After the Dakota Column reached the confluence of the Powder River and the Yellowstone, General Alfred Terry wanted to confirm that the Lakota had not moved south and east, despite earlier reports from Gibbon's scouts that a large village was on the Rosebud. He ordered Major Marcus Reno, with six companies of the Seventh, to march south along the Powder and Little Powder Rivers and then west to the Tongue River before rejoining the command at the Tongue's confluence with the Yellowstone. Six days into the march, Reno's scouts found an abandoned campsite along the Tongue River, the same village previously located by Lt. Bradley's scouts from the Montana Column. Mitch Bouyer estimated that camp at four hundred lodges and more than a thousand warriors, and a wide trail led west from the valley toward the Rosebud. After finding no signs of the hostiles during the march, Reno chose to follow the Rosebud even though Terry's orders had specifically directed the column to return to the Tongue confluence on the Yellowstone. Reno's command camped along Rosebud Creek just before midnight on June 16, 1876, after crossing from the Tongue River, then continued up the valley to the Greenleaf area before turning back to the Yellowstone to wait for the Dakota Column. Reno's advance scouts may have gone as far as the confluence of Lame Deer Creek before returning. The full extent of the scout is uncertain because most of the officers and troopers who took part were killed at Little Bighorn a week later. Terry and Custer both reacted angrily to Reno's movement onto the Rosebud, though for different reasons: Terry objected to Reno's disobedience of orders, while Custer criticized him for not pushing farther and engaging the hostiles. Even so, Terry gained an estimate of the size of the Indian village and a sense of where the hostiles might be headed.