Copyrighted, 183‘ by 15mm”. nu) Axum. EM.“ 1 at (M Punt Uflice m. New York, N. Y.. as Second Clan Mnil Matter. Dru. ‘20. 188:.

. P bl‘ 1141 Weekl 'b 1; d1 (1AM! ‘ .,
VOL  “fighfifl- “ 15 1:0. 98 main/111.6%: :ERK. , “Virggn'” No' 

 

The Dashing Dragoon;

 

"'2

 

Or, The Story of Gen. Geo. A. Custer from West Point to the Big Horn.-

BY CAPTAIN PRBD‘K WHIT'I‘AKER,

AUTHOR OF " WOODS AND WATERS,” “RIFLE AND REVOLVER.” hm, ETC.

.ms-r As cusmn cum ‘JP. THEY BEAR A LONG‘ LOUD cm mom on; on ma mmus.
ma ms FOUND THE TRAIL!

 

11.4.
i . ,

a?

-' The Story of Gen. George A. Custer

 with her husband to

4‘ “ dcr

L about him. He was u f unk, honest, manly boy pl
I tore,

t and, what is more remarkable still. never had a am.

in
~ little

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

 Dashing Dragoon;

ham West Point to the Big Horn.

\ “a
‘ BY CAPTAIN FRED’K WHITTAKEB,
mum! no “woons AND WATERS,” “mm m an
 . Vanna," not, ETC.

. omrma 1.‘
m A! A BOY—A8 A TEACHER—As A CADET AT
,  POINT.

(hone: Anus-mono Comma was born in a village in
Harrison county, Ohio, almost at the edge of Penn-
nylvsnin. ltis ten chamee to one if you can find
the place on an ordluor map. In the midst of
Harrison county is llw cunt scat, Cadiz; and a.
few miles off. at the meeting 0 some country roads.
is a lit! to vill e called New Rumley. There Custer

‘woa born to -two ears ago, on the 5th Decem-
bG‘, lid”, in . ttlo co ta re His {other was the vil-
lage blacksmith. who "xii: to farming soon after his
boy‘s m. and at New Mmley young Cuslex‘ was
bro: t “p.01: the term, like many another oor
mans no oing to country district'school. hey
I lwsys cal him Autio or Armstrong in those days.
Somehow or other his middle name was preferred
by all his friends, all thr bilabis life.

~‘ 0! oourle we all want  ow what sort of a. boy
Autle wu. There wareiseveml remarkable things ‘

ways full of fun; coul run faster, jump furt er,
wrestle better than any ther boy or his class. He"
was a boy all over, and got into plenty of mischief,
as he s will. How many rs of panmloonshe
imbin trees and van ting fences, I dare not
as to. ut of school he was the best catcher at
base—ball in that part of the count? und there was
not a fellow of his size could throw im wrestling.
But he never got into a mean scrape, never lied,

,gle tight in all his boy life.
Autie Custer irew up like, other boys, strong and
hearty. When 9 Was twelve his elder sister morn
"riod, and became Mrs. Reed. Elie left New Rumley
it: out to Monroe, Michigan‘s,
uni asked her father
a year or two. Father Custer consented. and Autie
went “out West.".to Monroe. where he stayed at
school he was nearly sixteen.
Men on the western shore of Lake Erie. just
Salim” between troit and Toledo. It is quite an
place, and t, ssonce a great battle close to
, in the war a! 1 , between the British forces un-
General Proctor assisted by the Indian chief,
Tecumseh on one side. and a force of Kentucky
Mounted emen on the other, under General Win-
chester. The Americans were surprised at Monroe
which was then called “Fren ,, Wu," and the en
of it was that they were all red by the In-

dians. e

A’tieCuster used very often to go down to the

River Raisin, whi runs through Monroe. to

the spot where the but was toetnlflat. while he look-

ed at the as where the poor! Wshad retreated

. on the ice, on that terrible winter‘s 1

any. to and themselves slain htered at lost: It ;,

was then that ho first conceived he idea 02 becom' :

ingo neuter, to defend the frontier farmers against ‘
1180 such terrible disamrsas themassacre of the

 

var .
It was now the our 1856 andAutie was sixteen. r
He had ed all that could: 1) him at
school. ad be cared for Luigi": but p yhawould

never have been anything in utter—life. As it was.

.43 

_ in the United States service, with a certain
“before him. and u c

let Autie come with her fot ' bee

it sixteen he came bee]: to New
Inn asever, but havi ienrnedio
make his living teac :1 school.
It was through this but he ‘
and became the great soldier he was when he died
so the story is worth listening to. We all know and
West Point is the great militarymischool of Amelia,
where they train u omcers, t that“: about “10
sum of our knowl e. It was all Custer knew then»
but he had made 11 his mind he would ‘0 We“
Pgléig if he cth‘lg.ch a had ham-d tcllmt sac manila!
o ngress e power men one rson are.
and that there was some exuminatién who passed.
He did not perso know member of, 00.n-
gfess. but he knew w o the member from his dis—
icxt;l wins.“e t {if who?» go that member a sag“.
me. e r,e m: m ewasvery, xous 80
to wine Point, and asking Mr. Binggm whether
there was a. vacancy and what were the q 08’
trons required. ' , V ’ .
Observe here, one thing. Custer did not trust to
friends, politics, or influen , toyget what he wanted.
He went to the fountainvhead. and asked for it. _ If
any reader of these lines wants to go to West Pomt
or Annapolis, let him do the some, Write stmIlEht
to the member of Congress. for our district. 116
does not answer, or so. 3 "no," ecidedly. "969!“
You cannot get into ,
lrierids.tyou ma. be ke twaiting for months. Gilli?
to be re used at t you write to head‘flml'wmv
you are soon out of your troubles. one way or the.
other. ,Custer found it so. There was a ml‘nnb. .
but another you ‘mau from the next county 13le »
alplied for n, and ingham wroteto Custer. whiff n, .
m that it this young man {sued to pass the exam - ;-
nation, he would glventhg) next chance 10 C‘ILWE
The examination was in January. and it was tin-n

Mn .

negro he would know. Custer ath

the time, and.an Murduy went to school himselfw
at the NormalSchoolf He made up his mind flight ,‘
when the examination came. he would be ready 10"
it. The youn man from Jefferson county 310"!“
himself oilsa. e, as Mr. Binzham had iii-6111M NHL; l,
the appointment. The time came MWQWDW‘ ‘
dent 01mg man was " lucked.”  _.fmled‘ to;
pass t e examination. en‘in went young *
and never missed a estion. His eight 
work had paid him we . He found himuelli

W arm]! or
much atheoould

t into West Point

' todo almost ’ things  ~
up the light to '6 M 3‘0"“

3 studies, he would not hov‘e
dread} or his 0 rtunlty. As “wee-WM“ "-
came, it found him 8% e to take it Hadit not come,
bimear‘s study would have made him n. hotter -
te er, able to command a in her sentry. 30 You
see, Custer-’3 “ luck " consisted ere in smug ready
in time. The other young man‘s “' lock: ‘ was»
his laziness. ' - v

New Custer really had to ‘to animal in earnest
{or four ion years at West int. Firstfihey drilled
bun to mare witntho other «dots. in no and ooicx

sumac it A walk.

« So so he had
mmpggd ne looted

“mu, carrying a. ;_

sometimes running.

rem heads 11K, toes‘out. ‘

This was in t e June encexn ‘

 w- §%°'“

a e w n or to stud . 1‘

surveying, French]; Spanish 

the o relief be g drill. drill, drill. {50 a
hall at harder

year w en he rose a. class. and
studies, toloodin
racked.

while his drill was ehan big

£11m! m at?
" a a.te

II. «fly on

3nd iearnin ‘to ride “the

people think thug must havebeen
ridin ~lessons. but these folks wouldn't t
at est Pomt. They .ride for business them not

leasure. The class is mounted on great “00?

arses. old fellows with hard mou horses thaL
are-usedtobein ridden by admen rent nevi"
every week. an' which know all the moste v-ctunl
trickr to get a rider 0:. no; a. little while the mods

:1 ’

é

 

est Point. 11 you tmstzg “ i“

There were eight 10ng weary 0min; to wall? 
' keptg 3‘

j 5." lThe Dashing Dragoon.

ride slowlyround theschoolinflle,horsesall‘mlly
d saddled cadets sittl upright. Then the riding-
; master halts them and llsthem to “cross stirrups, ’ -
V .‘ Eve cadet must take his feet out of the stirrups,
.; andt w them across the saddle. so as to ride en-
‘ tirel b balance. or with the knees to

the , sl‘ipgery sad .

file at a h rm? 3 , jog, 03, all round the ring.
'Then the cadets begn to humble off, and by the

time the lesson is over, hard] one has escaped a
tumble. That’s the way they earn to ride at West
Point, by tumblin lot until they can stick on at
any pace, on any orse, and then they are free of
all here: creation. It ends by leaving these Dung
West Point cadets s‘plendld horfiemen, and ‘uster
soon became one of t e best there.

But I did not intend to dwell long upon West
;. Point, except to show how. Gunter was trained _to
V; become what he Mountain after life. He went in,
. ‘ rKJune. 1857, a’ ybo , liver spirits; he came out,

_ ’ June, 1861, a ve o _ er, a'pertect horseman a

good shot, a good rdsman. understanding -
tantry, cavalry and artille , able to command, hav-
learned to obey. All 659 advent es he had
ed by sticking to his work at schoo , watching
chance, and not being afraid to Speak up for
what he wanted. .
His only piece of real good fortune in all this time
was in finding 1: vacancy at West Point, and finding
, Mr. Bingham willing to ve it to him. Those were

not due to hi but everythi .else was
m a! his own hard work. 

‘-At theeloseot Custer‘s career at West Point hown

, {everyone other thingoccurred to him, not t 0 re»
’sult of his own exerting: but of something over
which he had no controhf.This was the breaking
out-of the at civil war, which began just at the
very time t tCuster graduated, and which affected

- this future very so usly. Before l861 the code

‘ "had to stay five ye in Waist Point, at the end -0

‘ a,  time they were examined b a board of

. ’ tors and graduated The suCcess ul ones were

.V  ,, probation in regiments as “ brewet we

I -' . nan ” where they generally.va at

 

 

  
    
    
     
    
     
      

be ore they were promoted

‘ ,..The army was very small, 0 sixteen '

   
   
 
  
  
  
   
  

‘.,.‘i' u n, the omcors few in mm: er, 0
* u‘n ttwelv hundred in, and the Academy ‘
. to firmluate about sixt e rs eve year. So it

- _ twasv hardtoitnd p s for all t e an
"  ad touwalt for, acancies. in? 1mm
 w e as Cars ‘by vet. When amnn be-
came second lieutenant at last, he had to wait aria
“other long, weary time before he became a first
lieutenant, and a least ten years before he became
a captain. No matter how man brave deeds he
ht do, it would not hel him a it an more than
it use now. He could no he promote ., simply be-
cause there was no vacancy shave him, an the
only way to create a vacancy is to kill an officer or
get him to .

This slowness of promotion in a small regular
.army is one of the reasons whysrmyofflcers always
wish for war. It kills oi! the colonels, and minors,
and captains, leaves vacancies to be filled by
tha%seoond lieutenants. Before Custerfs time: there
h ,ofibeen one war since West Point was found-
ed. '1' was the Mexican war in 1845-7. which had
been the means or pro

mo ever so many min

to stations the army w 'e 1

to ‘fid‘fi‘h‘s‘h‘? fimii? “in”

on e on p w an
Madam-mien ‘

with the Indians where no one
was much hurt. Th‘lIs made promotion lgaery 31.3wf
0M?! very lazy. an as a consequence man 0
them into bad habits to while away the time. s
is the case new, owing to the sums causes. Put a
manintoallttlepost on theplains. withhardl m
onetotalkhfiandthe ebancesnre that hem
into bad ts. drinking and gambling
withwhatteweom one has.

\

A.”

 

or!

en away goes the long .

. much about it. except to explain how

to second,

 

3

i

very fortunately saved

attendsdhlsgraduation.
CHAPTER n.

ma cam-r wan—cums yr am.

by the great events which

Q

nun—ox ‘rsn

cmcxanom. ,
ALL of our readers have heard of themgreat welt
that this country went through from 1 t01865.

