ers along the line insisted that the Indians
were determined to fight; but some of the emigrant outfits bound over
the trail to the mines were scornful of danger. One emigrant captain
laughed, when the women were timid.

"You'll never see an Injun unless he comes in to beg for sugar and
tobacco," he said. "I've been on the plains too long to be scared by
such trash."

This was at Fort Reno. That very morning, in broad daylight Red
Cloud's band ran off all the post sutler's horses and mules while the
soldiers looked on. Eighty men pursued, and captured only one Indian
pony loaded with goods obtained at Fort Laramie.

Colonel Carrington left a detachment here at the Powder River, to build
a better Fort Reno. He marched on.

Meanwhile Red Cloud had been growing stronger. Sioux warriors were
hastening to join him. Spotted Tail of the Brules had declined to
accept the treaty for opening the road--he waited for Red Cloud; but he
was wisely staying at home. However, his Brule young men were riding
away in large numbers, and he told the white people at Fort Laramie
that if they "went far on the trail they had better go prepared to look
out for their hair."

Red Cloud was watching the march of the soldiers. He did not attack;
but when he saw them pushing on, and finally making camp to locate
another fort, fifty miles northwest of Reno, on Piney Fork of
Lodge-pole Creek, in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming, he
again sent a message, by a party of soldiers whom he met and turned
back.

"The white chief must take his soldiers out of this country. Let him
decide for peace or war. If he wants peace, he can go back to Powder
River. The fort there can stay. But no forts shall be built farther
on the road, and no soldiers shall march over the road which has never
been given to the white people."

Red Cloud wanted an answer at once. He also asked that the white chief
come to him with an interpreter, and settle matters in a council. But
the messenger was held at the fort for a short time, and Red Cloud
moved his warriors to a new place.

Colonel Carrington invited the Sioux to come to the camp; and went
ahead building his fort. Some bands of Northern Cheyennes appeared for
a talk. They said that Red Cloud had urged them to join the Sioux in
keeping the white men out of the hunting grounds, and that he knew what
the soldiers had been doing every hour since they left Fort Laramie.

The Cheyennes seemed