TEN DAYS IN MONTANA. 143 



and scan the country carefully as far as they could see. Late 

 in the afternoon they spotted the Sioux crossing over a ridge 

 about ten miles away. We could barely see them with the 

 afd of the glass, and would not have guessed them to be 

 Indians, but our scouts shouted ' Sioux, Sioux, five Sioux ! ' 

 We had ridden hard since morning, our horses were tired, and 

 the sergeant ordered a halt here for a rest and lunch, but our 

 Indians wouldn't have it. They kept shouting, ' Sioux, Sioux, 

 soldier heap damn lazy ! Come on ! ' So the sergeant told 

 them to go and we would follow them. Then they patted us 

 on the backs and said, ' Soldier heap bully; come on.' At 

 this they dropped the trail and made a bee line for the top 

 of the hill where we had seen the Sioux. We rode this ten 

 miles under the spur, took up the trail again on the hill, and 

 followed it into a timbered ravine. The scouts now told us 

 that we were close to them, and that they had not yet see us. 

 We rode cautiously and carried our carbines at a "ready." 

 Finally we sighted them at about five hundred yards, and 

 before they knew that they were followed at all we gave them 

 a volley, killing one of them and wounding two others. 



They returned the fire and then skipped out. As our 

 horses were badly worn out with the long chase, and their 

 ponies comparatively fresh, we knew it was useless to follow 

 them. When we fired the volley our scouts disappeared. 

 We didn't see which way they went nor how they got out of 

 sight so quick ; but in about half an hour they returned with 

 three ponies that they had captured from the Sioux. One 

 had probably belonged to the Indian we killed, and they had 

 been leading the other two. They then went for the dead 

 Indian's scalp, but the sergeant wouldn't let them scalp him. 

 After grazing our horses a few minutes and making coffee, we 

 started back to the command. Pretty soon our scouts were 

 missing again but that night they turned up and one of them - 



