Friday
noon
But now as though by magic had the tepees vanished . Only around the protecting agency , miles to the west , miles deeper in among the tumbling hills , were the lodges now clustered , hundreds of them , with their swarming occupants , -- old men , old crones , Indian mothers , wives , sweethearts , maids , young boys , children , and pappooses , -- all confidingly clinging to the protecting hand of the Great Father and claiming his bounty ; while the husbands and fathers , the stalwart young warriors of the Sioux themselves , were skulking through the Bad Lands across the Ska , eagerly , warily watching the coming of the little cavalry column from the distant Chasing Water , while even in greater numbers their wild red cohorts patrolled the deep valley , the overhanging heights of the Ska itself , watching every move of the coming force from Ransom , bent on luring both , if possible , far within their borders , far in among those tangling , treacherous ravines and cañons , and , there surrounding , to massacre the last man . Southwestward , at Painted Lodge Butte , after a long , long march through the heat and glare of the long June day , Colonel Winthrop had ordered his men to bivouac for the night . Riding steadily eastward by the `` foot-hill '' trail from Ransom , they had reached Willow Springs on Friday noon , purposing to camp there until the following dawn , but so alarming were the reports of the few fleeing settlers whom they met that the old colonel decided after an hour 's rest to push on again . Without being trammelled by precise orders , the general tenor of his instructions was to march on down the Ska , and strike and punish any Indian war-parties he could find , and clear the valley as soon as possible . Major Chrome , with four troops , two of the Eleventh , his own , and two of the -- th , Atherton 's regiment , was ordered to march across country from the Chasing Water , and join Winthrop in the valley of the Ska . One hundred miles , as has been said , had Chrome to march to reach the valley at the nearest point , nearly opposite the mouth of the Spirit River .