General Howard formed line. He had graduated with honors at West Point in 1854, and had won high rank in the Civil War. But Joseph wellnigh defeated him--nearly captured his supply train, did capture a spring and keep him from the drinking water; and had it not been for reinforcements coming in and creating two attacks at once on the Pierced Noses' position, he would have made General Howard retire. The battle lasted two days. It was really a victory for Chief Joseph. "I do not think that I had to exercise more thorough generalship during the Civil War," General Howard confessed. Chief Joseph withdrew his people in good order. General Howard in desperation sent the cavalry, under Chief-of-Staff E. C. Mason, to find the Pierced Noses and hold them. Colonel Mason did not find them--they found _him_, and he was very glad to return in haste to General Howard. The Joseph people were now safely in the Lo-lo Trail, or the Road-to-the-buffalo, that wound up the Bitter Root Range, and down on the other side. On this trail the two captains Lewis and Clark had almost perished. What with the great forest trees fallen crisscross, the dense brush and the sharp tumbled rocks, no trail could be rougher. Over and under and through the trees and rocks Chief Joseph forced his women and children, his ponies and cattle and baggage. Behind him he left blood and disabled horses and cows. One hundred and fifty miles behind him he left the toiling, panting soldiers, whose forty axe-men were constantly at work clearing a passage for the artillery and the packs. Even at that, the soldiers marched sixteen miles a day; but the Pierced Noses marched faster. The telegraph was swifter still. Fort Missoula, at the east end of the trail, had been notified. Captain C. C. Rawn of the Seventh Infantry hastily fortified the pass down, with fifty regulars and one hundred volunteers. Chief Joseph side-stepped him also, left him waiting, and by new trails turned south down the Bitter Root Valley on the east side of the mountains! The Bitter Root Valley was well settled. The Pierced Noses molested no ranches or towns. They traded, as they went, for supplies. Colonel John Gibbon, who had campaigned against Sitting Bull, now took up the chase. Chief Joseph did not know about Colonel Gibbon's troops, and made camp on the Big Hole River, near the border in south-western Montana. He was preparing lodge-poles, to take to the buffalo country. Here, at dawn of August 9, Colonel Gibbon with two hundred regulars and volunteers surprised him completely. A storm of bullets swept his lodges, before his people were astir. Everybody dived for safety. Some of the warriors left their guns. The white soldiers charged into the camp. All was confusion; all was death--but the warriors rallied.