[[1]] For the story of Sitting Bull, see "Boys' Book of Indian Warriors."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE "SIBLEY SCOUT" (1876)
A FAMOUS ARMY TALE
Meanwhile General Crook and his main column were in camp upon Goose Creek at the head-waters of the Tongue River, at the east base of the Big Horn Mountains and Cloud Peak, northern Wyoming. They had come here from Fort Fetterman, in the southeast, and were impatiently waiting for their wagon-train and for General Merritt.
The Gray Fox's northward march to meet General Terry had been stopped by the Sioux in the Battle of the Rosebud, fought June 17. The Chief Crazy Horse warriors had proved very strong. General Crook rather believed that he did not have a force large enough to break through to find the principal villages of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, or to join General Terry, in the Rosebud country south of the Yellowstone River; so with his wounded he had fallen back from southern Montana into northern Wyoming. Here he waited for supplies and reinforcements.
Up to July 10 he did not know that General Custer and almost half the Seventh Cavalry had been killed, to a man; but he felt that, with the Sioux so bold, something was happening.
His column was composed of five troops of the Second Cavalry, ten troops of the Third Cavalry, two companies of the Fourth Infantry, and three companies of the Ninth Infantry: about one thousand soldiers. The Sioux had attacked him; they were more than he expected; things did not look good to the Gray Fox.