Captains J. D. L. Pearce and James Andrus were at Harrisburg on the evening of December 29, when an express carrying instructions to Colonel Winsor at Rockville arrived. Upon reading the instructions they started for Rockville and arrived at dawn. Thirty men gathered and pushed on to Maxwell’s ranch where they arrived that evening. After resting an hour, they hastened on to Cedar Ridge and five miles southeast of Pipe Springs. Sixtus E. Johnson spotted the smoke of Indian fires curling up in the distance, about half a mile from the place where Whitmore and McIntyre had been killed. The men slipped into a wash and kept out of sight until within gunshot of the Indians, when they made a dash to get between them and their horses. Firing opened and the Indians took to the rocks. The skirmish lasted nearly an hour and covered a rough area half a mile wide and three miles long. The thirteen Navajos in the band refused to yield even when cornered, and several died fighting. During the fray an arrow aimed at Captain Andrus struck his horse in the forehead, saving the rider. One mortally wounded Indian continued to shoot until he fainted. Another, wounded in both legs, fired until his arrows were spent and then kept twanging his bow as if shooting as long as the fray lasted. When all was quiet the whites gathered together and found that none was injured. Two Indians who had escaped came out on a hill some distance away where they felt safe and slapped their seats in derision and yelled “Squaw! Squaw!” in defiance. A man named Warren, from Pine Valley, who had an extra long range breechloading gun took a chance shot and brought one of them down. The other fled. Of the thirteen Indians, four were killed, seven wounded and two escaped, only one on horseback. Three horses were lost, but the balance and the thirteen cattle were recovered and brought back. Copelan’s party returned on January 1, 1867 but Pearce and Andrus tarried two or three days longer. General Snow was in Salt Lake City at the time and his responsibility fell largely upon Captain J. D. L. Pearce and Adjutant Henry Eyring, his assistant. The concentration in the larger towns and the military control of the movements of people in the region tended to reduce the danger to the settlers. Tension with the local Paiute Indians was gradually eased, although the Navajo raids continued for several years. Jacob Hamblin, Utah’s “Leatherstocking,” played an important role in quieting the Paiutes. In the fall of 1867, he was instructed to keep in touch with the Indians and do his best to pacify them. He went to Kanab, where he helped them plant corn and vegetables and had peace parleys with them, urging the Paiutes to cooperate in preventing Navajo raids by watching the fords of the Colorado and the trails leading to the settlements.