to intercept the hostiles, if possible, while he should follow them with such force as could be spared for the purpose.

On receipt of this message, General Gibbon sent an order to Capt. C. C. Rawn, then in command at Fort Missoula, to watch for the fugitives, to head them off, hold them if possible, or turn them back. Rawn immediately dispatched a scouting party, consisting of Lieut. Francis Woodbridge and three men, with orders to proceed up Lo Lo Cañon to the summit of the Rocky Mountain Range, ascertain, if possible, whether Joseph was really coming on that trail, and if so, to report the fact to him (Rawn), at the earliest possible moment. Rawn in the meantime prepared his little command for action. Woodbridge failed to return within the allotted time, and fearing he had been killed or captured, Lieut. C. A. Coolidge was ordered to take two men and scout in the same direction, search for him and for the Indians, and especially to examine a trail that branches off from the Lo Lo on top of the Rocky Mountain Divide, some sixty miles from Missoula, and ascertain whether the hostiles had gone that way.

These officers met on the divide, but no trace of the Indians could be found, and it was believed that they had either turned back or taken some other route. Both parties returned to their post, and reported the facts. Within a few hours after their arrival, however, two Indian runners came through, bearing messages from Joseph to the commanding officer at Missoula and to the citizens in the Bitter Root Valley, to the effect that Joseph and his band were coming over the Lo Lo trail; that they desired to pass through the Bitter Root Valley, en route to the "buffalo country," and assuring the people that if allowed to do so peaceably they would not harm the settlers or their property.

It subsequently transpired that Joseph and his band reached the summit of the range only three hours after Coolidge and Woodbridge had started on their return to the post. Joseph's messengers were promptly arrested, placed in the guard-house, and kept there until the end of the campaign. But the news they brought spread like wild fire, and the whole country was alarmed. Captain Rawn's command consisted of only two companies—his own and Capt. William Logan's (A and I), of the Seventh Infantry.

Leaving twenty men to guard the post, Captain Rawn moved at once with the remainder of his force, numbering about fifty men, up Lo Lo Creek. He was joined en route by about one hundred citizens from the town and surrounding country. At the mouth of the cañon he halted and built a temporary barricade by felling trees across it and up the north wall to a considerable distance, the south wall being deemed impregnable without fortifying. The slope to the right was gradual and cut up with gulches and ravines, some of which extended clear to the top of the mountain.

The next day after Rawn took up this position, Joseph and his followers arrived in front of the works, sent in a messenger with a flag of truce, asking again that he might be allowed to pass quietly into and through the valley. Rawn replied that the only condition upon which he would be allowed to pass, was that he and his warriors should surrender their arms. This the Indians of course refused to do, and a parley was begun that was prolonged through two days. Many of the citizens urged Rawn to allow the hostiles to pass on their own terms. They insisted that to fight Joseph there, with their handful of men, could only result in defeat, and that if he were compelled to fight at that point, and gained a victory, as he surely would, he would then leave a trail of blood and ashes behind him through the whole length of the valley. Others were more confident of success, and were spoiling for a fight then and there, but when, later on, a fight became imminent, several of these same citizens remembered that they had urgent business at home.

On the evening of the second day, the negotiations having failed, Joseph notified Rawn that he should go into the valley the next morning in spite of all opposition. Accordingly at daylight, firing was heard on the skirmish line, and it was supposed that the Indians would at once assault the main line. Stray shots continued for some time, and, as all the attention of officers and men was concentrated on the front, a man called attention of Lieutenant Coolidge to the fact that he had seen the heads of a few Indians moving down one of the gulches in the rear of the extreme right. This proved to be the rear guard of Joseph's outfit. The wily savage had outwitted the troops. He had left a few men to skirmish with Rawn's pickets, and while the command was expecting an assault in front he, with his motley band, had filed up and down through the gulches and woods, past the line of works, and was now well on his way down the creek. Rawn at once deployed his forces and pursued the fugitives, but did not overtake them until they had reached the Bitter Root Valley and turned up it.

Three miles above the mouth of the creek, he found them encamped on a ridge in a body of timber, where they had every advantage of position and cover. Their manner was insolent and defiant, for they seemed to consider themselves masters of the situation. Most of the citizens had now deserted Rawn; some because they believed the Indians had escaped and that there would be no fight, others because they believed Rawn would overtake them and that there would be a fight. Rawn's force was reduced to less than one hundred men, all told, and he saw that to attack the Indians in their chosen position, outnumbering him as they did, more than four to one, would be madness. He therefore wisely decided to return to his post and await the reinforcements that he knew were coming.

Some of the rear critics, who invariably talk loudest after the danger is over, who are "invincible in peace" and "invisible in war," have accused Captain Rawn of mismanagement, in allowing the Indians to pass him in the cañon, and of cowardice in not attacking them when he overtook them in the valley; but all who were there, and competent to judge, agree that the escape of the savages could not possibly have been prevented with the handful of men he had, and that he exercised judgment and discretion of a high order in not attacking them on their chosen ground, when such an attack could only have resulted in a repetition of the Custer massacre. His action proved, in the end, the wisest he could have taken in a strictly military sense; and, besides, it saved the Bitter Root country from being devastated; for White Bird said, afterward, that had the Indians been compelled to fight their way out of Lo Lo they would have fired the whole country, and many a ranchman would have lost his crops and his home if not his scalp.

But brave old General Gibbon, the hero of South Mountain, was on the war path. On receipt of General Howard's dispatch that the Nez Percés were coming his way, he hastily summoned Company F, of his regiment, from Fort Benton, and D from Camp Baker, to move with all possible speed to his post. Meantime he gave orders that Company K and every man that could be spared from Fort Shaw should prepare at once for the field. When Companies F and D arrived there, he took the field at their head, with the troops detailed from his own post, and moved rapidly toward Fort Missoula, crossing the Rocky Mountains through Cadotte's Pass, carrying a limited supply of provisions on pack-mules. The distance, 150 miles, over a rough mountainous country, was covered in seven days, the command reaching Fort Missoula on the afternoon of August 3.

On the 4th, with his command reinforced with Captain Rawn's company, and Company G of the Seventh from Fort Ellis, General Gibbon left Fort Missoula in pursuit of the Nez Percés. His command now numbered seventeen officers and 146 men. A wagon-train was taken from Missoula, wherein the men were allowed to ride wherever the roads were good.

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