The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1923-03-02
David Viewers Story Of
Battle With the Sioux
Continued from Feature Page)

Continued from Feature Page)
where I discovered the numerous ar
rowheads as mentioned. Their
method of fighting was to ride at
first slowly towards the white men,
keeping to the north of Townsend
party, between the men and the foot
hills at the north; then as they came
nearer, increasing the speed of their
animals, they swept past in some
what circular course, hanging over
the sides of their horses and shoot
ing as they rode.
The mounted party, as soon as at
tackled, turned back to the corral and
fought their way back without the
loss of any of their number, but one
Iof the men was severely injured by
an arrow in his back which had to
be cut out.
The Indians then attempted to
keep up sort of long distance at
tack on the camp. 1t happened, how
ever, that some of Townsend's men
were armed with the then new Henri
breech-loading rifle. This weapon
could not only be loaded much more
rapidly than the muzzle leaders but,
what was more important in the sit
uation, it had an effective range of
at least twice that of any of the In-
dian guns.
1t did not take the Indians long to
discover this fact, as they soon found
out that their warriors were being
shot down long before they got near
the encamped wagon train. This
compelled them to measure their
distance by the increased range of
the new rifle; but at such distance
their arrows were useless and they
could do little effective fighting with
their guns. To this was due the fact
that Townsend's men escaped with
so few injuries. One of his mem
whose name / am unable to obtain,
was SO severely wounded that he died
the following night (July 9-10).
When the Indians found that they
could not stampede or dislodge the
train by an open attack, they at
tempted to do so by fire. They be-
gan setting fire to the long grass
surrounding the camp. Captain
Townsend then directed his men to
take shovels and make a shallow |
trench, cutting off the grass in a |
swathe extending roughly in semi
circle from the river bank above the |
corral to the bank below as noticed |
by us a few days later. He also
ordered the wash tubs which some
of the emigrants had with them to
be filled with water and kept in read |
mess. The attempt to spread the fire |
to the camp was not successful. The |
Indians, however, kept up their at
tack for several hours. Then they
passing down the river,
and keeping we'll to the north close
to the foothills, and out of range of
in the day, before commencing the
attack, they had requested permis-
sion of Townsend to be allowed to
pass down the river past his camp;
but Townsend's guides, already con-
WINGED of the hostile intentions of
the savages, advised against allow
ing them to come near the camp, as
they suspected that it was simply a
ruse to get close enough to stampede
the stock.
Townsend remained in camp until
some hours after the departure of
the Indians. He then decided to move
his camp to a higher location, but
considered it inadvisable to attempt |
to proceed through the ravine as
would be necessary If he continued |
by the Bozeman trail. He accord
ingly kept to the south, crossing to |
the south side of the river, and re-
crossing further up.
After proceeding some distance, |
the train came upon the bodies of |
the two men who had gone on ahead |
in the morning and been killed by
the indians.
Just how great were the losses of |
the Indians in this engagement is, of |
course, unknown, as they removed |
their dead and wounded. But only
a few days later when our train