Red Cloud determined, after consultation with the other chiefs, upon another plan which gave greater promise of success. Seven hundred Indians, armed with rifles or muskets and followed by a number carrying bows and arrows, were told off to prepare themselves as a skirmishing party. Their preparations were simple, and consisted of denuding themselves of every vestige of clothing, including their war shirts and war bonnets. These men were directed to creep forward, taking advantage of every depression, ravine, or other cover, until they were within range of the corral, which they were to overwhelm by gun and arrow fire. Supporting them, and intended to constitute the main attack, were the whole remaining body of the Indians, numbering upward of two thousand warriors. With the wonderful skill of which they were masters, the skirmishing party approached near to the corral and began to fire upon it. Here and there, when a savage incautiously exposed himself, he was shot by one of the defenders; but in the main the people of the corral kept silent under this terrible fusillade of bullets and arrows. The tops of the wagon sides were literally torn to pieces; the heavy blankets were filled with arrows which, falling from a distance, did no damage. The fire of the Indians was rapid and continuous. The bullets crashed into the wood just over the heads of the prostrate men, sounding like cracking thunder; yet not one man in the wagon beds was hurt. Arguing, perhaps from the silence in the corral, that the defenders had been overwhelmed and that the time for the grand attack had arrived, signal was given for the main body of the Indians to charge. They were led by the nephew of Red Cloud, a superb young chieftain, who was ambitious of succeeding in due course to the leadership now held by his uncle. Chanting their fierce war songs, they came, on arranged in a great semicircle. Splendid, stalwart braves, the flower of the nation, they were magnificently arrayed in all the varied and highly-colored fighting panoply of the Sioux. Great war bonnets streamed from the heads of the chiefs, many of whom wore gorgeous war shirts; the painted bodies of others made dashes of rich color against the green grass of the clearing and the dark pines of the hills and mountains behind. Most of them carried on their left arms painted targets or shields of buffalo hide, stout enough to turn a musket shot unless fairly hit.