The river, with a narrow stretch of bottom land and a bluff of about thirty feet in height, lay between us and the plateau on which was the camp where Ink-pa-du-ta was supposed to be. Here we formed our plan of attack. As soon as we crossed and attained the high prairie, and located the enemy, we were to divide our force into two squads, one of which was to be the soldiers and the other the mounted men. The soldiers were to double-quick up the edge of the bluff, to intercept a retreat into the river bottom, while the mounted men took the open prairie to cut off escape in the other direction. Lieutenant Murray was to lead the soldiers and I the horsemen. I said to Otherday and my interpreter: "How are we to know the guilty parties?" The answer was: "Whoever runs from the camp you may be sure of."
The scene presented when we reached the high land was beautiful, inspiring, and frightfully alarming. As far as the eye could reach there was an unbroken camp of savages, not less than eight or ten thousand of them, representing all the Indians of my upper bands, and those from the Missouri who always visited us at payment time. I knew many of them were relatives of Ink-pa-du-ta and his people, and most of them his friends, but there was no time for balancing chances, and, at the word, away we went for the enemy's camp, which was the farthest up the river of them all. The night had been very hot, and, as is the custom, the tepees had been rolled up at the bottom, to allow a free circulation of air, which, of course, allowed the inmates an open view of the prairie. When my squad got within about two or three hundred yards of the lodges a young Indian, holding the hand of a squaw and carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, sprang out, and made for the river bluff as fast as his legs would carry him. All the soldiers fired at him, but he did not seem to be hit, and disappeared among the chaparral in the bottom. We surrounded him. He fired four shots, and each time I looked to see a man fall, but only one shot was effective, and that struck the cartridge box of a young soldier, turning it completely inside out, but without injuring the wearer. Whenever he shot, we poured a volley into the place indicated by the smoke, and succeeded in killing him. We took his squaw and put her into one of the wagons, more for the purpose of identifying the man than anything else, and started down the river towards the agency. We had to pass through the heart of all these camps, and the squaw yelled as only a scared squaw can. The savages swarmed about our party by the hundreds and thousands, threatening vengeance, and flourishing their guns in a blood-curdling manner. A shot from one of them, or from one of us, would have sent us all into heaven in less than a moment. The shot was not fired, and we succeeded in reaching the agency in safety. I have always attributed our escape to the moral force of the government that was behind us.
At the agency there were great log buildings, in which we fortified ourselves. I sent a courier to Fort Ridgely for reenforcements. The commanding-officer sent us the old Sherman Buena Vista Battery, which assisted us in letting go and getting out.
The Indian we killed turned out to be the eldest son of Ink-pa-du-ta, who was one of the head devils in the Spirit lake massacre. He had ventured in to see his sweetheart, and was the only one of the gang that was present when we made our attack.
The question has often been asked, why the government allowed the massacre to go unpunished. Colonel Alexander of the Tenth and I had a plan by which we would have destroyed Ink-pa-du-ta and his band without a doubt, but just at the moment of putting it into execution an order came for all the companies of the Tenth at Ridgely to leave at once for Fort Bridger, in Utah, to join the expedition under General Albert Sydney Johnson, against the Mormons, and that was the end of it.
Our raid was about as foolhardy and reckless a one as ever was undertaken, and our escape can only be credited to providence or good luck.
MUSCULAR LEGISLATION.
My attention was once arrested by a short editorial, under the caption of "Gold Lace Lawmaking," which recalled an amusing incident in my experience that occurred in 1856. The editorial said: "When the lawmakers of the province of Manitoba met at Winnipeg, the occasion was something to impress the voter. The Royal Canadian Dragoons paraded, and the Thirteenth field battery roared a salute. Mark the contrast. On one side of the line, ceremony, gold lace and honor. On the other, nothing but a few clean collars and a camp-fire of the bobby."