Anticipating from this move an immediate attack, we hastily prepared for it by unhooking the mules from the wagon and ambulance, so that we could use the vehicles as a barricade.

This done, I told the interpreter to take the Mandan scouts and go over toward the ridge and reconnoitre again.

As the scouts neared the crest two of them dismounted, and, crawling slowly on their bellies to the summit, took a hasty look and returned at once to their horses, coming back with word that in the valley beyond was a camp of at least a hundred Sioux lodges, and that the Indians were hurriedly getting ready to attack us.

The news was anything but cheering, for with a village of that size the warriors would number two or three hundred, and could assail us from every side.
Still, nothing could be done, but stand and take what was to come, for there was no chance of escape--it being supreme folly to undertake in wagons a race with Indians to Fort Stevenson, sixty miles away.

To make the best of the situation, we unloaded the baggage, distributing and adjusting the trunks, rolls of bedding, crackerboxes, and everything else that would stop a bullet, in such manner as to form a square barricade, two sides of which were the wagons, with the mules haltered to the wheels.