The older 0 no doubt, remember its passage,
and many even 0k partin it. A good many more i :
fathers, brothers, uncles in that war, some . 
North, some South. I do not here pro se to say.
ter came
there, and how he got his name of Cave Custer.
The immediate reason of the war wast : A 1:
many of the Southern States of the Uniorwtbnt is
Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississl rAlabarna
Georgia, Florida, South and North aroh‘na and «
Virginia—became dissatisfied with the UnitedStotes
government, and determined to separate and set up
a overnment of their own which they did. callin
it he Confederate States. h‘his was in 1861, and a
first it was supposedlthat there was no way the
United States could stop them. It so happened,
however, that there were certain forts and other
Emperty on the coasts of these seeeded States which
(1 not belong to them, but to the United 8495;. - , V
and it becamea question who should hold these :
torts. At last the war began in Seuth Carolina by .
the e of that State flrin on Fort Sumtrr in
the mid of the harbor of C arleston and taking
it from the United States troops. Then the Presi—
dent called for are tree to take it back and the
eat civil war an, a] of a sudden. When this
appened Custer was still a boy at West Point, and ' ,.
he saw his classmates. the cadets from the southern » 
States, one after another, leave the Academ ‘to go '
home to their own States and take part in e war. -
All old triendships were broken up, and these lads, 4
(friends and schoolmates, all knew when they fined '
that when next they met it would be on the ttle-
, m, as enemies, under different flags. For nearly;
two months after the taking of Fort Sumter-rho
parties did nothinghbut ather together their soldiers
and drill them. e ntederates had made their :
capital city at Richmond, Virginia, and the Union '
troops were gathered in front of Washin to pro~
test their own capital and try teen. ture 'chmond. ,
'It was thought that if they could do hat, theConfed~  '
crates would be so much disheartened that they would. 3” ; _,
glvefip the fight, and that was real) the way the >
war was ended at last. But before t at time lhene
lIere mung terrible battles to be fought, thousands
of men kl ed, and four long years to pass by. r‘“ I ,
When Custer came out of West Pomt hewas or— ; " 4
dered to join the regiment in which he had been - ‘ 1
made a second lieutenant. This regiment was the 1 ’ ,:
Fifth Regular Cavalry, and it was out in the field if!) f 2
front of Washin on at a little stream called Bu f I
Run. He reac ed his company, after riding
nj ht from Washington,‘and that very day saw him -.
flrgt battle. The Union soldiers, under General Mo~ > ,. ~
Dowell. attacked the Confederates under General
Beaure d; At first the Union troops had every- _ ' *
thi t on own way, bu Just as the victory seemed «
deci ed, some not Sou troops came up and ’ _
attacked the Union men by surprise. Then came a
sudden change. The Union troops were seized with
a panic and ran awa , frightened to death; throw—
ing away their mu etsyflagsioeverythjng, and I
great many kept on all the we W n. The
lady tree that staid and di their duty were tilt:
wregular among w om was a regimen
and one or two regiments of old steady militia.
There were not many men killed or wounded. but
the Union troops lost nearly everything they had. -
Thus they found out in their anthems that it is r
not enou h to have plenty 0! men and guns to

a.

 

o

navl . ,buttha themes mustbeoldsoldiers,
stand up alnst misfortune it it comes. '* ,
After Bull , therefore. the  didnot

try lode any more fighting tor sometime. first

an t a.

.

 

 

 
  

v-

 
 

“ bottle or campai

inns night. He was ordered to take a party 0:

4; h The Dashing Dragoon.

 

staid around Wlshinzton. behind A ring of forts. and ‘

totmin and drill their men, to make them
real soldiers and they chose a new general—~General

McClellan. in drlilm soldiers and other hard work

thenew oiiioers from est Point were very useful,

and Lieutenant Custer worked as hard as any. The
flutes passed away, the spring came, and at last
V lien determined to move, for he found that he
now had a real army of soldiers of more times hun-

(3mg thoulsand men, enough, as‘he thought, to take

mon ,. -. ‘

It was determined to move agoinst.the Confeder-

. ates, but not by land over the old Bull Run hattle‘
iield. McClellan pre erred to move his men by sea,
sud set them down in the peninsula formed by the
mouths of the Penumkey and James rivers, on
which Richmond la . By so doing he thought he
conhi get close to chmond without a fight, as the

' Southerners had no ships to ii ht at sea.

It may as well be remarked ere, to those who are
not quite certain about the places hereafter men
tioned, that they can never clearly understand a

I unless they follow it on themep;
then everything *. omesdflnim '

The Union army of Me ellan was now called the
Army of the Potomac. It was so called because it
was first formed on the banks of the Potomac river,
so defend Washington. This army took ,a whole
month to move by sea, hit by bit, but at last it was

at Fort Monroe, at the very ' of the
an to move toward Richmond.
re McCl found that the enemy had or.
round in front of him, on dog a eat at ch
across the Ruinsula, with a bank behin it, at the
village of Yorktown, the very lace where W ashing-
ton captured Cornwallis an the English arm
eighty years before. Behind the ditch and ban
were the Southern army with cannons and guns, all
read to so , “You can t go any further."

So cGle had to star an .dig a ditch of his

so for margins n his turn, and making a

of it. s siege first brought Custer

in o lotion. Although the army was large and well-

dri was himin any One in it who under-

stood howto make fiood fortifications, so that the

yosn West Point 6 co , who had been ton ht all

this nd at work, were much in request, and ster

found himself taken from his company and ap-
poiuterLsn engineer! omcer. '

It was here but he had quite e little adventureI
so a
die with spades, out close to the Southern lines
Wendi-slits a ditch for a rifle-pit, thatwas to henisde .

one in on either side. It was e vs dark ni 'ht or
the soldiers must have been seen. I they ha been
the $1313 could havedkillefllthim all, for they lwere
on 0 our: w et e enem were yin;
down banged»? at ditch and bank?

This sort of wor wss of course, the reverse of
gesture to Custer and men. But they knew it
ad tone done. or General McClellan would never
get to Richmond; so out the went intothe din-k.
without saying a word and egen to shovel away
in dead silence. Luc it was-soft ground; or the
enemy must have heard thezn. As it was.»while
th worked, they eonldheor he Southern soldiers
ta in to each other around their cnxnfyiires, and

couldfiondly lieve but what they won d he found

out. Lieutenant (lusts!- walired softly around among

C hismen, V1151 his orders in a whisper, and w ,

“1W transmitter:"smear ’i
W :9 east 9

that indicated t one

ed, the
mwt‘ ch are ithst th 1
, an a e co no on
mums: guns in that neighborhryiod. 3”
Be the siege went on, every day McClellan brin
-ing up more good ttinu ready-tor a bombard:
were doing, the

man
meat. To d out‘wh
m to send Moons at the end of

e riflece'lzj:f and were .

-osetothe enemy that one might have thrown 1 ‘

Y

 

8 the enemy

on Inn! and [13g
1, and sigh had as, do with
m mm. um. Cinter was gumdornsefnt

: r

fore sunrlse. he not ic
“were no men fire: ,' and thou h he waited till 6%
e

v miles. cutting up the soft

and he was the first officer who was'sent up 13
watch the enemy. He used to do this every mom
ing and evening when the enemy had their camp-
fires lighted, so that he could estimate their numhers

by the line of fires. . V,
At last one morning when he went) up, long be
ed something strange. The"

li ht. none were seen. Than, 9 suddenly mad

h s mind what the Southerners had stolen away in .
the night; so he gave the signal and was pulled down
by the men holdin the rope when he went and m
portedwhathe seen.»   .

3 Then it was found out that the Southern general,
Johnston, seeing that McClellan was tugged? to I
better down liis'vrorks, and that he ad to nod
aim long enough, had retreated toward Richmond.
The next thing was to follow him, and the whole
army set out on its march, in the midst of a terrible
rain storm. People at home don't know what that
means with an arng but the Union soldiers soon
found out. and so d Custer, when they saw the
long train of army wagons, stretching for miles and I,
read into mud where the
horses stuck fast, and the wheels were hmied, and v i i,

the soldiers were u to their knees in red cla , an; .  ,

everything was in semble. There was no _
that, and no fun when thy name up w W .
enemy, some seven miles 0 , at Williams , find
had a furious bottle where nearl three t ousnnd
men were killed and wounded. en, very slowly
and cautiously, General McClellan moved his army
up the Peninsuh, following General Johnston, and
only movimz a. few miles a day but without much
fighting. At last General Johns n drew  i
into Richmond, behind a little stream called _
Chickahominy, and waited for the Union troopsto 42
attack him.  , ,
Here was the place where Custer found his second id,- 'V
great chance in lite, and took it. The army WM '
comm slowly along on the road toward Richmond, ,
andbefiween them and the enemy is, a valley, the '

bottom of which w filled with u. rk. swung!
torest, hiding the Oh ckahomin from view, 0n t 9
other side were some low hillys’; and, be of
every one knew that they would be ah] the

 he; ell!1 Richmond, the (Big thsym‘hnd“
some in romesonpurpose 
was only tour miles oil! now, and they felt  ‘
he as they marched alo

2 must not be supp
anything of ‘ h

 

 

“a g'
at the.
Rio mo ‘ For that . lilgg 'r
.-oould not see any enemy, they could not even

the whole of their own army. When we think what

a number of them there were, we can imagine this.
McClellan had an ermtv of a hundred thoufind men.

We all know a city 0 a hundred thomold

is a ver§ big city. There are not man, 5' Ml;

United totes. An army stretches ov‘er m‘uc more
ground than a city, and it McClellan’s alfmy hid
marched an on one road, with its wagons. lt_ w

have made a column titty so long. But, instead -

oil that, it was hmken‘in ever so minim gttle
columns. moving ammt at each other, and

little columns found , _ es stopped st the some
time by the great dork swamp and black forest,
where he stream of the Chickahominy just like.
river of ink. stole along between blME'hanh oi
mud. There was no tel ng how deep thst was. no;
how manyot the enemy in be him in Gk}

l: thicket on' the other si , waiting to pink oi
,t e Union men, it they tried to cross. 80 the stair
halted, and went into camgggd McClellan told h n
chiet engineer, Colonel Bar , to go down and ex»
amine t e river. ‘ '~
{Barnardng tea ont H V

oooursewe ‘owwo eyouuo , _
It was Lieutenant Custer. wh o gem“
come. The old engineer glalio tdtheflvbi’.
followed bgncm and , was socanan
line of sen els. called “pi "that were winced
there to watch the enemy. .* k -



     
  
  
   
 
  
  
   
   
  
     
     
  
  
   
  
    
   
       
  
  
    
     
 
   
  
   
  
   
   
      
   
   
  
   
  
  
   
   
   
        
     
 

V .

 

ameer near leased. «

 

 

 

 

,r-w

Those pickets Were at the edge. of the wood, and
several of them warned Barnard and Custer togo
no further, for thrle‘yl felt sure that the woods were
full of enemies. 8 old engineer only smiled and
went on into the wood. He had seen. from the top

of the hill, with a spy- loss, that the enemy‘s main ,

pickets were on the of rr side of the river. He and

Custer tied their horses in the wood. and then went .

on foot throu h the swamp, now nearly dry, till at
last. the 3 right at the ed e of the deep, black
stream hat was rolling slug 's ily alon between its
muddy banks. and on the ot er side 0 which was
another deep, mysterious—looking forest.

Then Barnard turned to Custer, and pointed to the
other hank.

“Jump in," said the old engineer to the young

on .

Very few people would have liked that order,
With a muddy bank and a stream like a river of ink
to cross. Neither did Custer. He was a poor swim-
mer, and had all his clothes on. Moreover, if he
went across, there was a chance that the enemy
might shoot him from behind a tree, or wait and
capture him on the other side. Most men would
have hesitated, for a moment.

Without a word. Custer drew his revolver, held it
up in the air and jumped into the black, slimy wa-
ters, up to his breast, while he commenced his peril-
ous journey, all alone.

CHAPTER III.
A PKEILOUB nu—rnononos—AN anvnn'ruan.
SLOWLY. but surely, Lieutenant Custer began to
wade the river, holding high his revolver, and
anxiously watching the other side of the stream.
He expected every moment to see a flash in the
dark wood and to feel the sting of an enemy‘s
bullet, but for all that he went on, the water, black
and full of slime, up to his armpit), while he felt his
feet sinking in the soft black swamp muck that was
at the bottom of the stream. it was a horrid place,
a dark, dangerous-looking hole, bad enough at any
time. but doubly disagreeable now, when the other
bank was occupied by war enemies.

