On our reaching the crossing of the Arkansas we found there a company of dragoons, and the officers informed us that they had been fighting and chasing the Cheyennes all summer, having just halted there in following one band of these Indians to the Arkansas river. They had been forced to abandon their provision wagons some days before we saw them, and were almost entirely out of food. The artillery had also been left behind two or three days’ march down the Arkansas river. These troops, a part of Colonel Sumner’s regiment, had had several brushes with the Cheyennes, and captured a lot of horses from the Indians. The soldiers, their horses and equipments, gave every evidence of having undergone a severe campaign, and they came around our camp begging for something to eat, tobacco and whisky, much as the Indians were in the habit of doing. But our ability to relieve their wants was very limited, having with us only supplies enough for our own party back to the settlements. The officers said that it would be hazardous for us to proceed further, advising our captain to remain until the trains in our rear could get up, until they had accumulated to at least one hundred wagons and men, when we would be strong enough to resist any attack that we were likely to be subjected to. Acting on this advice, we remained in camp several days, until five or six trains had arrived and camped in our immediate vicinity. The journey was then resumed, our train taking the lead, all our weapons of defense being put in as good order as possible. After the trains were under way the wagonmasters of those behind us, to the number of ten or a dozen, mounted on horses and mules, would ride ahead to join Captain Chiles, Reece and myself, thus forming a lively and agreeable company of companionable men. As we were thus riding along down the level bottom of the Arkansas, some distance in advance of the trains away to our right a mile or more, out near the bank of the river, where we could see some scattering cottonwood trees, we observed a smoke rising from a camp fire. Some one of the party suggested that it was the smoke of the camp of the artillery company, of which we had been told, so we rode forward, giving little more attention to the smoke of the camp fire that went curling upward among the cottonwood. When we had reached a point about opposite the smoke there suddenly appeared in our view a company of some fifty horsemen, riding pell-mell in a fast gallop towards us. They were yet too far off to be distinctly seen or for us to tell what manner of men they were. In another moment, Captain Chiles exclaimed: “Men, they are Indians! Soldiers don’t ride in that disorderly manner. Form a line and get out your guns. We are in for it!”