The loss sustained by Bernard in the charge and subsequent engagement was four men killed and several wounded, not counting the loss sustained by French.  Bernard continued to hover near the Indians throughout the day.  He had taught them a lesson they would not forget.  Those terrible troopers on open ground, they discovered, could go where they liked, and that nothing could stop them.  Accordingly toward night they withdrew to a rim rock, protected on three sides by high perpendicular walls.  The neck of their fort was then fortified and the savages felt they could bid defiance to the fierce troopers.  In this fight the Indians lost heavily, forty-two bodies being pulled out of a crevice in the rim rock where they had been concealed.  Among this number was Buffalo Horn, the greatest leader of the hostiles.

Toward evening Gen. Howard arrived within seven miles of the hostiles.  Bernard sent a courier telling of the position of the Indians and that with reinforcements and howitzers under Howard the surrender could be forced in a few hours, or days at most.  They had entrapped themselves, and without water must surrender at the discretion of the soldiers.  Gen. Howard, however, complained that his troops were worn out, that he could not come up until the following day, and ended by ordering the command under Bernard to return to his camp.  This was Gen. Howard’s first fatal blunder, to be followed by others equally as serious.  The Indians remained in their position until the next day, when they moved out towards the head of the South Fork of the John Day River.  They camped on Buck Mountain three days while Howard was resting his troops.  They then moved out leisurely to the north, keeping in the rough mountains to be out of the reach of Bernard’s terrible cavalry.

Meanwhile Gen. Howard followed, keeping pace with the Indians.  His men were mostly employed in grading roads through the rough, broken country to enable his ox teams to follow.  Some have questioned this statement.  But I saw with my own eyes the road down Swamp Creek and the mountain road leading down to the South John Day River, seven miles south of the mouth of Murderer’s Creek.  At the South John Day crossing he again laid over three days while the Indians were resting at the Stewart ranch, seven miles away.  Think of an army following a horde of Indians through one of the roughest countries imaginable!  No wonder that the fiery Bernard hovered close up to them, ready to strike when opportunity and an excuse for disobeying orders was presented.

Rumors of the coming of the Indians had reached John Day Valley, and my old friend Jim Clark gathered a force of 26 men and started out to discover, if possible, which way the Indians were heading.  At Murderer’s Creek he ran into them almost before he knew it.  They were not the skulking Indians of former years, armed with bows and arrows, but fierce, wild horsemen, armed with modern weapons.  In a running fight