Joseph missed not a point. No white man could have done better. He threatened the right flank--Captain Perry hastened men to strengthen it and then White Bird turned the left flank. The volunteers ran away, Chief Joseph grabbed the best position; now he had the soldiers under his thumb, and they retreated helter-skelter.
He cut off the rear guard, and every one in it was killed fighting. Captain Perry had worked hard to rally his men. No use. The Chief Joseph men pressed furiously.
The actual battle had occupied only a few minutes. The soldiers lost Lieutenant Theller and thirty-two men shot dead, out of the ninety; seven were wounded. The volunteers lost four men. The Pierced Noses did not try to take any scalps.
Chief Joseph's warriors pursued for twelve miles, and quit. During the battle his wife was presented by the Great Spirit with a little daughter. So now he had a baby to look out for.
Captain Perry was much mortified by the easy victory over him. The Pierced Noses of Joseph and White Bird rejoiced. They had done better than they had expected. The soldiers had proved to be not very great.
Joseph had planned to take his people only beyond the Bitter Root Mountains of northeastern Idaho, by the Pierced Noses' Road-to-the-buffalo, and stay in the Powder River country of Montana until he might come to terms with the United States. He was willing to risk the Sioux.
But General Howard did not sleep. He summoned troops from all his wide department of the Columbia. The telegraph carried the word into California, and down into Arizona.
When he had two hundred soldiers he led them, himself. Chief Joseph ferried his women and children over the roaring Salmon River on skin rafts towed by swimming ponies, and put the river between him and General Howard.
General Howard viewed the position, and was puzzled. His rival general was a genius in defense. He crossed the river, to the attack. Chief Joseph dodged him, crossed the river farther north, and circling southward cut his trail and his communications with Fort Lapwai; fell upon Captain S. G. Whipple's First Cavalry, which was in his path--surrounded it, wiped out Lieutenant Sevier Rains and ten cavalrymen, scattered the reinforcements, and passed on, for the Road-to-the-buffalo.