In 1878, the Northern Cheyenne under Chief Dull Knife and Little Wolf, homesick and ill, were trying to return north after escaping the reservation at Ft. Reno, Oklahoma, with 92 warriors, 120 women, and 141 children. As they crossed Kansas by way of Cimarron Crossing on the Arkansas River, Lt. Colonel William H. Lewis, commander at Ft. Dodge, was sent to capture and return them. On September 27, 1878, they were found at this site, where sentries were concealed in circular pits behind rock barricades and women, children, and the elderly were hidden in the Den below. When Lewis advanced from the southwest, he was mortally wounded in the thigh and died enroute to Ft. Wallace, Kansas, forty miles northwest, becoming the last army officer killed in Kansas during the Indian wars. The Cheyenne escaped that night, crossed the Smokey [sic] Hill River, and fled into Nebraska, where they divided into two groups, one with Chief Dull Knife and the other with Little Wolf; Dull Knife's group was captured near Ft. Robinson, while Little Wolf remained in the sand hills of Nebraska for the winter.