When Denver Jim, an old scout, who was with the party, was informed that there were ten or fifteen Indians in the pursuit he said: 

“Let’s lay for them.”

The wagon was driven hurriedly in among the trees and low box-elder bushes, and secreted, while we waited.  We did not wait long.  Soon up came the Indians, lashing their horses, which were blowing and panting.  We let two of them pass, then opened a lively fire on the next three or four, killing two at the first volley.  The others discovering that they had run into an ambush, whirled around and ran back in the direction from which they had come.  The two who had passed heard the firing and made their escape.

The Indians that were killed were scalped, and we appropriated their arms and equipment.  Then, after catching the horses, we made our way into the Post.  The soldiers had heard us firing, and as we entered the fort drums were beating and the buglers were sounding the call to fall in.  The officers had thought Satanta and his warriors were coming in to capture the fort.

That very morning, two hours after General Hazen had left, the old chief drove into the Post in an ambulance which he had received some months before from the Government.  He seemed angry and bent on mischief.  In an interview with Captain Parker, the ranking officer, he asked why General Hazen had left the fort without supplying him with beef cattle.  The captain said the cattle were then on the road, but could not explain why they were delayed.

The chief made numerous threats.  He said that if he wanted to he could capture the whole Post.  Captain Parker, who was a brave man, gave him to understand that he was reckoning beyond his powers.  Satanta finally left in anger.  Going to the sutler’s store, he sold his ambulance to the post-trader, and a part of the proceeds he secretly invested in whisky, which could always be secured by the Indians from rascally men about a Post, notwithstanding the military and civil laws.

He then mounted his horse and rode rapidly to his village.  He returned in an hour with seven or eight hundred of his warriors, and it looked as if he intended to carry out his threat of capturing the fort.  The garrison at once turned out.  The redskins, when within a half mile, began circling around the fort, firing several shots into it.

While this circling movement was taking place, the soldiers observed that the whole village had packed up and was on the move.  The mounted warriors remained behind some little time, to give their families an opportunity to get away.  At last they circled the Post several times more, fired a few parting shots, and then galloped over the prairie to overtake the fast-departing village.  On their way they surprised and killed a party of woodchoppers on Pawnee Fork, as well as a party of herders guarding beef cattle.

The soldiers with the wagon I had opportunely met at the crossing had been out looking for the bodies of these victims, seven or eight in all.  Under the circumstances it was not surprising that the report of our guns should have persuaded the garrison that Satanta’s men were coming back to make their threatened assault.