"No," returned Dale, laughing, as he dismounted and sat down cross-legged on the ground for a moment's rest. "They were just scared, but it's no wonder. There are enough redskins around to have made it true. I believe the whole Sioux Nation is out in front of us there. They pretty nearly got me; tumbled a couple of ton rock down when I was coming through that ravine and just missed my horse by about six inches, and they fairly singed my hair with bullets. I guess the ball has started again." The ball had started again, sure enough, for when the army crossed the river next morning and began threading the succession of ravines and canyons which Colonel Pattee had traced and partially dug out the day before, it was instantly attacked by the Sioux on all sides, in numbers seemingly as great as had fought at Tahkahokuty. On this day detachments from the Second Brigade formed the advance guard, under Major Robert H. Rose, of the Second Minnesota, supported by Jones's battery. The rest of the Second Brigade guarded the army wagon train, with strong flanking parties out on each side to hold the hills and transverse valleys from which the enemy might fire upon or charge the train. Behind the Second Brigade came the First, similarly protecting the Montana emigrant train, the Coyotes and two companies of the Sixth Iowa bringing up the rear, while Pope's battery held itself ready to shell the hills or ravines whenever the enemy appeared in sufficient force to justify unlimbering the guns. The march was slow and fatiguing in the extreme. The Indians, holding the tops and sides of the long succession of narrow passes or canyons through which the army must go, poured their fire down upon the troops until dislodged by the fire of the artillery or the approach of the flankers, when they would fall back to another position of like strength and repeat their tactics. The wagons, after advancing about three miles, were parked in a space where the pass opened to a somewhat greater width; while the troops, pushing on, cleared the hills to allow the fatigue parties to dig out and level some three miles more of road. Then once more the unwieldy train unwound into column and crept carefully forward along the trail. The latter, in spite of the efforts of the pioneers, was often so narrow and slanting that it was all several men could do to keep the wagons from overturning and blocking the road permanently. Officers and men were working together on the firing line and among the trains, coatless and dripping with sweat in a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees in the shade. Their throats were parched with thirst, for the water brought from the Little Missouri was soon exhausted, and no more could be obtained throughout the day except at one tiny spring, to which the Indians clung so stubbornly that they were only dislodged by the Second Minnesota after a sharp fight.