[Illustration:  SCOUTING ON A STEAMBOAT.]

“Yes, sir; I can land her there, and make her climb the tree if necessary,” said he.

On reaching the spot designated, General Mills ordered two companies ashore, while Richard and myself were ordered to take our horses off the boat and push out as rapidly as possible to see if there were Indians in the vicinity.  While we were getting ashore, Captain Marsh remarked that if there was only a good heavy dew on the grass he would shoot the steamer ashore and take us on the scout without the trouble of leaving the boat.

It was a false alarm, however, as the objects we had seen proved to be Indian graves.  Quite a large number of braves who had probably been killed in some battle, had been buried on scaffolds, according to the Indian custom, and some of their clothing had been torn loose from the bodies by the wolves and was waving in the air.

On arriving at Glendive Creek we found that Colonel Rice and his company of the Fifth Infantry, who had been sent there by General Mills, had built quite a good little fort with their trowel-bayonets—­a weapon which Colonel Rice was the inventor of, and which is, by the way, a very useful implement of war, as it can be used for a shovel in throwing up intrenchments and can be profitably utilized in several other ways.  On the day previous to our arrival, Colonel Rice had a fight with a party of Indians, and had killed two or three of them at long range with his Rodman cannon.

The Far West was to remain at Glendive over night, and General Mills wished to send dispatches back to General Terry at once.  At his request I took the dispatches and rode seventy-five miles that night through the bad lands of the Yellowstone, and reached General Terry’s camp next morning, after having nearly broken my neck a dozen times or more.

There being but little prospect of any more fighting, I determined to go East as soon as possible to organize a new “Dramatic Combination,” and have a new drama written for me, based upon the Sioux war.  This I knew would be a paying investment as the Sioux campaign had excited considerable interest.  So I started down the river on the steamer Yellowstone en route to Fort Beauford.  On the same morning Generals Terry and Crook pulled out for Powder river, to take up the old Indian trail which we had recently left.

The steamer had proceeded down the stream about twenty miles when it was met by another boat on its way up the river, having on board General Whistler and some fresh troops for General Terry’s command.  Both boats landed, and almost the first person I met was my old friend and partner, Texas Jack, who had been sent out as a dispatch carrier for the New York Herald.