The cause of this precipitate flight after the promise given by Big Foot is somewhat uncertain. The statement of the interpreter, Felix Benoit, would make it appear that the Indians were frightened by Dunn, who told them that the soldiers were coming in the morning to carry them off and to shoot them if they refused to go. While this doubtless had the effect of alarming them, the real cause of their flight was probably the fact that just at this critical juncture Colonel Merriam was ordered to move with his command up Cheyenne river to join forces with Sumner in compelling their surrender. Such is the opinion of General Ruger, who states officially that “Big Foot and adherents who had joined him, probably becoming alarmed on the movement of Colonel Merriam’s command from Fort Bennett and a rumor that Colonel Sumner would capture them, eluded Colonel Sumner’s command and started for the Pine Ridge reservation.” This agrees with the statement of several of the survivors that they had been frightened from their homes by the news of Merriam’s approach. Sumner, in his report, calls attention to the fact that they committed no depredations in their flight, although they passed several ranches and at one time even went through a pasture filled with horses and cattle without attempting to appropriate them. He also expresses the opinion that Big Foot was compelled unwillingly to go with his people. The whole number of fugitives was at least 340, including a few from the bands of Sitting Bull and Hump. Immediately on learning of their flight Colonel Sumner notified General Carr, commanding in the direction of the Bad Lands. (_War, 12._) The situation at this crisis is thus summed up by Indian Commissioner Morgan: Groups of Indians from the different reservations had commenced concentrating in the Bad Lands upon or in the vicinity of the Pine Ridge reservation. Killing of cattle and destruction of other property by these Indians, almost entirely within the limits of Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, occurred, but no signal fires were built, no warlike demonstrations were made, no violence was done to any white settler, nor was there cohesion or organization among the Indians themselves. Many of them were friendly Indians, who had never participated in the ghost dance, but had fled thither from fear of soldiers, in consequence of the Sitting Bull affair or through the overpersuasion of friends. The military gradually began to close in around them and they offered no resistance, and a speedy and quiet capitulation of all was confidently expected. (_Comr., 34._)