a young officer of experience and ability, on
a scout with about thirty officers and John Finnerty of the Chicago
_Times_, a newspaper man who was known all over the West.

At eight o'clock at night they left their halting-place, Big Goose
Creek, and in the silent moonlight made a phantom promenade toward the
Little Big Horn.

Presently they made out the presence of a war party ahead of them, and
one of the scouts of this outfit began riding around in a circle, which
meant that the enemy had been discovered.

There were too many Indians to fight in the open, so Grouard led the
soldiers to a deep thicket where there were plenty of logs and fallen
timber out of which to make breastworks.

The Indians repeatedly circled around them and often charged, but the
white men, facing a massacre like that of Custer's men, steadily held
them at bay by accurate shooting.

Soon red reenforcements began to arrive. The Indians, feeling that they
had now a sufficient advantage, attempted another charge, as the result
of which they lost White Antelope, one of the bravest of their chiefs.

This dampened their ardor, but they kept up an incessant firing that
rattled against the log breastworks like hailstones.

Fearing that the Indians would soon start a fire and burn them out,
Sibley ordered a retreat. The two scouts were left behind to keep up a
desultory fire after night had fallen, in order to make the Indians
think the party was still in its breastworks. Then the other men in
single file struggled up the precipitous sides of the mountain above
them, marching, stumbling, climbing, and falling according to the
character of the ground they passed over.

The men left behind finally followed on. The temperature fell below
zero, and the night was one of suffering and horror. At last they
gained a point in the mountains about twenty-five miles distant from
Crook's command.

Halting in a sheltered cave, they got a little sleep and started out
just in time to escape observation by a large war-party which was
scouting in their direction.

At night the jaded party, more dead than alive, forded Tongue River up
to their armpits. Two were so exhausted that it was not considered
advisable to permit them to plunge into the icy stream, and they were
left on the bank till help could be sent to them.

Those that got across dragged themselves over the trail to Crook's
camp. The rocks had broken their boots, and with bleeding feet and many
a