0n he went, slowly wading, till he had passed the
middle of the stream, and the water began to sink
toward his waist. All this time dead silence on the
other bank. Behind him stood old Colonel Barnard
watching anxiously. The old engineer had found
all he wanted, now Custpr had passed the middle of
the river. He saw that it was notu to a man’s
neck anywhere, and he wanted to cal Custer back.
But he did not dare do this. He knew thattbe
enemy must he in the wood, and the silence made it
probable that they had not seen Custer. If he
shouted to him it might attract a patrol that way,
and (foster and humus might both be shot. 80 he
began to beckon and wave his hand, to call the
NE“? 8?” back'too b tch‘ th '
u ster was u we in e enem 3
side of the river to noticeflfiamnrd. %8 went sogly
on, coming gradually out of the water, then seized
the hanging branch of a tree and climbed up the
bank, and still no sign of the enem . Be slowly crept
forward into the wood, keeping

use.
He had only gone a few steps when he on ht '
sight of the enemy‘s picket sentinel, standin w th

his back to him, leaning on his musket. a lit a
hundred yards off. He realized, then. how he had
esca being seen. The enem were not
watc the line‘of the river caref y. He crept
slowly orward, and soon found that the belt of
wood was quite narrow at that lace, and that there

was open ground beyond, and t at in the middle of >

that ground there was quite a lnr e y of the
enem , with a campfire, round w c they were
loun , half asleep. The river made quite a curve
roun 51in place and he saw an open spot higher
u , where a, part might be crossed, which would
fist right behind t e enemy's 

Then. havinx seen all he wan . he Quietly went

is pistol ready for ,

, toned to all the

The Dashing Dragoon. 5

 

back to the bank, where he first saw Colonel Bar»
nnrd making si to him toeome back. Custer
nodded in mpg, let himself uietl down into the
water, and w ed sater w on he told the
old engineer all he had seen.

Barnard was a queer, silent old officer, quite dent.
His hearing had once been injured by standifig too
close toe. heavy un when it was fired 011'. e lis-

Custer told him as the walked
back to their horses, but said nothing. en they
mounted and rode back to McClellan’s eadquarters,
over the hill.

Just as they come there. the general was mount-
ing his own horse to visit the lines of his army, and
find if they were well sted. He told Barnard to
come with him, and as hey went along, the old en-
gineer told him all about Custer‘s passage of the
river. Then the eneral wanted to see t ie young
officer, and poor ter, covered with black mud,
and dri ing wet, rode up to the general, feeling
very r 11) the face, for the general and all his offi-
cers were dressed in brilliant uniforms.

McClellan very kindly questioned Custer about the
river and the youn fellow answered promptly. He
told the eneml all e had observed in such a clear,
business- ike wa , that McClellan was at once struck
with his knowle ge.

Then he suddenly turned to Custer, and asked
him how he would like to come on his stafl as t.
on ta n.

on can fancy how Custer felt then. of course.
he was very thankful; and within aweek after, he
was a captain on the staff of the general, with a
large, handsome tent, two horses, servants, and
everything pleasant, having been promoted before
he had been a soldier a whole year.
ow simple now seems the story of the we ' Cus-
ter found his piece of “luck,” as some on. rd it.
He found it by doing a dangerous duty in. the very m'
wrrgfossflblg. When Barnard told him to jump in,
ha ie hesitated, he would never have been mud:- n
captain. He knew that if the enemy saw him, he
wouidbeshot, but he knew that it was his duly In
go, live or air»; so he went. He might have stopped
in the middle of the river and come. back, but he
knew that it was his duh to get all the news he
could, so he went on. e might have shot the
icket who had his back turned, but he scorned to

o a mean, cowardly murder. Soldiers-true sol-
diers—never kill people, except to gain a victory,
and then only to rotect their country.

The sum of a the talk about “luck” is, that
Custer always did just what he had to do, whatever
it was, in the best way that he knew how. Anybody
can do that. It is a safe rule. It got Custer into
West Point, because he was ready for examination,
when the young man from Jefferson county wn<
not. Now it made him a captain on McClellau‘s
stafi, because McClellan saw that he was a man who
always did his duty.

The time on the genernl‘s stud, of course passed
very pleasantly for Custer, and he soon ad the
satisfaction of seeing the army cross the Chick-r
hominy, and of gettin a fair sight of Richmond,
only four miles ofl. en the siege of Richmond

i began.
But in the mean time the Southerners were not
idle. They had been gathering all their men

 

together to repel McClellan, and one morning they
came out of their fortificationsand attacked of
McClellan‘s army at a place called Fairoa‘ks ration,
just outside of Richmond, killing a number of men,
and putting the Union troops to flight. They did
not follow up their victory. however, on account of
a very severe wound receiv by their General
Johnston, which checked their successes, because
there was no one fit to take his place.

So they fell back into the city and gathered more
men from all uarters, till they had an arm hell-E
as large, and a last even larger than McCl an
This army was put under the command of General
Robert E. Lee.

 

e.

 

 

9 The Dashing Dragoon.

 

. or course veople have all heard of General Lee,
but you don . know perhaps of what fumil he
come. He had married the great-grand-(luuzh rot
Mm. Washington, the wife of General Washington.
Mrs. Washington, you know was s widow with two

A children, when s e man'ied Washington. Her eldest

son was called r. Castle. and his grand-daughter
_had married General Lee. brin ing with her all of
Washi n‘s old estate at cunt Vernon, which
belon to her father, whose name was George
washington Parke Custis, under the terms or
Wasgi‘nlgton's will. So, very strangely, here was
Gen Lee, his estates at Mount? 'ornon in the
hands of the Union troops, fighting against those

r verytroops. «

And very well be ten ht too for Lee was a good
genenl, and he had wit h m the terrible stonewall

ackson, as he was called, wh very name used
afterward to frighten the Union soldiers, for he had
a way of always catching them in front and rear at
the some time and fighting worse than any one they
ever of. And so Lee and Jackson one mom-
ing came out of Richmond, marched all round Mc-
Clellen's army till they got behind it, and suddenly

attacked b so . V

Then to a terrible battle, that lasted, ofi’ and
on; for seven long days, in which Lee droVe the
Union men back eve day and which ended at
last at the battle of Mn vorn l-Iill,when the Southern-
“: were ilnnlly beaten in their turn. and the Union
v had a. 0
James River, w ere the Union gunbonts covered
them with their heavy uns.

This was a dreadful low for McClellan and his
and, among whom Custer was the most active. All
thron h the “Seven Days' Fight” Custer was on
horse Mk, riding from
orders, with little or noth a? to eat and hardly any
nice but ‘always cheerf and ready for duty.
g as before, he did his duty the but that he knew

010.

Atlust all was quiet and McClellan lay at Harri-
son’s Landing on the .l'ames river, thinki what he
should do next to take Richmond. Wh e be was
awaiting, Custer had another adventure, b which he
gained a good horse and a, beautiful swor , which h(
after-wold wore all through the war.

He was sent out into the Peninsula with a party 0'.
three hundred cavalry to snout, that is, to find 11‘
there was an enem n that vicinity, and. it so, to
beat them. The ravelod on through the woods
for some tune wi hout seeing anything, the men rid-
ing in a long column, Your abreast. Ahead of the
main body, a hundred yards, was a small compggy,
the men scattered out into a. lon line about y
feet apart, so as to scour the woo sin all directions.
These men are called .“flaukers " or “ skirmishers,"

~ and cavalry always advance that way, covered by
these skirmishers when they think the enemy
Bnearthem. n the did not have them the main
y m ht run hen on ’ into an ambush, and get
«91:5:l ypunished. ith a line of scattered skir-
mi on t e ambush would be stirred up, and could
only kill one or two at most, giving the main bod
time to get ready. Of course the skirmish line 3
the plane of most danger, but where you are sure to
see the enemy first, and Custer always went out
with the uklrmishe to see what was to be seen,
for himself, instead 0 riding with the column. The
Senerul had told him to go with his party and
ad out all he could, and he was not going to let any
one else do his business.

At lutb as they were in the woods, they saw a

cloud of

rest behind fortifications. by the -

lace to place, canylng‘

~ prisoners as possible.

 

lue smoke ahead, where the country road ‘

opened into a clenrln , and distinguished horses and ,

with an old use and barn and a haystack.

They had not been seen themselves yet. .

Guitar belted the shimishem, sent back word
to eoolumn to close up, and in a. moment more
away went the Union cavalry into the clearing at
or “mill:

yellin at the top or their voi lid
and mug: their words. while mayhem?

l

I
r

1

taken completely by surprise, sooner: d and tied in
every direction.

Then sway went (luster far ahead of every-on:
on his black horse Harry. He saw at a glance th
the enemy were only a any of cavalg, out on the
same errand ashimsel , and that all . at could be
done was to break them up and take as many
He saw one Southern officer,
mounted on a beautiful chestnut horse, and away he
went after him. The Southerner‘s horse was better
than his own, but there was a very high fence before
them both, and he hoped that would stop his
enemy. Away went the Southerner till he came to
the fence. when he put sfiurs to his horse and went
over Without touching. ost men would have given
up] after that. but Custer was one of those fellows
w 0 never give up. He dug the spursinto Hang,
went at the fence, and over he pop d, too. ’1' e
Southern ofl'lcer had pulled up on e other side
thinking to see him fail; but when he saw He
come over, he turned to flee once more. By t a
time however, Custer was close to him. The
Southern officer had waited too long. Up went
Custer’s pistol. v

“ Surrender l" he shouted, as they galloped through
the wood.

The omcer turned his head a moment, then struck
in his spurs and went away, faster than ever. He
was leavin

“Surren er, I
Custer,

No answer. Bang! .

The fugitive officer gave a shout, and fell off his
horse, clutching wildly at the reins and the next
moment Custer pulled up beside his end body, 

He had hardly titme to reflect, when two more of
the enemy came caring back at him, clinging I
little bu, ler boy, who had gone too far in the chm,
At sigh of the young captain they halted and:
turned, but too 1MP. _ ,

“Come ou,Jolmny," he cried to his lugler: and
away they went after the law pursuers, one of whom
was soon wounded by a second shot from Custer.
when both sun'cndered.

Then the officer and buglur rode slowly back to
the village, where they heard the Union trumpeter

blowing the recall. ' As they came alnnz,«tbeymotv "" '

the chestnut charger of the slain ofllN-r straying
loose, evidently puzzled at what was go no on. At
it saw the other horses it trotted up, whinging,
glad of company.

Custor can lit the bridle. At the“ minele the
saddle was a on , straight sword. 1] mm in the
war, after that, e always wore that sword, t was
his, fairly won. and now it hangs u in his house in
Monaco, though the arm that wrel edit in long faded
intb ust.

 

. CHAPTER IV. \,

on snmmn’s sum—run canton 4r Aunt-om
A BRIGADIm-OENERAL—END or run run.

Anna Custer had won his sword, it was some
little time before he had an opportunity to use it.
This famous sword was made at Toledo, in 8 'n,
and bore a legendin Spanish on its blade. “ w
me not without cause 3 eathe me not without honor.‘
It was good counsel, and Custer kept it. He and
his party returned to headquarters, and repented
who they had done, and then everything was quiet
for some weeks.

General Lee, however had no ideaof leaving M
in as for long. inking himself sate tram
Me ellan‘s beaten ormv he stunted on with him
own men inland to take Wushln n, and the rm:
dent. in great haste, sent for oClellan's force to
come back b water. Before they bud we: to

Run

Washingon, ce was back on the old
battlefield, where he fought another at battle.
tin what Union forces there who u thu %
museums "flotilla
g n n s 3
Thin McClellari‘ who ’hsd been in as

say! Surrender, or I tire!” 

'* ¢

 
 

g,

 

  

 

 

  

‘e

. li‘rcderlcks

    

The Dashing Dragoon. 7

 

mirrount of hisdefeats in front of Richmond, was
once more put in command. and followed Lee in a
long march up into Maryland, where he finally beat
him in two battles near 8h burg and Harper‘s
Ferry, drlvl Lee back into irginis.

