with Custer as they had been in the battle with Crook on the Rosebud a week earlier.
All the tribes of the plains looked up to the Cheyennes, and respected their impetuous valor; none stood higher than they as fierce, skilful fighters; and to think that we had broken the back of their hostility and rendered them impotent was a source of no small gratification. They sent a party of young men to follow our trail and see whither we went; these young men crawled up close to our camp-fires and satisfied themselves that some of their own people were really enlisted to fight our battles, as Ben Roland had assured them was the case. This disconcerted them beyond measure, added to what they could see of our column of scouts from the other tribes. "Dull Knife" made his way down the Powder to where "Crazy Horse" was in camp, expecting to be received with the hospitality to which his present destitution and past services entitled him. "Crazy Horse" was indifferent to the sufferings of his allies and turned the cold shoulder upon them completely, and this so aroused their indignation that they decided to follow the example of those who had enrolled under our flag and sent in word to that effect.
At first it was not easy to credit the story that the Cheyennes were not only going to surrender, but that every last man of them would enlist as a soldier to go out and demolish "Crazy Horse;" but the news was perfectly true, and in the last days of December and the first of January the first detachment of them arrived at Red Cloud Agency; just as fast as the condition of their ponies and wounded would admit, another detachment arrived; and then the whole body—men, women, and children—made their appearance, and announced their desire and intention to help us whip "Crazy Horse." "Crazy Horse" happened to be related by blood or by marriage to both "Spotted Tail" and "Red Cloud," and each of these big chiefs exerted himself to save him. "Spotted Tail" sounded the Cheyennes and found that they were in earnest in the expressed purpose of aiding the Americans; and when he counted upon his fingers the hundreds of allies who were coming in to the aid of the whites in the suppression, perhaps the extermination, of the Dakotas, who had so long lorded it over the population of the Missouri Valley, he saw that it was the part of prudence for all his people to submit to the authority of the General Government and trust to its promises.
