Spurred by the barbed goad of frustration and anger, Sturgis pressed on in hot pursuit. On September 13, his troops were in their saddles at 5 A.M. When they drew rein at 12 P.M. sixty miles had been negotiated. Joseph’s band was still ahead! By daybreak the soldiers were on the trail again. They halted on the lower Yellowstone, near Billings. Discouragement pervaded their ranks; by common consent the Seventh Cavalry was ready to quit.[209] They felt a comrade’s compassion for General Howard’s command. Two miles away the Nez Percé were headed for the mouth of Canyon Creek. “Let’s beat ’em to it,” and away they sped. The Indians gained the protection first. Officers Benteen, Otis, French, and Merrill’s battalions maneuvered bravely and well, but the watchful Nez Percé kept them back. There was rapid sharp shooting on both sides. When they finally broke through the Indians had disappeared. Strewn upon the dusty battlefield were a dozen dead horses, five soldiers dead and eleven wounded. Night fell, and a cool wind drummed a funeral dirge upon the mind of many a restless soldier. When General Howard arrived the next day Sturgis was still on the trail. A band of Crow Indians had joined the white forces and were spoiling for a fight, but Sturgis had already wind-broken his horse and run out of rations. The Indian pace was too fast for him, but the rapidity of this flight forced them to abandon nine hundred horses.[210] However, Chief Joseph’s pony supply was augmented by a wholesale seizure from the Crows. He had crossed the Musselshell; next he would ford the Missouri which would bring them within the protection of Montana’s northern wastelands. Canada was not far away. Howard could never catch him now. Perhaps there would be time to kill some buffalo, feed their weary ponies, and rest their squaws. He was reckoning without the telegraph and the ambitious interest of Colonel Nelson A. Miles at Fort Keogh on Tongue River. On September 17, a rider brought Howard’s S. O. S.; immediately Colonel Miles was all action. That very day he had three hundred and eighty-three men across Tongue River and on the march. Twenty-four hours later they were fifty miles away. They crossed the Musselshell River and marched on to the Missouri, where a steamboat ferried them across. Ever crowding men and beasts, he caught up with the Nez Percé on the twenty-ninth of September. Joseph had made sure that Howard and Sturgis were far behind. In fact, they were deliberately slow. “We must not move too fast lest we flush the game.” Actually both of their commands were much depleted. The real job was up to Miles; they were providing the decoy. This time it worked.