But. after t at. McClellan lay still so long without
moving. that the President got impatient, and when
1] he eneral at last began to move, President

.lllCO

home. This was a torrl
and to his stefl for theyhad tofio home too. To
Custer in particular, it seemed as all his fair pros—
gectawero destroyed. and he was dreadfully cast
own. But there was nothing to do but obey orders ‘
soCusta'and his eraihmi toleavethe army an
back to the No leaving their comrades to fight
he enemy without 1. m. '

That was a drear winter for poor Custer, in
1862, and into 1863. e army had a bad time of it.
for General Burnside the next general, suffered a.
bloody defeat at Fmdeficksbuxg, where more than
ten thousand men were killed or wounded. At lust
the winter wore nwa , and Custer returned to the
front, being ordered join his old cavalry regiment
as a simple lieutenant. Some men would have been
sulky at the loss of rank, and refused the ofl‘er. but
Custer felt it was his :lufu to no, to hel his country.
go he went. and soon found his reward?

x‘The Arm; of the Potomac was now under General
hooker. w o suffered a defeat as had as Burnsido‘s.
at-a place called Chancellorsvllle, a. few miles from
burg; but General Hooker, spite of his
defeat did one thing that helped his army to their
next Wand ve Custer is third great chance.
Hooker-go red 1 the loose caval re iments into
a single great body, and called. t th “ Cavalry
Corps." his cavalry corps he soon after ave to
General Pleasanton to command; and choral
Emu) who had known Custer as the best
0 on cClellan‘s staff. asked hlmto come on
his own stuff.

So Custer found his reward for sinking his angry
feelings and doing his dut '. He was a stair-officer
once more. And a splen staff-officer he made as
Pleasanton soon found.

. In the mean time, General Lee suddenly made up
his mind to try another attack on Washington. So
he left his . camp at Fredericksburg, crossrd the
Rappahannock river, close to the mountains. and
marched down the Shenandoah vnllc ' toward
Mta‘iggaand and Pennsylvania This was in he spring
0

Hooker no sooner found him gone. than he
marched to head off Lee from Washington, and sent
the caval corps to hover round the enemy's
column a hinder his march. With the cavalry
went Pleasanton and young Custer, and met the
energy close to. the mountains, at a little viii a
call Aldie. Here Custer went out with a brig e
ofcsvalry under Colonel Kilpatrlck1 and they th
met the Southern General Stuart, who eng ed
then: fierce . At one time the Southern cav
came down road in a nd ch to take -
potrlck'l guns, and the co nel was ob zed to order
a countebcharge 11 two regiments of horse.

All was read ,nnd' the line began to move, when
the enemy fired agreat volley. and yelled so fiercely
that the Union cavah began to falter and turn
back. Colonel KilerLk's horse was shot. and the
men began to run away. Then all of asudden. out
dashed Custer, full He wore ve long hair
thon.and rode a if ndid horse. and hi the men
s nod to look at no he was so handsome.

a waved his swerd cheerlly, and called out,
“Come ca,boysl Don’t be afraid! We can beat
arose fenoml’

Then, without looking back he rode straight at the
ones? and the Union eavahygave a great yell.
and o'llowefipl‘nm, in such a tremendous charge.
thatthusw theflouthemcsvnlnfmthefleld.

       

suddenly sent an order dismissing hlm from 
me: command of the army and telling him to go .
ble low to poor McClellan ‘

 

took their guns, and won a glorious victory, all
owing to Custer 3 example.

General Pleasanton was so pleased that he sent in
Custer‘s name at once for promotion; and a week
later, there came ngreat yellow letter to Pleasan-
t‘on’s head uarters, directed to BRIGADIER—GEN-
ERAL GE RGE A. GUSTER. It was actually true.
Custer was made a. general for that charge. If he
had run away, the men would have run away. too.
His courage gave them courage' and instead of a
disgraceful defeat they had a brilliant victory.

This often happens in war, and is one of the
reasons why true bravery is so much prized and
wins so many rewards. It is a very different
thing, on - from a gamelsome disposition
and fig ting. « e uarre me and fl hting men
almost always t to ave the best of a ht, and to
hurt other op e without getting hurt emsclves.
When they nd themselves all alone, with stronger
men than themselves coming at them. they general-
ly run away, while the truly brave men only thinks:
" It is my duty to do this, even if I do get killed."
That was Custer’s rule, and he acted upon it in this
charge. The result was. that all the men who were
getting;1 frightened felt ashamed of themselves,
when t ey saw this one boy officer riding all alone to
get killed for their sakes. So they tried to do their
dut too, and ended by winning the victolg.

That battle mode Custeragenoral, and leasanton
ordered him at once to take command of a brigade
of cavalry.

Some of my readers fierhaps'don‘t know what a
brigade is, so I will to you in as few words as
possible how an army is divided nowadays.

The first and snml est body of troops is called 3
mm .my,nud is commanded by a cap.aiu, with two
lieu than“ and several xiv-{learner and cor 'orals under
him. Twelve companies or troops of cavalry make
u. Ngimmi. under a cola/wt. Two or more regiments
make a brigade, under a LT!gdv/iel‘~{}eu¢7fl.’. Custer-'8
new bri do was made of four regiments, all comin
from chigan where "he had been at school. t
was therefore ' own all through the army as the
"Michigan. Brigade." .Sometimes there are not
enough generals for the brigades. In that case, the
oldest colonel takes command, and leaves his regi-
ment to the next ofi‘lccr in rank, either a lieutenant,
colonel oraml-Ijor. zlf there are none of these, the
oldest captain commands the regiment.

Two or more brimlos make a division. Custer‘s
b ado and two others were made into a division
cal ed the “ Third Division." and put under General
Kil atrick, who had been Colonel Kil trick at
Al '5. Three divisions made up the Cave y Corps,
un er Plonsonton.

ow, for all the rest of the summer. Custer was
kept pretty busy. He was not "the sort of man to
rest on his honorsz and be satisfied with being called
“General Custer. ’ He lmew that his rank manly
a trust given to him b the nation. and that he was
expected to win batt on with his brigade. And win
them he did. wherever he went. -

At first the men and officofs of his new 1) 0
did not like him at all. He was so young and y‘
lab-looking, that they thzl‘ljghh it a shame to have
him set over y-he men. Butr Custer
was so kind on respectful in his mannerto old
officers, and so wonderfully brave in battle, that
very soon they all learned to like him. ever
there was a cha to be made, out rode the
general in front 0 them all. wavin his long"
and calling out, “ Come along, boys "

And they never hesitated to fol ow this handsome

ho . _

gefore three weeks were over, he was known all
through the army as “the boy general with the
. lden locks." and every one wanted to see him.

e wore his bright yellow hair in long curls over lib
shoulders, under a very broad black felt and
‘gleways dressed in a jacket and trowasrl of

lvet. covered with sold ennui-olden. while a blue

 

 

8 The

 

sailor‘s‘shirt with a broad collar was tied at the
neck With a bright crimson necktie. This dress

3 him remarkable everywhere; and his men _.

could see who was coming long before he was close -

by. A good in

pie laughed at him, but he ,

never cued. He ument ahead and did his duty; ‘

and retty soon people found out that whenever
thet anger was greatest, the boy general was at his
es .

He never flinohed, even when all hope seemed j
He headed every charge that was made, and ;
seemed to fight ust aswell when the enemy were j
all around as w en he was driving them. Twice I

gone.

durin that summer he and all his brigade were sur- ;

roun ed by heavy forces of the enemy, an

dhndto,

ht their wa out' hutthe bov eneral was alwa s .
as; y . g y

in thecharge, and led his men safe through ‘

all their perils.

Then, when they were in caifip, the boy general
was always quiet and modest. e allowed no drink-
ing and neither smoked nor drank himself. He was
deeply religious, and had the chaplain read {ire ers
every Sunday morning regularly. He rema ne , as
before, a 00d son and rather, and always sent
home par of his ay to take care of his father and
mother. With all is dash and reputation, he never
became vain and pulled up, but was as jolly andqu
of fun, when dut was over, round the camp-fire, as
if he were still a oy at school.

:90 the year wore on, the cavalry winning battle
alter battle. General Lee was first defeated in
Pennsylvania at the great battle of Gettysburg, and
driven hack into Virginia, and followed all the we
to Culpepper near the Rapidan river, where hot
armies went into winter-quarters. .

In. the next spring the Army of the Potomac
received a new general once more. Hooker had
been replaced by General Meade, just before Gettys-
burg, and now General Grant came from the west
and was t over Mcade's head. General I’leasanton
was sen out west, and another western general
named Sheridan, was sent to Virginia to command
the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac.
This was in 1864. .

As it turned out, General Sheridan was just the
man who was wanted. and Custer suited him exact-
ly. General Pleasanton had been a good gener
but Sheridan was a better one, and he soon toun
out that Custer could do his (lot better than any
general in the cavalry corps. at ear General
Grant drove Lee slowly but surely back on Rich-
mans; and by the end of the summer had him be-
lie in Petershurg to the south of Richmond,
while Sheridan, with the cavalry, made iong expedi-
tions all over the country behind Lee‘s army, de-
stroying the railroads.

Then Lee tried to get Grant away tram Peters
bull-f by sending an army down the Shenandoah
Va is to threaten the city of Washington, but
Gran would no let go. He only sent away Sheridan
with part of his cavalry and some infant . to m
the Southern army of General Early. e end of
it was. that Sheridan bent Early in three great
battles,and drove him into Richmond: and finally Lee
was forced to leave Richmond and fl ' to the open
count , where Sheridan and Grant to owed so fast,
Custer s men at the very head of the column. that
the Southern army surrendered April 9th. 1865, and
ended the long four years' war.

And all thistime the :man who had done most
work was General ter, now a major—general in
command of the Old Third Division. the some who
was once little Autie Custer son of the New Rumle

and farmer. e lo division too

more prisoners, three times over t an it had men
and co lured story can that o enemy ever fired
mar ha ‘ (on a single

3:130 Mm“ noran’uglo

'anre cg: than all Iu rut (11‘ the
“it?”

come.

no' peace was come. and all the arm of
volunteers was discha
with them went Gener

and sent home. ng
Custer. with his wife. after

 

 

  

Dashing Dragoon.

 

a year’s stay in Texas, and in 1860 was “mustered
out " from being a eneral, and found himself once
more plain Captain star of the Regular army.
CHAPTER V.
A owns or men—0N m miss-«main: TACTICS.
We are now coming to the happiest time of Cus-
ter’s life. At first it was prett- for him, of
course, to come down from be ng a general to a
simple captain, but that did not last long. In 1866
Con ress determined to add some more iments
to i e re lar army, and as Custer was t e best
cavalry o cer in the country, the President oifereil
to ve him the command of one of these regiineni>.
cu ed the Seventh Cavalry. He was not made a full
colonel, though. There Were so many old ofilcers.
who had been generals of the volunteers before
Custer was made one, that it was difllcult to find
laces for all of them and as it was, all the lazy fel-
ows who had done little to deserve success were
furiously jealous of Custer. So one of the old gen-
tlemen called General A. J. Smith, was made col-
onel o the Seventh, while Custer, who was made
lieutenant-colonel, the next oflicer in a icgiment, hail
the full command of the men, for Smith was too old
to be able to get out. . .
Custer found himself, therefore, in the end anew.
once more ordered on active service, for which lie
was very glad. Like all honest men he hated to‘leaii
a lazy. useless life, and draw tpay from the Govern
ment without doin anythin or it. A great many
worthless men, w 0 have riends in Countess, gri
into the regular army every year, with no other ob
ject than to lead inst such a lazy life but all such
men Custer hearti y despised, as other hrnve, honest
In time of peace it is nothin to be proud
of, to be an arm officer, unless there something
useful to do, an some one to protect from harm.
Custer knew that there was only one place it‘ll
whens the army was really useful, and that was cm
on the Elaine, to protect the frontier settlers from
the rob cries and murders of the Indian war parties.
Very glad was he then when he was sent out to Fort
Rliley, in Kansas, to take charge of the Seventh Cav-
a

men do.

ry.
At the time he went out, the engineers were build-
ing the Kansas Pacific Railroad, which now carries
passengers from New York to San Francisco in one
week. But when Custer came to Fort Riley, in the
winter of 1868 ve little progress had been made in
the road. It had een started, in those days, from
both ends of the line; and there remained, tween
the California terminus and that at Fort Riley, a
gag of more than a thousand miles. over which the
h lane roamed as they leased. That was many
'ears ago. remember, an a good many things have
appened since then.

