Some of the rear critics, who invariably talk loudest after the danger is over, who are "invincible in peace" and "invisible in war," have accused Captain Rawn of mismanagement, in allowing the Indians to pass him in the canyon, and of cowardice in not attacking them when he overtook them in the valley; but all who were there, and competent to judge, agree that the escape of the savages could not possibly have been prevented with the handful of men he had, and that he exercised judgment and discretion of a high order in not attacking them on their chosen ground, when such an attack could only have resulted in a repetition of the Custer massacre. His action proved, in the end, the wisest he could have taken in a strictly military sense; and, besides, it saved the Bitter Root country from being devastated; for White Bird said, afterward, that had the Indians been compelled to fight their way out of Lo Lo they would have fired the whole country, and many a ranchman would have lost his crops and his home if not his scalp. But brave old General Gibbon, the hero of South Mountain, was on the war path. On receipt of General Howard's dispatch that the Nez Perces were coming his way, he hastily summoned Company F, of his regiment, from Fort Benton, and D from Camp Baker, to move with all possible speed to his post. Meantime he gave orders that Company K and every man that could be spared from Fort Shaw should prepare at once for the field. When Companies F and D arrived there, he took the field at their head, with the troops detailed from his own post, and moved rapidly toward Fort Missoula, crossing the Rocky Mountains through Cadotte's Pass, carrying a limited supply of provisions on pack-mules. The distance, 150 miles, over a rough mountainous country, was covered in seven days, the command reaching Fort Missoula on the afternoon of August 3. On the 4th, with his command reinforced with Captain Rawn's company, and Company G of the Seventh from Fort Ellis, General Gibbon left Fort Missoula in pursuit of the Nez Perces. His command now numbered seventeen officers and 146 men. A wagon-train was taken from Missoula, wherein the men were allowed to ride wherever the roads were good. [Illustration: 1. CAPT. CONSTANT WILLIAMS. 2. CAPT. C. C. RAWN. 3. CAPT. WILLIAM LOGAN. 4. CAPT. J. M. J. SANNO. 5. CAPT. G. L. BROWNING. 6. CAPT. RICHARD COMBA.] The Indians had passed out of Lo Lo Canyon and started up the Bitter Root on July 28, and were therefore several days ahead of the troops. They knew that General Howard was yet many days' march behind them; that Rawn would not dare attack them with his little force of "walking soldiers," and not yet having learned the mysterious power of the telegraph wire to carry words, faster than the swiftest bird can fly, had not the remotest idea that another and larger force was on their trail.