Captain Edward Ball, leading two companies of the Second Cavalry from the Montana Column, was ordered to scout along the Bighorn as far south as the 1868 ruins of Fort C.F. Smith, then cross over the divide to the Little Bighorn and return to Fort Pease via Tullock's Creek. Although no recent Indian signs were observed during the 175-mile march from April 24 to May 1, 1876, the expedition was not without incident. On the return to Fort Pease, the detachment came upon a large Lakota campsite from the previous summer a few miles north of present Lodge Grass. Later that day, the two companies halted along the Little Bighorn where less than two months later more than a thousand Lakota and Northern Cheyenne lodges would occupy an uninterrupted two-mile stretch in the valley. The scouting party then veered northwest near present Crow Agency and eventually camped in the upper reaches of the Tullock's Creek drainage. The final two-day march down the creek was uneventful, though journals of officers and enlisted men noted the alkali water, the limited forage, and the crooked stream requiring numerous crossings. When the party arrived at the fort, the scout raised little excitement because there were no recent Indian sightings to report, but the information about water and forage in the Bighorn basin was certainly discussed on June 21, 1876, when General Terry, Gibbon, and Custer conferred on the steamer Far West four days before the battle. Immediately after the Custer disaster, Captain Ball was ordered to follow the trail left by the departing village up the Little Bighorn Valley. Near the mouth of Lodge Grass Creek, he found that the large village had begun to disperse, with some lodges going toward the Bighorn Mountains and others heading more easterly, and he also came across a substantial trail less than a week old heading north. The trail that Custer followed up Rosebud Creek was not the only trail adding to the huge village just before the battle.