A new fort was being located on the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Tongue River, southeastern Montana. They marched to cross the Yellowstone below; this fort; and while near the Yellowstone they drove back a soldiers' wagon-train that was trying to reach the fort.
The wagons tried again, five days later, and there was another fight. Sitting Bull sent a note to the white chief.
I want to know what you are doing traveling by this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt in this place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don't, I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here and turn back from here.
I mean all the rations you have got and some powder. Wish you would write as soon as you can.
This was a "feeler," to see what kind of a man the white chief was. The white chief, whose name was Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Otis, of the Twenty-second Infantry, answered at once.
I intend to take this train through to Tongue River, and will be pleased to accommodate you with a fight at any time.
Sitting Bull and his chiefs held council. If they might make a peace, they could stay out all winter with their families, and when the grass greened in the spring they could travel as they pleased. The white soldiers had the advantage, in the winter.
So two Indians were sent forward with a flag of truce, to say that the Sitting Bull people were hungry and tired, and to propose a peace talk. The white chief said that there was a higher chief at the mouth of the Tongue River, with whom they must talk, but he sent them some bread and bacon.
Sitting Bull and Chief Gall, Low Neck, Pretty Bull and the others did not go to find the white commanding chief; they continued on, and in a few days the American commander caught up with them, himself, north of the Yellowstone.
He agreed to meet Sitting Bull between the lines, for a talk. They each took six men. The white chief was Colonel Nelson A. Miles. He had only about four hundred soldiers, and one cannon. Sitting Bull had one thousand warriors, and was not afraid.
"What are all these soldiers doing in this country?" he demanded. "Why don't they stay in their forts, where they belong? It is time they went there, for the winter."