Thus equipped the Indian expedition started in pursuit of Inkpaduta on the nineteenth day of July. To hold them to the faithful performance of their promise, Superintendent Cullen sent his interpreter, Joseph Campbell, and six half-breeds along to report upon operations. One hundred and six warriors under Little Crow made up the personnel of the company, in addition to Campbell and the half-breeds.[332] The membership came from the whole Sioux nation represented at the agencies, being recruited from the seventeen bands of the Upper Sioux and the eight bands of the Lower Sioux. After an absence of sixteen days the Little Crow expeditionary force returned to the Upper Agency on the fourth of August. They reported that on July twenty-eighth, on arriving at Skunk Lake, they found six lodges of Inkpaduta’s people. These were divided into two encampments of three lodges each, about three miles apart. Prior to the arrival of the expedition the lodges were deserted by their occupants who fled to the Big Drift Wood Lake, twenty miles away. They had evidently fled to this lake for the better protection it would afford, owing to the rank growth of reeds in its shallow waters. When the pursuers came up with the fleeing Indians fighting began at once, but it had continued only a half hour when darkness put an end to the conflict. In the morning three prisoners were taken, two squaws and a boy, and three men were found killed and one wounded. Of those killed one was identified as Mak-pi-a-pe-ta or Fire Cloud, a twin son of Inkpaduta. It was also learned from the captives that a defection had arisen in Inkpaduta’s band, as a result of which Inkpaduta and a few followers had broken away and gone to the Snake Creek camp of the Yanktons. Not feeling strong enough to make demands upon a camp of over a thousand Yankton friends of Inkpaduta the expedition had returned to report.[333]