Fort Riley, where the eastern end of the Kansas
road terminated, was the post to which Custer was
assigned, and where the officers of his new regi-
ment began to flock in. The reader must not ini-
ngine from the name “ fort," great frowning stone
walls and guns, such as we call a fort in the East.
Fort Riley was nothing but a square inclosure sur-
rounded with low barracks where the soldiers
lodged. Near it was the railway station, and a num»
ber of low groggeries and boarding-houses, where
the railway laborers lived. To get the money out
of these poor fellows and the soldiers, the whole or
the little town swarmed with amblers, thieves and
loose characters of all sorts, en and women. in-
side the fort itself, the place being guarded by son-
trles, things were uiet, the bad charactem not Le-
ing allowed there, ut in the town and round the
station, Fort Riley was a little hell upon earth. It is a
stra thing, and shows what a curse money may
some es be, that this state of society followed the
{wide Railroad as it was built, steadily tracking
ltin-from stage: to station as 41;, adgnced, always

gem is an eves t mono v
to {h‘gfiaborere ’ In
Here Custer and his wife were obliged to stay all

  

  

2+

‘ were stronfily guarded with soldiers. Every now

The Dashing Dragoon. 9

 

|
the winter, he drillin his men and seeing to the dis- :
clpllne of his new 0 cers till in the spring of 1S6? a ‘
grand expedition was ordered ainst the Indians,
and Custer, with his new Seven Cavalry was or-
dered to leave the fort and join General kancock,
the commander of all that country at another fort ?
called Barker, ninet miles west, Fort Barker was
on the Smoky Hill ork or the Kansas river, right ‘
in the center of the State of Kansas. If you have a
late large map of that State, you can follow Custer’s
campaigns hereafter, as I tel the story. V

You may ask what the Indians had been domg to
make this expedition necessary. The {act was, the
Indians knew well enough that, by the time the rail-
road was finished, their good days on the plains I
would be all over. Not be ng strong enough to pre- 1
vent the white men from working, they contented 
themselves by killing every man, woman and child 5
they could catch away from help, and annoying the i
stage-roads in particular, _ , _ l

Between the two ends of the Pacmc Railroad, m 
those days, there run a line of st e-coaches along
the Smok Hill Fork, out to Co orado. On this r
stage- the railway was afterward built, but, till
it was laid, the Indians could come down on the road
to rob whenever they pleased, unless the coaches

and then ey would do so, and then gallop away,
after killing a dozen fassengers. You may ask why
the soldiers at the orts did not follow them. So
the did. but the Indians never attacked unless the
sol iers were along way off, and before they could
be followed the were out of sight, when it was use-
less for the sol iers to pursue.

hut all the while that the Indian war parties were
domg this, the tribes were pretending to be at per—
feet on with the. white men. All the winter of
1866 ndians used to come into the forts and Indian
agencies, to get blankets and beef from the Govern-
ment. Perha some people may not understand
what I mean this, or how the Indians had an
such right, so will try to explain in as few we s
as I can.

We know all America once belonged to the In-
dians. Bit by bit, first one tribe and then another,
sold their lands to the white men, or had them taken
away, beginning u in the State of Massachusetts,
and so on out to California. Some white men, like
William Penn, paid the Indians honestl for their
land._ Others, suchns Daniel Boone an the Ken-
tuckians, moved right in and took the land by force,
driving awa the Indians and killing them. Out on
the plains o the Missouri the land was held by sev’
eral great tribes, called the Sioux, Cheyennes and
Arapahoee. At one time there were also aw-
nees, Arickarees and Blackfeet, but these tribes are 1
almost extinct now. The Sioux roamed over Kan- ?
sas, Nebraska, and Montana, in 1867, up to the
British line the Cheyennes had Kansas and Colo-
rado, and t e Arapahoes stretched down throu h
Indian Territory to Texas, where they were met y
the Comanches and Kiowas. The Sioux are the
Northern Indians, the Cheyennes the Western, and
the Comanches and Arapahoes are South-western.
It was rincipall the Cheyennes that were in trou-
ble in 1 All he summer before Custer‘s arrival, 1
they had been plundering the stage-roads murder- ;
ing ssengers, attacking the station, and stealing
the orses.

Beyond the Mississippi, the Government, being ;
anxious to keep peace with the Indian tribes, has at .
various times made treaties with them, by which it '
was to pay them for their lands, so much a ‘
m, blankets and food, if the Indians_will only

p on certain lands rederred for them in the Iii-
dion Territory, and hence called “Reservations.”
The whole of the Indian Territory is marked on?
thus in reservations for the different tribes; and
whenever they choose to come to them they find a
store there, and an “ Indian Agent," as he is called
«a Government officer—to issue blankets and cat-
tle, The Indians are told that it they stay on there- ;

servations, the Great Father—as they call the Presi.
dent— will take care of them, but that, if the go
ofl he will send soldiers after them to punish t em.

fiut the Indians were altogether too smart for the
agents. They used to come in and get their beef
and blankets, and bu rifles from the agents, one
day; while the next t efi‘were ofl killing peaceable
farmers and travelers. his sort of thing lasted all
the. summer, while there was glenty of grass for
their ponies. and in the winter t ey used to come in,
and remain quiet and peaceable, to all seeming, or
else go oil and hide in the mountain valleys till
spring.

it was determined, in 1861’, that the Government
should try and break up this system, by making the
Indians come in on their proper reservations. So
General Hancock started out with iiit'antiiy, cavalry,
and artillery, in the month of April, from ort Riley,
Custer commanding the cavalry.

The winter was over, but the 5 ring was very late,
indeed. The column was heade south-west toward
the Arkansas river, where the Cheyennes had their
cam , when a tremendous snow-storm visited the
sold ers, and com lied them to go into camp, and
start tires to avoi being frozen to death.

As it was, the poor cavalry horses were huddled
together at the picket-rope, so stiff and cold they
could hardly stand, and it was feared that Custer's
regiment would lose all its horses. The only way
they kept the poor creatures from lying down and
dying, was to have a man walking up and down the
line all night long, with a great whip, making the
horses move about. This fearful cold only lasted
one night, but Custer never forgot it. Two or three
days after the come to fine weather and green
grass; and Gus r, for the first time in his life, saw
an Indian tribe read for war.

The expedition su denly came on the Indian camp.
and all the warriors had come out to protect their
women and children, for they fancied the soldiers
had come to kill them all.

Such, however, were not Hancock‘s orders. In
those days the Government was just starting what
is called the " Peace Policy “ and the soldiers were
ordered not to hurt the Indians if it could possibly
be avoided. Hancock called a bait, and so did the
Indians: and a council took place.

General Hancock rode out, and Custer went with
him, along with a number of staff-officers, while on
the other side out came Pawnee Killer, Little Bull
and Big Bull (and who knows what other kind of
Bull; and Beam), to have a talk with the white
chie .

Custer was ve much struck with the a pearance
of these Indian c iefs, and they seemed to ave been
equally taken with his looks. He wore his long
curls still, but he had dropped all his old velvet an

old. Instead of this, he now wore awhite deerskin

unting shirt, with its fringed cape and sleeves,
while a broad white hat crowned his head, and his
lower limbs were covered with blue trowsers and
high boots. He wore a sword, had two handsome
revolvers in his holsters, and generally carried a
light sporting rifle. The Indians were so much
struck with is a pearance, as he sat on his thor-
oughbred horse, t e picture of health and courage.
that they named him at once the “Big Yellow
Chief.

On his part, Custer admired the looks of the In-
dians very much. Every chief was stripped to the
waist. Thev wore silver bracelets on their arms,
necklaces of grizzly bears’ claws, and silver medals
on their naked breasts. On their heads each were
his “ war-bonnet,“ a cap of woli‘skin or tiger cat, the
head of the animal grinning above the man‘s head,
while a crest of eagle’s feathers rose high above.
and then fell down the back, as far asthe horse‘s
(‘l'cuIL The chiefs wore scarlet or buckskin legv

ings, fringed with horse hair, and some had the
ri e made of human hair, from the scalps of
whi peo Ie. Every man bore a lance, bow and
quiver. an a rifle. generally a repeater, and all had

 

 

   

m.

“'4 rt

.m‘ ,rienoe.

M
‘w

10

revolvers in their belts, some one, some as man as
tour or five. They rode the sgu'ited little In n
es fipeckled and spotted wit all sorts of colors,
ull of is and spirit. These horses had feathers
stuck into the headstalls of their bridles or knotted
Into their manes, While every one had a scalp, with
long black hair, han from his bit under hxs chin.
Hive one was and le with the light Comanche
sadd e. which all the Indians now use, and most had
scarlet saddle blankets.

Such wild, ficturvsque, dare-devil warriors you
never saw, an it seemed for some time as if it were
impossible tostnvo ed a. fight for long. However,
the chiefs who came forward were peaceebi dis~
posed. and it was finally agreed that the sodiers
should advance and encam near the Indians, prom-
ising to do them no harm. t was General Hancock’s
objeci to get. the chiefs to come to council, and then
to induce hem to bring in the sqnaws and children
to their reservation. *3

The Indians promised everything very fairly and
sweetly. and then the column moved on. They ex—
pected to find the Indian camp just over the next
swell, but it turned out that the Cheyennes had
fooled them, for it was ten miles 01f. As they ad-
vanced, all the Cheyenne braves rode away before
them, along with a good many warriors on foot.
The soldiers marched their best the cavalry actual—
] trotted all the way. and so did the batto ', while
i 6 Indians did not seem to be making muc haste.

 

All the same, though. the soldiers found the Chey- .‘

canes lea them fast behind so that, long before
thgg got to e village. not an ndinn was in eight.
en at last they saw the vill e, an nssem lege
of some three hundred white lo ges, pitched in a
beautiful green grassy hollow. surrounded with

trees, with a little stream running by it and Custer i

was in sight of his first Indian camp.

CHAPTER v1. ' :
INDIAN CUNNINan AND SADDW FOR J.

mun. ;,

Guzman. Hmcocx, as the soldiers ipproached the
camp, noticed that the Indians were very uneasy.
They all fancied that the soldiers had come to get
them into a trap and kill them. To calm their anx-
iety. and artl for fear of lndian treachery, the
general 0 e his camp pitched a mile from that
of the Cheyennes. and surrounded it with sentrjes.
Then, as it was late in the (in . he ordered a feast,
and entertained some of the
ter than ever. and all swore that. they were going to
be very good. ' ‘ ’

Evening came 0

 

and the soldiers were all sound asleep. when one o
the general‘s Indian scouts, who had been prowling

round the Che enne camp, came hurrying be. in z

the middle of t 9 night, with the news that the u-

’

dians were stealing away, leaving the village stand-f. .

