of cash; jewelry; government-issued guns and ammunition." Chief American Horse's Defiance On September 9, 1876, Chief American Horse's village at Slim Buttes was assaulted in a dawn attack by Captain Anson Mills and 150 troopers. At the onset of a stampede of Indian ponies and cavalry charge, Chief American Horse with his family of three warriors and about twenty-five women and children retreated into one of the ravines that crisscrossed the village amongst the tipis. The winding dry gully was nearly 20 feet deep and ran some 200 yards back into a hillside. Trees and brush obstructed the view of the interior. "We found that some of the Indians had got into a cave at one side of the village. One of the men started to go past that spot on the hill, and as he passed the place he and his horse were both shot. This cave or dugout was down in the bed of a dry creek. The Indian children had been playing there, and dug quite a hole in the bank, so that it made more of a cave than anything else, large enough to hold a number of people." Troopers were alerted about the ravine when Private John Wenzel, Company A, Third Cavalry, became the first army fatality at Slim Buttes when he ill-advisedly approached the ravine from the front and a Sioux bullet slammed into his forehead. Wenzel's horse was also shot and killed. An attempt was made to dislodge the Indians and several troopers were wounded. "Grouard and Big Bat Pourier crept close enough to the banks of the ravine to parley with the concealed Indians in endeavors to get them to surrender. But the savages were so confident of succor from Crazy Horse and his much larger force, who were encamped only a dozen miles to the west, and to whom they had sent runners early in the morning, that they were defiant to the last." The Sioux felt no urgent need to surrender, for they defiantly yelled over to the soldiers that more Sioux camps were at hand and their warriors would soon come to free them. Chief American Horse, anticipating relief from other villages, constructed a dirt breastworks in front of the cave and geared for a stout defense. General Crook at the Ravine On September 9, 1876, General Crook's relief column endured a forced march of twenty-miles to Slim Buttes