Beginning in early May 1876, when the Lakota ran off about thirty horses belonging to the Crow scouts, patrols from the Montana Column reported Indian sightings almost every day from the Big Horn River down to Rosebud Creek, and all signs indicated a large village somewhere south of the Yellowstone River. At dusk on May 15, 1876, a scouting party led by Lieutenant James H. Bradley crossed the Yellowstone River near this location and moved southeast to the high ground visible to the south, where Bradley surveyed almost thirty miles of Rosebud Creek for Indian signs but found none. He then moved east, staying concealed in coulees and timber, until late in the afternoon, when the Crow scouts signaled a discovery about five miles distant from the Tongue River Valley, where columns of smoke marked a large Indian camp. To avoid detection, Bradley's detachment stayed hidden in timber and marched all night, reaching camp just as Colonel Gibbon was preparing to resume his march down the Yellowstone Valley. Gibbon then changed plans and ordered the command across the Yellowstone for an attack on the village, but the high, swift river from spring run-off proved a formidable obstacle, and he called off the attack late in the day when four horses drowned during one of the crossings. A few days later, confident in their numbers and in the river as a barrier, the Lakota and Cheyenne camped along Rosebud Creek less than ten miles from the Montana Column, while troopers could hear the rifle fire of buffalo hunters south of the river. On May 27, 1876, Bradley returned to the same high ground and this time saw columns of campfire smoke eight to ten miles up Rosebud Creek from his observation point, indicating that the large village appeared to be moving up the Rosebud Creek Valley.