“Then there was a. fine bustle, as may be supposed.
General Hancock was furious. and ordered all the
cavalry out, under Custer. to surround the village
and capture all the Indians that were left, dead or
alive. As uickly as th could be waked. but with-
out soun ng on bug es, the cavalrymen were
routed out of the r tents, saddled up in haste. and
rode out to surround the Village. There wuss bright
moonlight, and they could see the ivhito lodges
grouped uner the trees, like rows of ghosts, but
not a figure or fire was visible, By the time the vil-
lage was quite surrounded, they found out when
, too late, that the Indians had fled entirely, caving
not a soul behind.
- Custer thus took his first lesson in Indian tricks,
and he never forgot the results of that night’s expe-
,, He had ound that it is never safe to let an
Indian go, when once yuan have him in sight. Inn
of cunning, the din is sure to win. Nothin
was oft but to report to General Hancoclt. and th

as

The Dashing Dragoon.

efs, who talkwi bet~ ,

6. then night: and, it was duly 1
arranged that the ndians should come to a grand .
council in the morning. Then everything was quiet l saddle with the other.

i

  

I general at once ordered Custer to take all the env-
alry and follow the Indians, hoping to catch them.
All the rest of the night was spent in gettslgg the
men ready for next dogs trip. t was im he to
. follow the trail of the (lions till dayligh - and very
difficult then. Left to themselves the soldiers could
never have done it, bunfilong with the e ‘ lion
, were some twenty or th y Iconic, some w and
some Indians. It was on these that they had to‘de—
pend to catch the Cheyennes. All that night the
cavalry soldiers were u and working. Each man
had to get three days pork and hard tack, and a
‘ weeks‘ coflee and sugar ready for the march.
Starting on a long scout after Indians is not so
I ens . First, you must put your coifee and sugar in
; litte b s, and tie them up very tight, or the olt-
ing of 0 horse will shake them all over the so. (ile-
bags, on the pork and hard tack. Each article must
be wedged in so tight it cannot be moved. Then the
men draw fifteen pounds of oats apiece, supposed
to be enough on the plains, along with the grass to
keep a. horse t days. This grain goes into a
long, narrow canvas bag, and fills it up I ht, till it
looks like a huge sausage. Then the end 0 the be
is tied, and this sausage is stra&ped on the back 0
the saddle so that it cannot sh e about.

hour. Thatis true at it takes'r‘hnother halt-hour
forflthe sergeants of the diflerent companies to o to
the commissery and have their rtions welg out
to be distributed afterward to t e men. one one.
'lhen all the horses' feet have to be looked .
a shoe is loose it must be, taken off and reschtori‘t
wouldi never do for a. horse to lose a shoe out on s
, long mu‘rch. That horse would soon go lame and
have to be left behind. --
At last, however, everything was ready, justu the
' first streaks of dawn were caning in the east. The:
wagon train of the Seventh Cave was on hw'
nessed up and ready to move out. T en the bush!
sounded ' to horse,” and each orderly sergennt or-
dered his company to lead out their horses. There
they stood in along line, each man at his horse‘s
head, till they had counted fours. beginning on the
right. each man calling successively, “one—two-
thrce—fonr: one—two—three—tonr, ' to the end at
the line. Then each sergeant turned to his “fidelz
who sat on his horse a little behind him, and touch
his cap. A moment later, all the captains called
“Prepare to mount.“~Atthatword each No. lsndlio.
319d out his horse to the front. the fiber number!
1 standin still. This was to give the men room to
get on t eir horses. At the same time and all m»
ether, each, man put his foot in the stirrup. seized
is horse‘s mane in one hand, the mmel of the
“Mount!” 5 outed all the
captains. In another moment, just like a me]:
every man of the Seventh Covaigggpmng
his leg over, and took his seat. the is
, a, cavalry re iment starts out. A civilla
think a go deal of fuss is made about n
thing, but that is on] the beginning of what roadie”

call “ discipline." very men has his num mi
{)lace, and never forgets it, and so, no matter
he crowd, everything is alwa 's in order. 

A {cw minutes later, the w 016 regiment _
out n1 columns of tours, followed by its on ' if
forty great wagons. It may be said wh did they
take t e wagons, when the men carried three Glys‘

way, and that neither Custer nor any of his ‘ ,
knew how for they would have to go Mots, v
caught the Cheyennes. The reason thech

food? It must be remembered that the great
of the West stretch for thousands of milu§

visions on the horses was that the might be c to
five their Kissinger a three ays’ at“ In, .
e. u w e wagons co 5 ' .
wlliole manfilh. . a “they  ‘
am my res era a these lath aim
lve them an (ice of what life on the s rfi
9,.when there is a home

largebod of 'men
the y

Remember that on plain there are ooh! two

One may say, wellball this combo done in half an. ‘

W> '
my
in In M

    
  
 
 
 
   
    
  
  
    
 
   
   
  
   
    
  
    
   
 
 
 
  
   
   
  
   
   
   
  
   
  
   
    
  
   
     
   
   
   

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 
  
  

    

. soldiers don’t

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

things to be found for food—grass for the horses—
game for the men. It is not always so easy to find
game as one may think, and when it is found. it is
not so easy to catch it. MoreoverK one hnfl'nlo will
feed three hundred men; and the beventh Cara .
officers and all, numbered nearly four hundred.
they had to take the new with them. and of
course they could oniykgo as as the wagons went,
that is to say at e w or slow trot.

Perhaps you be? to see now one reason why the

onto the Indians oftener than they
do. It is because the Indians, accustomed from
childhood to live on the plain, have no wagons. 'lheir
ponies live on grass, they live on buffalo and other
game. We then, you may say they cannot kee
togetherin urge numbers anymore than the so -
diers, or they would starve too. That is just what
is the matter. Whenever hey want to move fast
and escape the soldiers, the are obliged to split
11 into little parties, and scat er in all directions, so
t at they can live on hunting, eatin any animal
that comes in their way. They only so}: in larfig
villages in places where game is very p entiful,
time of peace, sending out their hunting-parties for
and wide.

But all this time we are keeping the Seventh Cav-
alry and Custer wsi . when we ought to he on the
trail of the Cheye" es. It makes no difference,
however. The soldiers couldn’t find the trail any
more thandyou could. The ground is as hard as a
rock, and ere are so many pen and horse-tracks
that you or lvcouldn‘t make h or tail of them.

13 stay; there are those with Custer who can
find a trail, and just see them 0, nowl There
they come out of com at full g op, dressed in
grey! and brown, with o d fur cap big white hats,

uckskin coats, red shirts, dirty on ragged-looking,
with wild matted hair and big beards. mounted on
guise, biz horses and mules; several dirt -look_in

dians among them with striped huh erchie
round their heads, and their shirts inc 011$ be-
hind. Do you know those fellows? ey are the
anon“. Some have been on sdrunk all night. Al-

'nth all have been gambling; and there‘s not one of

them you would like to nice in a. dark alone.
But. rough asthey look. there is more n those fel-
lows than you think. Look there! There’s one
very discreet from the rest. Be rides a beautiful
sleek black mam, a racer and has n silver-mounted
. ddle and bridle. That lenow's a dandy. See how
clean his buckskin suit is, all trimmed with beads,
and how carefully his hair is curled. Did you ever
see s hendsomer face in your life, with its big:
thin nosqand that long sil'l‘tg mustache? And w t
a perfect cavalier. As he ' es near Custer, you see
that they ere very much alike in flzure, tall and
slender ong-linibed and graceful. Their faces are
not unlike, only Custer's curls and mustache are

ellow, this fellow’s are dark. That man is Wild
fill. the best pistol—shot sud thobrsvest scout on the

' frontier, but as quiet and ceable a man as you‘d
wish to fill as quiet as tor. It wouldn‘t do to
and him,,though, for Wild Bill has killed

t:l‘i'gir‘einen than any scout on the frontier and the
worst daggeradoes are afraid of him. If he points
s l omen he never need shoot twice. He

eve$ time. , ,
Will lld Bill find the trail for Custer, No.
There are some things no white scout can do like
windian,nndsllthe scoutsqu backsssoonas
they get to the abandoned camp, and let the Indians
to the front. The column of soldiers is a few
‘ off belted. and waiting for the long
file of wagons to lumber out, and the white scouts

m clustered in shoot at the further end oi'tne
v age.

See, the Indian scouts—two Delaware. 9. Shaw-
nee,a s Cherokee~have lea 03 their
horses, and . h out into s circle round the fur-
ther'end of the v The whole und is cov-
ered with pony t crossing on recrossi in
mm confusion. The scouts run out imxtiflm

so many hounds t .
swm§ing lope, pee ng at the tracks as they go, on
hunt ng all over the und. _

For some time no a. word is spoken. Wild Bill
and the white scouts watch the Indians searching.
Now the lumbering noise of advancing wagons stops
and the soldiers are all at a. halt. Here comes Cus-
ter, out to thefront, to see i! the scouts have found
the grail. He rides a beautiful bright bay horse,
thoroughbred, and looks like an hing but a soldier
in his jaunty buckskin dress. 1 round his horse
see. those dogs (tapering); There are Blucher and
Maids, his famous Scotc deerhounds, glven_him by
Mr. Barker, of Detroit. There are several fox-
hounds and a white S ltz dog, and Custer looks
more like 8. huntsmzin t on '13 general.

Hark! Just as Custer comes up, they hear a. long,
loud cry from one of the Indians. t comes from
that dingy-looking fellow. with a. dirty face, one or
two broken feathers in his hfir Dirty as he looks,
he is the smartest trailer of his nation, one of the
tribe of Delawares who once lived in Maryland. He
has found the traill

Away sees Custer, dogs and all and the scouts
follow. Vhen they come up, the belawsre points
to the ground. Astmlght o
from the confusion of truck and you can see other
furrows near it streaking o in one direction from
the camp. These furrows look as it a man had been
draggin a. stick behind him in the dust, on each
side of There it however pony tracks be-
tween the furrow so l seems that a. horse must
have carried the sticks.

Sovhe did. Those furrows are the marks of what
is calleda“lodge-lpole trsi." They are made by
the ends of the 0 es with which the Indians put up
their lodges. en the sqtuaws take the lodge
down, they tie the poles toga her at one end, th w
them over a pen ‘s back and let the other end ti ail.

uble furrow runs out

Then on the po behind the ny, the place the

bundle of ski makes the odge. T en, on the

Pony. puts. d all the children they have

Iying around (1 Mr. Indian is ready to move
case.

ole trail, you
ll ren are along,
the Indians, for

Whenever you see a. fresh ladie-
mn. know that the women and c
an there is achance of catching
the never run ewe from their families. In this
ins nce the-scouts ed seen, ion of broad trails
of horselmenkgll mginfixln g ten? t Emotions/831i”:

urposeym eve p n, u w a. eywsn
End was’ the main - trail. The knew that the
ludinns, in trying to escape, wou d s . read out just
like a. fan on purpose toconceul the r movements.
but they new that i! there wase. slnzle lo car-
ried 03, it probably belon ed to the chief’s omi] ',
and that the Indians woul be sure to come hack 0
their chief at last.

So, without waiting anymore. Custer gave the
signal; the column started, and away went the
scouts on the little narrow lodge-pole trail, careless
of the pony tracks elsewhere, just as the sun rose
overthe dry plains of Kansas.

CHAPTER VII.
THE PRONG‘EORNS—A MISADVM FIRST

BUFFALO.

Tns lod pole trail soon became so lain that
scouts co d follow it at a. trot and w 'enever n.
piece of soft ground came along they could see the
marks half a mile ahead. The scouts ‘ renounced
the trail about twelve hours old, and was clear
that the Indians were owhere near. 80 the column
swept on its wuyas est as the w as could be
driven. the scouts ranging on so for and as to be
almost out of sight at mes, the column of cavalry
may about half a mile in front of the wagons.

here they were on the broad

grass now sprung well up, ,
end dog-holes'l' that make riding so dangerous. The
mounts-y stretched away inverse like 5 great. sea on

 

 

ell sides. and u the sun some out Mthemonotony

    



to find a. scent, at a long“ ' '

   

125:7“:

 

  

v2

12 s

 

  

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

rof the scene and the want of rest began to make
the officers sleepy. Every now and then in the dis-

tance, one might see a few antelo es standing on

the swells. watching the soldiers wi h curiosity; and

some distant moving s ks, when examined

through a telescope, turn out to be a herd of mus-

tangs scouring away.
Custer very soon became tired of riding at the

head of his column. when all the scouts were away. i

He knew that the Indians were out of reach at res- ‘
ant, and he was always devotedly fond of hu
He could not resist the temptation of going off after
some antelopes There was a little group right
ahead of the column. some two miles ofif. and he
made up his mind to have one if he could.

"Come. Blucherl Come, Maldai" he cried, and
away he went over the plain with his two gallant
grayhounds
astonishment as he came, till he had topped and
turned a swell, and lost sight of the column and his.
game at the same time. Then he pulled up, and
rode more leisure] . skirting the foot of the next
swell to leeward o the antelopes in ho es of sur-
prising them. Sure enough, when e ro e over the
next dge. there were the pretty creatures not three

ng. i

The antelopes stood watching him in a

l

away went his lendid horse. full speed. the d

running ahead. sg‘he buffalo looked bee and aw -
word, but somehow it puzzled even Cu r‘s splendid
horse to catch up with it. tired as the horse was
with the run after the sntelo However. the
dots had recovered their breat “this time. and
they had nothing to carry. so the skimmeg‘sway
over the plain, and were soon up w tn the bi alo.

