The engineers looked long, but none of them saw any smoke. They moved on. But the scout called them back.
“Thet bunch of redskins has split on us. Fust thing we’ll run into some of them.”
It was Neale’s hawk eye that first sighted Indians. “Look! Look!” he cried, in great excitement, as he pointed with shaking finger.
Down a grassy slope of a ridge Indians were riding, evidently to head off the engineers, to get between them and the troops.
“Wal, we’re in fer it now,” declared the scout. “We can’t get back the way we come up.”
The chief gazed coolly at the Indians and then at the long ridge sloping away from the summit. He had been in tight places before.
“Ride!” was his order.
“Let’s fight!” cried Neale.
The band of eight men were well armed and well mounted, and if imperative, could have held off the Sioux for a time. But General Lodge and the scout headed across a little valley and up a higher ridge, from which they expected to sight the troops. They rode hard and climbed fast, but it took a quarter of an hour to gain the ridge-top. Sure enough the troops were in sight, but far away, and the Sioux were cutting across to get in front.
It was a time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it. The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome bay, could scarcely keep up.