At Fort C.F.  Smith we parted with our impedimenta, and with an escort of about two dozen cavalrymen and a few pack animals struck out on horseback through an unexplored country northwest for old Fort Benton, on the upper Missouri.  The journey was not without its perils.  Our only guide was my compass; we knew nothing of the natural obstacles that we must encounter; the Indians were on the warpath, and our course led us through the very heart of their country.  Luckily for us they were gathering their clans into one great army for a descent upon the posts that we had left behind; a little later some three thousand of them moved upon Fort Phil Kearney, lured a force of ninety men and officers outside and slaughtered them to the last man.  This was one of the posts that we had inspected, and the officers killed had hospitably entertained us.

In that lively and interesting book, “Indian Fights and Fighters,” Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady says of this “outpost of civilization”: 

“The most careful watchfulness was necessary at all hours of the day and night.  The wood trains to fetch logs to the sawmills were heavily guarded.  There was fighting all the time.  Casualties among the men were by no means rare.  At first it was difficult to keep men within the limits of the camp; but stragglers who failed to return, and some who had been cut off, scalped and left for dead, but who had crawled back to die, convinced every one of the wisdom of the commanding officer’s repeated orders and cautions.  To chronicle the constant succession of petty skirmishes would be wearisome; yet they often resulted in torture and loss of life on the part of the soldiers, although the Indians in most instances suffered the more severely.”

In a footnote the author relates this characteristic instance of the Government’s inability to understand:  “Just when the alarms were most frequent a messenger came to the headquarters, announcing that a train en route from Fort Laramie, with special messengers from that post, was corraled by Indians, and demanded immediate help.  An entire company of infantry in wagons, with a mountain howitzer and several rounds of grapeshot, was hastened to their relief.  It proved to be a train with mail from the Laramie Commission, announcing the confirmation of a ‘satisfactory treaty of peace with all the Indians of the Northwest,’ and assuring the district commander of the fact.  The messenger was brought in in safety, and peace lasted until his message was delivered.  So much was gained—­that the messenger did not lose his scalp.”

Through this interesting environment our expeditionary force of four men had moved to the relief of the beleaguered post, but finding it impossible to “raise the siege” had—­with a score of troopers—­pushed on to Fort C.F.  Smith, and thence into the Unknown.