Look a that! Brave Blueber! The silent dog
made a grand leap and caught the alo by the
ear. No use. Blucher. He’s too much for ivlou. See,
the great black beast steps a moment. s skes its
huge head, and sends poor Blucher flylnz, taking a
mouthful of hair with him, for he wouldn’t let go.
! Custer is coming up now. If he had a common
horse. it would have ven up long ago, but a thor-
oughbred will run til it drops dead.

Away goes the buffalo again. Maids after it on the
other side. Good Maids! See. she tries the same
leap as old Blucher, but misses it. The buffalo gives
a low, angry bellow and makes a dash of its t
head at the brave dog. No use old fellow. M da is
too quick. There comes Blucher again, plucky as
ever, and heads off the buflalo, barking loudly. The
great brute comes to a trot. and now Custer is up

hundred yards off still staring at the distant wagons 2 within twenty feet of the old fellow.

which they could see through a. (lip in the swell.
The next moment the nntelopcs saw Custer. and
then—you have seen race-horses run, but you never
saw anything run like those prongdmrns. Away
went Custer at the top speed of his thoroughbred
horse, and away went the two rayhounds. stretch-
ing out straight in their frantic eagerness. They
might as we] have chased a bird. The ontelopes
left them behind as if Custer had ridden on a cart-
horse and the d s had been fat is -dogs. Before
one could say “ nck Robinson “t e prong-horns
were out of n-shot, and then they began to stop
and'look bac , as if inviting the hunter to come on.
In those days Custer was:very on at bunting
nntelopes, or he never would have

 
  
  
  
  

down. For a mile or two they awiftest ani-
mals on the continent, thong can’t last if i
hunted by rela s of horses. r, he find all .
thisto learn ye . so he kept on, imes getting

near the sine. but alwa s distance whenever the
got fcrfihgsned, till at has he gave it up as a bad 50
and ed back his dogs.

There was not much run left in the gm hounds
They were uiie exhausted already. for hey had
been fed so igh in camp that they were too fat to
run well. , So back went master. horse and dogs. all
feeling pretty well disappointed. There was no luck
for them that day. ,

The chase had carded Custer quite out of sight of
the wagons, and he. hardly knew where he was. So
he to all around the horizon for land-
marks. Nothing1 all round but the reen . plains.
dotted with plate so of bushes, one hi ock just like
another. .,

See, what‘s that!

Custer started in his saddle, and shaded his eyes
with gigclfinggt“ l‘lqoltJ a.l halting]me himfi wtas a
great , at y no 'r u a green 0 mu,

(1 it needed no one to tell Custer. any more than

would you. had on seen it, what it was. He had
never seen one in is life before except in a icture.
but there stood a real live befall: waiting or him.

Whom for sntelopes now? A moment later
Custer had turned his horse, and was going straight
for the buffalo. The beast was feeding, with its
been turned any and the general was able to ride
softly up to wl , a few hundred yards, when the
buffalo suddenly tossed up its head, wheeled round
to look, and then started off at a lumbering gallop.

“ Hurrai now we‘re off." thought Custer: and

“ Back. do backl" he shouts. and out comes hi
big revolver. ow the buffalovistarts off again and
Custer after him. See, the hunter points his metal
at the beast. right in the midst of the black mass"
behind the shoulder. Now to fetch the heartl The

law] quivers and settles to a good aim. and not ten
eet separated man and game both at full speed,
when—7m .I—round comes the o d hull with a furious
bellow at the horse. and the .charger shles off so
suddenly that Custer, who is leaning over to shoot,
finds himself ost oif. Crack! a flash. I report.
and the next moment down goes the horse, shot
dead. while Custer goes flying one Say the pistol
the other, right in front of the h alo, on the

 

I ground !

Ahother moment and the beast will be on him,
when Maids and Blucher fall at the buffalo on the
other side, and the great animal turns away with a
snort of rage, and gallops off, leavin Custer alone.

Here‘s a nice ending for a bu ale-hunt, truly.
The hunter rises from the ground, shaken and
bruised, and looks ruefuily at his dead horse. A
thousand dollars gone, shot by accident. and not
even a buflaio to show for it. (.‘uster‘s linger had
been on the trigger when the buffalo charged. and
as he clutched at his reins to keep his balance, he
had killed his own horse.

So ended Custer‘s first buffalo-hunt; and so. or
nearly as badly, ends the first buffalo-hunt of every
man who goes after buffaloes. n

He sat down on the dead horse. pretth t
down, and presently the two dogs came s iy 
ting back, as if to what was-the matter , :
their master. Herewas a pretty situation to 
Out on the plains without a horse. no riflev-for he
had left that behind—not but two pistols and a
sword and he had no idea w ere he was. "Well,"
thought Custer, as he always did. “it’snouse crying
over spilt milk. I must find the column. or maybe
the Indians will find me.“ _ -

So he started off on foot. following: like a sensible
man. the back trail of his he
he had come from. and he {)6
the column or its trail if went on long enough;
He was saved the trouble of a long tram . however.
No sooner had he topped the next swell so he saw
the dust of his own men. the cavalry fiuttcr- ‘
ing high above it- and within half anhour he had
another horse, and was ridigg along at the head of
his column. as if nothing h he posed.

 

‘ These “ -holes," as the plainsmen call them.
are the burrow: of the Prairie-dog, or American
marmot. an animal that 1 yes in regular villages of
331:, so close togethen as to be dangerous to ride 

I

 

.1 .m
h

A part
went oi! and took the equipmen s from the den;
horse. while the column pursued its way.

That day the scouts went on v re idly the
.trail of the Cheyennes getting plai eran p er.
Fresh trails or parties of horsemen began to on:
{it from each side. showins that theseoutswsn r ht

. e knew where”,
that hemightll’nd ‘ ,

 

 

4.,
l.

:

 

  

 .1...

 

"I v:

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

i
in their supposition, The scattered lndians were
beginning to reunite, thinking themselves out or
danger. Several small lodge-pole trails joined the
first. till the main trail was as plain as a road, and as
ea? to follow.

oreover the earth had not fallen down and

had, as t would have if the dew had fallen on it.

sshowed that part of the trail must have been i
made since daylight; how long? was the question. j
The head trailer said just after sunrise, and 1.118. rcaw
son will give you some idea of what trailing is in its

nature. “ ,
"See dirt all stuck up hi lumps, general, he said .
in his broken English. ' Maybe so, must be wet, :
much heap. Dirt little bit stick now—see. ' ~
Heogointed to the ledge-pole marks. The dirt at
the goof the furrows was in good-sized lumps
and seemed to be stuck ther. Then he scraped
another furrow close besi e it, and showed how the
dry dust fell away in small particles on each side.
It was lain that the dirt must have been wet when
the e-poles scraped along, and, as there had -
been no rain, it must have been before the dew
dried—that is, just after sunrise. It was now ei ht
hours since sunrise, so that the column had pro -
hly ned four hours on the Cheyennes, who had
3 twelve hours ahead or the soldiers.
This was very encouraging. The wagons were
ushed to a trot, and the regiment was divided into
‘ ve or six little short columns, each movmg abreast
of the others at some five hundred ards_ off. By
this means the soldiers command a View of a
In expanse of count , and the horses in the rear
of e column were no tired by trotting tmcatch

up.

The trail grew fresher whenever the ground was
soft, but sometimes they came to long hard stretches
of barren ground, only covered with the short buf-
falo grass, and as hard as a rock underneath. All
the same the Delaware: and Shawneea pushed on,
pointing out the trail by a few bent blades of grass,
quite confident theyrgvere right.

Present] , away In the column, as they turned
the ed 13% a swe what should they all see but a
herd 0 (any or (ty buflaloes, right in front of
their path. Custer was delighted. Every one re-
alised that the lndisn‘ must still be out of reach, or
the buffalo would not be grazing fluietly. The gen-
eral was dcterfmifiied tomkill a u ale and wipe out ‘
thedi raceo temo ng. . ‘

A sh’hrt cdnsultation was held, and away went 
Custer. with four or five oilicers who could be
spared. after those buflalo. About two miles ahead 1
wasslittie river with very steep banks, which the J
scouts said would delay the wagons at least an hour, 1
so there was time for a hunt. ' Moreover the river I

 

“might stop the herd.

So aw went Custer on' a fresh horse, outstrip- i
ng all omcers, and they were within a few
ginde yards of the herd before the animals took I
thoahrm. Then what a scamperiogl The horses ;
seemed to crazy with eagerness. leaping halibut 3
“at their In as it were, and coming up rapidly ,

with the builslo. ’

Now they‘re up, Custer first. No mistake this
time. He‘s into -I.he herd, which is soatteflngand .
singles out a large fat cow. Now he’s within range.
Crackl No horse killed that time. You might hear ‘
the slap of the bullet into the buflalos side. She ‘
shakes her head and turns viciousl on Custer, but .
hasnotfo tten the lesson 0! t 0 old bull A.
horse 8 es. he shies with it. and the bim'alo.

herself unable to catch the horse, turns and
trots on. Bound spins Custer, and again comes the
cracker his pistol.

That did the business. The cow ers and :
on herknees, and a moment later own she Ii

1' i
firstbuflalo; and as he ulls
mfg-’3.“me pistol-that Miloth
being hard at work beside him. .,

a. 
{i

g?

. shots out of two revolvers, and was read

‘ so lain was it. and it was er tantalizin
'togaitfortbesol Ky

CHAPTER VIII.

Tan 5mm. snows liO'i‘—C<JLD~—PETER8 our—swan
ss'rss'ra.

Tin omcers with Custer were all old soldiers, good
riders and good shots, but they found it a very dif-
ferent job to what they expected, killing a buflalo.
Only one of them succeeded in bag his game.
He was a cool old fellow who never till he was
surl'of his mark and he took three shots before he
finished his bud'alo. Another fired away twelve
to swear
he hit his bull every time but the old allow lum-
hered away and, as no b ood was found, the cap-
tain was obliged to own up he might have missed
every time, owing to his excitement; Another hit
his “buffalo fairly first shot, for he saw the blood
spurt, but it was u in the neck, and the great brute
turned on him so erociousl that he chased horse
and rider oi! the field. A the rest had a good
laugh at that oflieer, you ma be sure, and he didn't
get over it for a lon time. ext chance he had he
stuck to his buff 0 till he killed him. It takes
courage to hunt a bull buffalo, as well as to light a
battle. It's not as easy as it looks.

By this time the herd had all dispersed, and the,
horsemen were at the banks of the stream where
they waited for the column to come up. As they
did so up galloped the Delaware head trailer to Cus-
ter in great exciiemenh

“Look, eneral, look!” he cried, and pointed to
the other a do of the stream. It run between high
steep banks, in the midst of a charming little green
valley, covered with vs long grass and bushes.
There, on the other side, led to a tree, were two In»
dian panics, saddled and bridlecl.

The scout gave a cry and waved his hand in
the air, and via) came t 9 other scouts in a hurry,
headed by id Bill. They had not been hunti .
but attending business of trailing. They‘fil
saw what was tter, and down the steep bank
went the who , and over the river, Custer in

their midst.
The scent ng very hot new. The ponies
tied to the are evidently Indian property,

and they were both covered with sweat, not wt dry.
Whoever owned them could not be far from them.
A little way on were the ashes of a number of fires,
and in one of them the embers were still smoking.
The Indians must have stopped for bresldast, not
in re than five hours before.

t who owned the ponies, and where were they?
The Delaware soon solved that question. v '. ,

Hi said that they must have belonged to two
scouts who had been left behind ,to watch ton, r-
suit and that it was therefore plain that the _ 3
con d not have been aware the they were! , .-
till, the buffalo-hunters had nearlgaru’ii’ nté them.
11er that the scouts were pro bly somewhere
down the stream, looking- for- me for breakfast,
and was confident thatone 0 them was a great
war-chief oi' the Cheyenues. called Roman Nose.

“ How do you know that, chief?" asked Custer.

The Delawure pointed to one or the ponies. 0n
the saddle hung a white buckskin frock, every seam
r‘ri ed with locks of human hair on seal .‘ ‘ ,

“ hat is the jacket of Roman vNose. lphave seen
him wear it nlalllfi' a time," he said in his own lan-
guage to Wild B , whointerpxeted to Custer.

