How long the troops stayed under the trees by the river bank cannot be determined accurately. Some have testified that it was a few moments, others an hour. Personally I think it was a few moments, which fear and apprehension lengthened to an impossible period. There had as yet been no panic, and under a different officer there would have been none; but it is on record that Reno at last gave an order for the men to mount and retreat to the bluffs. Before he could be obeyed, he countermanded this order. Then the order was repeated, but in such a way that nobody save those immediately around him heard it, because of the din of the battle then raging in a sort of aimless way all along the line, and no attempt was made to obey it. It was then repeated for the third time. Finally, as those farther away saw those nearest the flurried commander mounting and evidently preparing to leave, the orders were gradually communicated throughout the battalion, and nearly the whole mass got ready to leave. Eventually they broke out of the timber in a disorderly column of fours, striving to return to the ford which they had crossed when they had entered the valley. Reno calls this a charge, and he led it. He was so excited that, after firing his pistols at the Indians who came valiantly after the fleeing soldiers, he threw them away.[82] The pressure of the Indians upon the right of the men inclined them to the left, away from the ford. In fact, they were swept into a confused mass and driven toward the river. All semblance of organization was lost in the mad rush for safety. The troops had degenerated into a mob. The Indians pressed closely upon them, firing into the huddle almost without resistance. Evidently in their excitement the Indians fired high, or the troops would have been annihilated. The Indians supposed, of course, that they now had the troops corralled between them and the river, and that all they needed to do was to drive them into it. Chief Gall, who with Crazy Horse and Crow King was principally responsible for the Indian manœuvers, seeing the retreat of Reno to the river, summoned a large body of warriors, left the field and crossed the river farther down, intending to sweep down upon the other side and attack Reno’s men as they struggled up the steep bank in case any of them succeeded in crossing. This was, as it turned out, a fortunate move for the Indians. Meanwhile, Reno’s men providentially found a pony trail which indicated a ford of the river. On the other side the trail led into a funnel-shaped amphitheater, surrounded by high, slippery bluffs. Into this _cul-de-sac_ the whole fleeing body plunged, the Indians pressing the rear hard. The men jumped their horses from the bank into the water, and finding that the trail stopped at the bluff on the other side, actually urged them up the steep slopes of the hill.