After losing the horses there was nothing to do but to destroy the saddles and other heavy materials and walk back to Fort Laramie. The distance was 120 miles and the way was not pleasant, especially with cavalry boots, and it was this walk as the culminating event, that

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

caused Colonel Moonlight to retire from military service. An investigation by General Connor found much to blame in Moonlight, but for the most part it was his stubbornness that caused what General Dodge succinctly described as follows : "His administration was a series of blunders."

Colonel Moonlight did not wish to resign, but his mistakes were seized upon by the eternal meddlers who were far from danger, and knew little and cared less for the atrocities of Indians. In civil life and Wyoming history the Colonel lived, however. He was Governor of the state under Grover Cleveland's national administration.

The battle of Horse creek is one of the many bloody encounters on the Platte, and this being a sequel of former events, I shall use the words of Colonel Moonlight in his report to the department.

"About the 18th (of May, 1865), instant some Indians were discovered on the north side of the Platte river, near the Indian village, encamped ten miles east of Laramie. Mr. Elston, in charge of the Indian village, took a party of Indian soldiers and captured what was found to be Two Face, and having a white woman prisoner (Mrs. Eubanks) and her daughter, whom he purchased from the Cheyennes. During the same evening and the next morning early the other Indians who were with Two Face, and who had fled on the approach of the Elston party, were also captured and lodged in the guard house here. Mrs. Eubanks gave information of the whereabout of Black Foot and the Indian village, and a party of soldiers started to bring them in dead or alive.