At the end of August General Phil Sheridan, who commanded the Military Division of the Missouri, directed Major George A. Forsythe of the Ninth Cavalry to enlist fifty scouts and ride against the Indians--fight them in their own way. He left Fort Wallace on the morning of August 29; struck a broad Indian trail leading northward; early in the morning of September 17 was surprised by six hundred Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapahos, and was forced to entrench upon a little island in the Arikaree River of eastern Colorado not far from the Nebraska line; and here he stood off the charges of the Indian horsemen--five hundred at once. All that day the fight was waged. Major Forsythe was wounded three times; Lieutenant Beecher was killed; Surgeon Mooers was dying; all the horses were dead; horse-flesh was the only food and the enemy had ringed the island with rifle-fire. This evening volunteers were called for, to steal through the deadly circle and carry messages to Fort Wallace, one hundred miles south. There was no lack of men eager to try; Scouts "Pet" Trudeau and "Mack" Stillwell were chosen. Scout Trudeau was a grown man, but Jack Stillwell was only nineteen, and boyish looking. Nevertheless, he, too, was a man. He knew Indians and he knew the plains; he was able to give a good account of himself. Scout Trudeau asked no better comrade on the danger trail. They prepared to leave in the dark. At midnight they shook hands with their officer and their nearest fellows. With a piece of horse-flesh for food, with revolvers at belts and carbines in hand, and their boots slung from their necks, in their stockinged feet they quietly vanished, wrapped in their blankets so as to look as much like Indians as possible. At first Trudeau led, because he was the older; toward the end Jack Stillwell led, because he proved to be the stronger. As they crossed from the little island to the dry bottom of the river-bed, they turned and walked backward. On the sand their stockinged feet made tracks like moccasin tracks, all pointing for the island. The Indians would not know that anybody had escaped. Quiet reigned all around, except for the yapping of the coyotes. But they two were well aware that the camps of six hundred warriors were scattered everywhere, resting only until daylight. Having entered the dry channel of the river, they did another wise thing. They crossed it, instead of keeping on down; and crawling, they stuck to the high ground, even the tops of the bare ridges, instead of taking to the ravines and washes.