Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he
united with Webb, who led his own and the Beecher squadron, making
eighteen companies, or troops, of Horse, with their pack mules, all out
at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly
guarded by a big battalion of sturdy infantry, nearly all of them good
marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors made only one
essay in force, and that was more than enough. The blue coats emptied
many an Indian saddle and strewed the prairie with ponies, and sent
Whistling Elk and his people to the right about in sore dismay, and then
it dawned on Lame Wolf that he must now either mislead the cavalry
leader,--throw him off the track, as it were,--or move the villages,
wounded, prisoners and all across the Big Horn river, where hereditary
foemen, Shoshone and Absaraka, would surely welcome them red-handed.
It was at this stage of the game he had his final split with Stabber.
Stabber was shrewd, and saw unerringly that with other columns out--from
Custer on the Little Horn and Washakie on the Wind River,--with
reinforcements coming from north and south, the surrounding of the Sioux
in arms would be but a matter of time.
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