o'clock
in the morning, and We did not fire
shot until three o'clock in the after
noon. Every man had his tree, and he
stuck to it closer than brother. Early
in the day a leather-lunged Sioux
yelled at me that he knew Bat and N.Y.
self were there, and they were going to
have great fun with us-particularly
me. knew what that meant without
map, so 1 tod every soldier to save a
good cartridge for himself before sur
rendering to the fiendish fortunes, for
the Sioux have very original methods
of making man die by the most pain
full process possible.
"Along about the middle of the after.
noon my red friends who were wait
ing to entertain me began to get very
gay and were growing holder every
minute. They had killed all our horses
but five, and thought it was impossible
for us to get away; in fact, l heard
them say so quite frequently in the
gutteral language of the Cheyennes.
White Antelope and band of Chey-
ennes had joined the war party, and
this chief began riding closer and
closer to our trees. Finally he and an
other chief, who was riding about five
yards behind him, came into fairly
good range. could see the color of his
eyes as he came toward me. l pulled
the trigger of my rife and both In
dams went down together as result
of the single shot. 1t was the first
shot from our party, and the double
tragedy confused the Indians. Then
our whole outfit poured in whitening
volley, and told Sibley it was our
time to take advantage of their con-
fusion and get through their line back
to the gully. I waited until they were
all fairly started back through the
heavy timber, then, taking the lariat
from the saddle of my dead horse, i fol-
lowed.
sit was a mile from where we made
our stand to the main fork of the
Tongue river, and the woods were full
of terrible windfalls and it was aw-
fully hard travelling. The first 200
yards the men had to simply squirm
their way through the timber and keep
very low. The savages had a compar-
atively thin line at our rear, as they
knew the character of the country and
thought we would be helpless without
our horses.
"When rejoined the men sent Bat
in the lead and / covered the rear.
The soldiers took off their boots and
stepped from rock to rock in order to
leave our trail as blind as possible.
About dark a heavy rainstorm, with
much wind, came up and soon drowned
out the firing that our foes kept up on
our camp. Our policy of holding our
fire SO fooled them that they did not
rush our camp until the following
morning, fact that / learned later.
The storm was wild and terrible, we
were. drenched and the timber began
to fall all about us. We kept in ter
ritoly where horses could not travel,
for reasons Of our own, and we hit an
unblazed trail over the mountains for
the following As hours without
mouthful to eat. Sometimes the squir-
rel path was so steep that Bat and
had to pull the soldiers up over the
rocks with our lassoes.
1.-The following morning at three
o'clock we forded Goose creek, the cold
water coming up to our armpits. and
at daylight fell in with scouting
party of the Second cavalry. Then we
went back over the trail and picked UP
two of our exhausted soldiers that had
given up. We had been under hot
fire nearly ten hours, had Travelled so
miles over n terribly rough mountain