As the little party charged the Indians, Merritt had directed King to order the rest of the regiment to advance. In the midst of the firing, the splendid troops of the dandy Fifth came bursting through the ravines and over the hills, making for the Cheyennes on the gallop. At the same time Lieutenant Hall’s infantrymen scrambled out of their wagons and sent a few volleys at the Cheyennes at long range. A more astonished body of Indians the United States has probably never contained. They hadn’t the slightest idea that there was a soldier within five hundred miles, except those in the wagon train which they had expected to capture. They had anticipated no trouble whatever in joining Sitting Bull, and now they found themselves suddenly face to face with one of the finest cavalry regiments in the service. What were they to do? They hadn’t much time to decide, for the cavalry were after them at full gallop. They turned and fled incontinently. They stood not on the order of their going, but went at once. If they could get back to the reservation, they would be free from attack. They fled at the highest possible speed of their horses, throwing aside everything they possessed, save their guns and ammunition, in their frantic desire to get away. For thirty miles Merritt and his men pursued them with the best will in the world to come up with them; but the horses of the soldiers were more or less tired from their long march of the day before, and the Indians, lightly equipped and on fresh horses, finally succeeded in escaping. By nightfall the whole party was back on the reservation. Thereafter care was taken that they found no further opportunity to go on the war-path. The coöperation of this splendid body of Indians with that under the command of Crazy Horse might possibly have turned the scale in some of the hotly contested battles, and Merritt’s promptness was greatly commended by the authorities. Buffalo Bill received the chief glory of the little adventure from his dramatic duel with Yellow Hand, in full view of soldiers and Indians. II. The Sibley Scout The other event is known in army records as The Sibley Scout. While General Crook was waiting for reinforcements and additional supplies at his camp on Goose Creek, near the Tongue River, he decided to send out a scouting party to see what had become of his friend, Crazy Horse, who had handled him so severely at the Rosebud a few weeks before. Lieutenant Frederick W. Sibley, of E Troop, of the Third Cavalry, an enterprising but cool-headed young officer, was given command of twenty-five picked men from the regiment. With him went scouts Frank Gruard and Baptiste Pourier, commonly known as “Big Bat,” to distinguish him from another scout, Baptiste, a smaller man. To the party also were attached John Becker, mule packer, and the indefatigable Finerty, the war correspondent of the Chicago _Times_, making a total of thirty men.