These three Indian boys were with us on this midnight expedition, and I felt they would bear watching, because I could not make up my mind to the fact that they should want to so suddenly turn against their own people. About midnight the second night an incident happened that gave us some alarm for a little while. We were all on duty watching and listening for Indians. You have heard about the burnt child dreading the fire. Well, we had been seriously burnt at Birch Coolie, and did not relish another taste of the same sort of fire, and it is not astonishing under such circumstances how many Indian sounds there are to the square foot. Every minute some of us heard an Indian sound, and all at once Joe Alord skipped out in the darkness, and immediately he was followed by Miller. I at once thought it was treachery, and the same opinion prevailed among nearly all the boys. I was but a sergeant then and of course could not assume supreme authority. If I had been in command I should have held the remaining one as a hostage. He wanted to go after the other two and gained the consent of the lieutenant to do so, and away he went out in the darkness. I expected soon to hear the crack of the rifle, for I felt satisfied that they had proved false to us. After they were gone half an hour and returned to our lines with the news that the noise they heard was not Indians we all felt relieved. But the half hour was an anxious one, and we were rejoiced to have them return. The Indians we were sent out to intercept did not appear, and the next day our little expedition returned to camp. CHAPTER XXXIII. "FORWARD MARCH." On the 16th day of June, 1863, with the thermometer 100 degrees in the shade, all things being in readiness, the column took up the line of march into the almost unexplored region of Dakota Territory. This invading army was composed of nearly five thousand men, with a pontoon train, and an adequate ammunition and commissary train composed of 225 four- and six-mule teams; and these, with the troops, really made a formidable army. The big train, five miles long, was necessary, because the expedition was headed for an unknown and hostile country, and expected to traverse a territory totally devoid of vegetables of any sort, and game would probably be very scarce.