A train of eighty wagons, engineers, supplies, and three companies of soldier escorts led by James A. Sawyer is meanwhile en route to meet Connor on the Powder River with the plan to continue on to Montana.

Sawyer's group is to construct a new road for the use of emigrants to the Montana gold fields.

At Pumpkin Butte, near present day Wright, Wyoming, a band of Cheyenne and Sioux kill several men and surround the wagon train.

After four days of sniping back and forth, Red Cloud, Dull Knife, and George and his brother Charles Bent negotiate with Sawyer a safe passage for the wagon train in exchange for a wagon load of supplies.

George Bent, the soldiers report, is dressed in a U.S. military uniform.

The wagon train moves on but, on August 31, Arapaho, infuriated by the destruction of their village on the Tongue River, attack the wagon train, killing three men and losing two of their own.