CHAPTER XXV. 



4 Bf.Vii.OK OUTBREAK — THE BATTLE OF THE FORTY SCOUTS — THE SURPRISE — P«CK- 



MULES STAMPEDED DEATH ON THE ARICKEREE — THE MEDICINE MAN A Dlb- 



MAL NIGHT— MESSENGERS SENT TO WALLACE — MORNING ATTACK WHOSM 



1'UKERAL ? — RELIEF AT LAST — THE OLD SCOUTS' DEVOTION TO THE BLUK. 



ON our return to Sheridan we were deeply pained 

 to hear of the sad death of Doctor Moore and 

 Lieutenant Beecher, whose acquaintance we had 

 formed at Fort Hays, and the former of whom we 

 had learned to esteem most highly as a personal 

 friend. A scouting party, not long before, had left 

 the post just named, under the command of General 

 Fprsythe, of Sheridan's staff, and composed princi- 

 pally of those citizens who had seen frontier service. 

 Dr. Moore accompanied it as surgeon, and Lieut. 

 Beecher — a nephew of Henry Ward Beecher, and 

 an officer of the regular army — held the position of 

 chief of scouts, which he had filled for some time 

 previously with much credit. The savages of the 

 plains being again upon the war-path, that brave 

 and well-organized little party of fifty were dis- 

 patched to pursue a band of Indians, which had ap- 

 peared before Sheridan and run off a lot of stock. 

 Some of the scouts were now in the town, and from 



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