Their language
recalled his childhood, and he presently deserted his red-skinned
friends and came back to his own race.
His knowledge of the tongues of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow Indians
and his marvelous proficiency in the universal sign language made him
an extremely desirable acquisition to the service.
Grouard and "Big Bat" (Baptiste Pourier) were the two scouts that
guided Lieutenant Sibley, a young officer of experience and ability, on
a scout with about thirty officers and John Finnerty of the Chicago
_Times_, a newspaper man who was known all over the West.
At eight o'clock at night they left their halting-place, Big Goose
Creek, and in the silent moonlight made a phantom promenade toward the
Little Big Horn.
Presently they made out the presence of a war party ahead of them, and
one of the scouts of this outfit began riding around in a circle, which
meant that the enemy had been discovered.
There were too many Indians to fight in the open, so Grouard led the
soldiers to a deep thicket where there were plenty of logs and fallen
timber out of which to make breastworks.
The Indians repeatedly circled around them and often charged, but the
white men, facing a massacre like that of Custer's men, steadily held
them at bay by accurate shooting.
Soon red reenforcements began to arrive. The Indians, feeling that they
had now a sufficient advantage, attempted another charge, as the result
of which they lost White Antelope, one of the bravest of their chiefs.
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