What must have been the despair of the surprised warriors, with their women and children, naked, shivering in the hills, as they saw their belongings consumed by the flames! It was simply impossible for them to maintain their position during the night. They had to move away or die of cold. As it was, twelve little Indian babies froze to death that awful night. Many of the older men and women were kept alive only by having their hands and feet, and in the case of the children, their whole bodies, thrust into the warm bodies of the few ponies not captured by the soldiers, which had been disemboweled for the purpose. [Illustration: _Courtesy of The Century Co._ MACKENZIE’S MEN IN DULL KNIFE’S VILLAGE _Drawing by Frederic Remington_ ] There was no fighting on the 26th. The Cheyennes took up a strong position six miles farther up the cañon, from which Mackenzie could not dislodge them, and on the 27th he started on his return to the camp. Crook, who made a forced march night and day, with Colonel Dodge and the infantry, who came forward with astonishing speed in spite of storm and cold, met Mackenzie retiring just after he left the cañon, and the whole army returned to the encampment. The subsequent sufferings of the Indians were frightful. Naturally, they repaired to Crazy Horse, expecting that he would succor them, feed them, and clothe them. The Sioux and the Cheyennes had been warm friends and allies, and had fought together on many a field. Had they come in their prosperity, Crazy Horse would have given them a warm welcome. As it was, he had little with which to support his own band during the winter, owing to Crook’s pursuit of him, and with short-sighted, yet natural—from an Indian point of view—policy, he refused to receive these Cheyennes, or to share anything with them. Exasperated beyond measure by their treatment by the Sioux, and swearing eternal vengeance upon Crazy Horse, the wretched band struggled into the nearest agency and surrendered, and in the following spring moved out with the soldiers against Crazy Horse and his men. It is appalling to think of that night attack in that awful weather upon that sleeping camp—to read of those wretched women and children, wandering naked in that bitter cold; to learn of those little ones frozen to death; of the old men and women abandoned by the road to die—yet there is another side to the picture, scarcely less horrible.