"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 Brulés had declined to accept the treaty for opening the road--he waited for Red Cloud; but he was wisely staying at home. However, his Brulé 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 a little fearful of the Sioux; but said that if they were given provisions, they would stay away from the white trail.