Yellowstone moved north, crossing the Missouri at Fort Peck, and after crossing Milk River encountered the enemy in a sharp engagement on July 17.

The affair was opened by the advance guard of two companies of Indian scouts under Lieutenant W. P. Clark of the Second Cavalry. He attacked a band of warriors near Frenchman's Creek, and after a sharp fight drove them for twelve miles and into the main body, which had come upon the ground and had surrounded the advance guard. The main command consisting of seven companies of the Fifth Infantry, mounted on ponies. captured in an earlier expedition, as has been described, and seven troops. of the Second Cavalry, immediately advanced to the support of the advance guard under Clark, deploying across the rolling prairie at a gallop, and making a rapid charge against the hostile Sioux under Sitting Bull. The artillery under Lieutenant Rice galloped up into position, throwing shell into the enemy's ranks, and the Sioux warriors made a precipitate retreat and, abandoning their property, fled north until they reached the forty-ninth parallel, which provided the only safe barrier that they had found during the last three years against the soldiers.

It became evident that this condition of affairs could not continue. The location of such a large camp of hostile Sioux near the border was a menace to the peace and welfare of the citizens of the United States in that vicinity. Full reports were made of the condition of affairs to the higher authorities, and recommendations offered that the matter be brought to the attention of the State department, and a demand made upon the Canadian authorities or the British government that this large body of hostiles be interned and removed so far into the interior as to be no longer a threatening element to the people of our territory.

Our command remained for a short time south of the boundary line. There were living in that country a body of people known as "Red River half-breeds," half French and half Indian. They were practically British subjects, living most of the time on Canadian territory. They were a very singular people in their mode of living. They had large bodies of strong, hardy, but small horses. They lived in tents, and their principal mode of transportation was by what was known as the "Red River cart." A man with a knife and an axe could construct a cart and a harness, as there was not a particle of iron used in either. Rawhide was occasionally used for binding them together and sometimes in the place of tires. The harness was entirely of rawhide. With this means of transportation they could carry from a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds over the prairies

and when not heavily loaded the horses could, with these carts, swim any river, the carts having so much dry wood about them that they were very buoyant.

This people had been a disturbing element for some time, not only to our people, but to the Canadian authorities as well, and the repulse of their leader, Riel, marks an important event in the history of that territory. They were in close communication with the hostile Sioux under Sitting Bull, and it was reported to me that they were supplying those Indians with ammunition. I, therefore, determined to break up the traffic, and to that end sent out bodies of troops, surrounded their camps, and gathered them together on one field to the number of over a thousand people, together with their eight hundred carts, herds of horses, tents and other property before mentioned. These were all sent out of the country after being kept for some time, thus breaking up one of the means of supply to the camp of Sitting Bull.

The command then returned to the valley of the Yellowstone and remained there during that summer, fall and winter, and the small raiding expeditions which went south from Sitting Bull's camp were nearly or quite all captured. The surrender of one party of their people was followed by another, until the camp of the hostile chief gradually melted away.

Captain Huggins, of the Second Cavalry, was very useful and enterprising in this work. He had in early life, while living in Minnesota Territory, acquired a thorough knowledge of the Dakota language. Owing to his qualifications he was frequently sent north in command of a body of troops to bring in bands of the hostile Indians, and being able to speak their own language readily with them, he impressed them favorably and accomplished excellent work.

On March 24, 1880, I learned that a party of Sioux had raided the Fort Custer military reservation, and had driven away the pony herd of the Crow scouts at that post, and that troops had been sent from Fort Custer in pursuit. I directed Captain Huggins with his troops and some Cheyenne

trailers to move rapidly, and if possible intercept the raiders or join in the chase. Captain Huggins left Fort Keogh at daybreak on the 25th, and found the trail next day at a point about seventy-five miles from Fort Keogh, and about thirty miles from the right or south bank of the Yellowstone. The trail was four days old, very dim, and seemed likely to be soon entirely obliterated by frequent storms of rain and snow. However, it was followed, though frequently lost and with difficulty regained by the expert trailers. It led by a circuitous route through Bad Lands and very difficult ground across the Rosebud, Tongue, and Powder Rivers, the Sioux apparently heading for a ford of the Yellowstone near the mouth of O'Fallon Creek or Powder River. Pursuit was vigorously kept up every day from dawn until it was too dark to see the trail, when the pursuers bivouacked beside some pool of snow water. The troop horses, almost entirely dependent upon grazing, were worked nearly to the limit of their endurance, and some of them had to be abandoned. For four days at least, an average of more than fifty miles per day was made, much of the ground. passed over being very difficult.

On the evening of April 1, the Sioux were overtaken on the head of O'Fallon Creek, and were surprised and separated from their ponies. A sharp skirmish followed; one sergeant being shot through the head and killed, one Indian wounded and five taken prisoners. The remaining Indians occupied a position of great natural strength, from which they escaped on foot in the darkness of that night. The captured Sioux proved to be from the camp of Sitting Bull, near the Dominion line. All the ponies that had been stolen from Fort Custer, about fifty, were recovered. In this expedition Captain Huggins made a complete circuit of Fort Keogh, first going up the Yellowstone about fifty miles, and striking the same stream about fifty miles below the post on his return.

During the last thirty-six hours of the pursuit, the command lived upon coffee, hard bread and a little meat from buffaloes, which had been killed by the fleeing Indians, and from which the choice portions had been removed. Many buffaloes were seen, but orders were given not to chase them, for fear of giving the alarm to the Sioux, whose distance in advance was not known.

Horse stealing is considered a fine art by the Indians. It is a remarkable thing that they rarely steal from others of their own tribe. They have the utmost confidence in them and are governed in that respect by a sense of honor that amounts to a rigid rule in their unwritten law. For instance, the entrances to their lodges are never fastened, and they have