That was conclusive. a The scent was struck. The

uestion now was how to hurry ’u‘ the w us.
wn they came, lumbering along a the ban ot‘
the stream, but it was e vs different thing
them across to goin over w th 31189an alone. it
was tully an hour fore a pace cou be found
where the wagons could cross; and all this time the

scouts were handing  and down the stream (or
r a

Roman Nose and nd.‘ ‘On the other side of
the stream the trail looked just like a country roach. ,
to ve
umberi wage Am? the did
not dareto abandon them. or {eufm’other ban s of

 

 

- great

 

[4.

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

indlsns mlcht be prowling round, watching for a

chance to caplul'e ihom.
At last the wagons were got over, and the pursuit
was resumed u a sharp trot, the scouts scattered

l

far ahead.
Stillthe trail kept single and broad. It was plain 

that the tribe still thought itself out of danger. The

I dun began to sink lower and lower, and at last, just
as he was almost touching the horizon, a long line of
dark timber in 9 green bottom showed that tlxexhad
comue to another stream.

A time the officers and Custer had «been '
watching the horizon in all directions, with great in- _
now and then they could see dark :

tentness. Every

moving objects in the distance, which everybody ‘

was mdyto swear must be Indians. They could
almost see the feathers.
But the Delaware chief only shook his head and

laughed;
‘ ybe so no Injun, general—only buii'io."
h “Yes, but out there," said Custer, " i can see the

o s.’

“’ ustang," said the Delaware. briefly.

I! an oiflcer rode out and halted, turning a tele-
sco
the‘fidisn was righ . it wins nothing but a herd of
holistic or mustangs: So they went on till they
reached the stream, and evening at the some time,
when a. halt was called.

follow the trail any longer, that they must wait for
do ht. he horses were all pretty well foiged
on , or they had ridden all da. ion without alt.
lug. Moreover the scouts told t em t at this stream
was the last they would come to for twenty miles.
It w clodriy impossible, therefore to cash on.
The must go into camp, rest and feed the 1' horses,
sud make double h \ > in the morning. The we on-
teams as y no dvd rest and food. 30 t y

crossed e stream nd went camp, finding
3 mild grass and n undence 0d.

‘ e th n; th, n ticed he showed that
Roma Nose w h compan' have at least

reached the tribe and, ven t . There were
so res. The Indians ad 6 _ pushed on in
great haste. ' '

0! course there were two sides to this business. If
the Indians had the start, an advantage, it was also
clairthnt the would have to push on all night, with
tired horses, or at least twenty miles, wilhou rest
or water; and that the freshened strength or heir
pursuers might enable them probably to catch up
next day if they went into camp at n ht. It was
clear the so tar, they had outstripped he Indians,

80 they went into wing; setting a stro picket
outside to watch, while 6 horses engoy chem-
solves amazingly in the deep ruse of t is river bot-
tom. Their course during t 0 day had been due
north from the place they had left which was on
the banks of the Arkansas river: l'hey were now
up ranching the'Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas, n
val e than traversed by a stage mad, and through
whic the Kansas Pacific Railroad now runs. Since
those day only a. few years ago now, there has been
a. great sage there. r In the solitary prairies,
through which Oustertheir chased the roving Chely-
‘ cuties, not an, Indian is now to be seen, and t e
sores
cultln e swells like ushi on the ocean, while
rms, where thousan s of cattle room over
square miles at tolrito , occu y the old hunting
grounds of Cheyenne an Amps 0e. ,

Next morning, while the stars were still shining,
the clear notes of the bung rung out the “ reveille.
That means “ Wake up 1‘
rd the rollicki notes of the “ stable call," to which
the soldiers to sing the old sang:

“ Come to the stable. all you that are able
And rub down your horses, and give them some

com, ..
For itroudm’tdo it. the colonelslmll know it.

if I].

on the mo masses, it always turned out ‘

 

locomotive dashes through the valleys, ‘

The scouts then announced that they could not  connng u

A moment later out roll— I the “I mm

.ngs.

 

And then you shall rue it, as sur: ssyou‘rc
"5m, ' ~ ’

Every cavalry soldier knows that old song so out
tumbled the men of the Seventh, and went to work
with u will. ‘ ’

By the time the sun rose every horse had been
carefully brushed down as clean as n new n, and
felt ready ior’o march. while the men were a break-
fast. The scouts were already out, scattered over».-
the plain, searching for .the trail, and bought beck

news. ,

The trails began to scatter again!

T“ fifiifiwmdwfifi idfi'fi‘m‘ifi'
one gm y e mar o e - in
column started on. Very soon they diggovemd that
the country had changed very much in character.
Instead of rolling dzreen ass and plentyot game
there was a dry, at i n, with scanty grass and
quantities of low hram les. This plain wsssesmed
with great cracks, sometimes ten or twenty feet
deep, and opening out to six or eizht test wide.
These cracks delayed the wagons virgsmuch,%
they had to be taken round to the he 201 the .
511%er before tghey could for?“ t m m“  ‘

egroun grewso a a ey ,» ,1!
see the trail even of the lodge-poles, and 
they went the more the trail scattered. ' ; ‘
they saw a. few black speckswin the d ’
found themto be broken down _ ,
abandons asuna’bletokee up. f ""

This was encouraging. T ey ressmi on st’c trot;
Presently they came on a bun e or lodge—poles on
the ground. where it had. been thrown 0a. then
another, then another. 3

At last the lodge letraii ceased

Now who was to
where the women and chilth? The ponytmch
became fewer every momen’ '3 Here one turned oil,
there another-one to the t, one to the left.
Which was to be iollowed 

To give you an idea of
imagine that every half -
broke off on each side, on
of sight, hid behind a, s
the were now safely
one side, some for in v
on, the Indians breaking
column reached the Sm
pony trsclcl d disappr 

So Custer ad taken 1next lesson in Indian who
fare—that soldiers caii‘never catch Indians. 1! the
Indians don’t want it,'or unless they sre'tahen by
surmise. It was clear'now hat he need chase them
no anger. Of all the hun s of tracks behind,
who was to tell which was warrior which squmv or
how soon the Indians ‘ lit unite if the solders
separated! The oniv t left to do was to much
down the Smoky ’

 

 
  

(or

      
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
    
     
 

everybody, not in small part es, but the
knew how. I
That was the last Custer saw of the Cheyennu
that year. As he went down the stage road
found they had been before him. Stations
found burned, horses had been carried d, m
killed, scalped and burned in‘thoir own houses.
ceding on their halls;

_ road. and were the - r
pie that the Indians were u? and   .

where the wolves were seen i!
consumed bodies. Before the column
Hays, the new terminus of the Kilns“ a _
roa‘d, Custer had seen enough Sickenin
show that Indian warfare meant no

At Fort Hays he halted to wait 0 out; 2
he was joined b General Hancock, wit ‘
be general was grimy
the escape of the Cheyennes, but -
made up for it b another mbva. The
bad goneofl to e northbst attire 7-“
were still the meas and Arapahoes: and , -
the general had held a. grand council. 1 t ‘~ 

Here there came Lone

d a mu tmwméi'wnfl
an s e 0 ,
snd‘zfifigrfiemflntsndmotm ,6

  
 
      
   
 

d wheijeWt-re the warriorsend  1"

6:

i
2
. I {
i

»

M
l

J
l

 

'umpire. The

The Dashing Dragoon. 16V

 

‘ besides minor emits This council was held at Fort

Dodge, in the south of Kansa _and no one ever
knew such good boys as those owns and Arapa-
hoes. 1M wouldn t kill white men, like the Chey~
ennes, not a hit of it. They loved the white man
and hated the Cheyennea All they wanted was
plenty of blankets and beef, and leave to say how
much they hated the Cheyennes.

Satanta made such a pretty speech that General
Hancock was d hted,so del' hted that he insisted
on giving the c a! one“ of own coats, vnth a
ma or-general‘s shoulder-straps. Satania took it
an cried for joy, and the council broke up. General
Hancock going to Fort Hays. Just three weeks
after, Satanta came down to Fort Dodge with all his
men, killed a soldier, stole several horses, and rode
up to the stodrade dressed in the very coat Hancock
had given lgimdleSO the poor old general was tooled
once more scamps. I

However, vyvhen he met Custer, the General did not
know of his friend Satanta‘s doings. He only thofit
oi the Cheyennes in the north. So he ordered -

 ,ter to take the whole of the Seventh Cavalry. three
"hundred and flity men the

with twenty wagons,
and start or to the north-Wes , through Kansas into
Nebraak to scout the Nebraska river.

While star was pre aring for this expedition,
he had one or two adven urea near Fort Hay;

CHAPTER IX.
ammo on a wanna.

'1‘“ Seventh Cavalry was i at Fort Hays ex-
gecting the arrival of Gene cock every da ,

ut with little to do meanwhile. To pass away i 0
time the oflicers used to go out huflaio hunting
whenever they were on duty, but had done very lit-
tle except to tire their horses and shoot away ammu-
nition so far. There were some twenty oflicers alto-
gether. and one evening they were sittmg round the
camp-fire at head-quarters, talking over matters,
when as the hunting came up. Then, as a
matter of course, every man began to boast of what
he could do, and several 0: them began to joke their
comman oificer about his misfortune in shoot
in; his own ores. Custer could alwnfis take a Poke
as well as any man, and this time he d not fee the
sting of their jokes so much on account of haying
killed some buffalo since that time.

At last one officer, who thought himself a very
fine shot and rider offered to bet archampagne sup-
per for the party that he could take half the officers
and kill more buffalo than the other half could do,
with Custer at the head of it. .

Very much a his surprise, however. Custer took
him u at once. .

“ I'lrtake that bet, maJor," said he, quietly; “and
you can pick your men, too. ' We‘l begin tomorrow
morning. ' ,

The major could not back out then, and the hat
was arranged at once. The omcers were chosen by
lot, into two parties of ten each, and it was settled
that each should go out in turn. one next morning,
the other the day after. The one that shot the few.
t-st huflalo was to ve the an r and pay tor it.
The senior ma r the Seven . who was too old
and fat to bun more, was to be the reieree and
were to bring in the tongues of
the hufl'aloes killed. as root of their slaughter, and
leave them with the crco, who was to kee the
matter secret till both had hunted. an
Ithe singed which should x0 m“. and the
oi.  ,

Next momma-occult . 0" daybreak the little
party'wes up, rses ma y for the hunt, orderlies

y to follow their officers. Then they proceeded
to count noses. Alas, out of the ten who should

he been present seven were found able to .

ofvt‘he rest, one was our of the day, .Mother 0 r

cer 0,! Elite and a htleiird had a scol'x'ung demgi

Th could not ' they on pan v

theefick. other side mm” men, too.
Without weitint to

thinkover their troubles. the

 

little party of seven rode off. A bad befinning my
make a good ending when there’s pluc in file.
The und where they hoped to meet the flu
was en miles from the camp, and it was neces-
sary to take along an ambulance to pack the meet,
it an was ured. Each oi’fl cer had an orderly to
ride hin him, and each carried a pair at pistols,
while several had the old Spencer seven-shooting
carbine, which they found an excellent hunthag

weapon.

“One of the carbine men was Custer. He had
found from experience that one carbine bullet was
worth more than three or {our pistol-shots, and had
determined to try the experiment fairly.

At last they reached the destined point, where the
long rains-grass ceased, and the short bundle-

nss gan. As the tgpped a swell there in the

istance was a small e , which every one at once
pronounced to be buffaloes. less than a mile 03!.

Now the was hurry and preparation at 01103,] as
you may ink. Before the party lay a little h ow
which would shelter them from s' ht, and into it
they plunged. ambulance and all, 1:51“) in the bot-
tom. There the ambulance was stop while the
hunters dismounted and looked careftu to their -
horses. The saddle—girths were loosened, es
cloths set straight, curb-chains looked to. Then an
extra turn was given to every girth-strap, and the
horses were iirthed in tight and snug fit to run for
their lives. ‘very olllcer lookedto his own mount;
it would not do to trust to oruerlies now, whena
failure in any Earl: of the harness might cost n.’ life.
Each man 100 ed to his revolvers and carbine, and,
all were ready. Custer gave the signal, and the lit-
tle arty rode out. . , ' ’5‘

ow we shall see a real buflalohunt, no ohan ‘5"
runsasheretoiore. There are seven in. the party,
and two of manure oung officers who have never
yet shot a bul‘lalo. (Riley are full of wild excitement,
trembling with eagerness, and it is plain that they
will be the failures, if there are a . The other five
are old stage“, including Custer— hat is, they have
heenatibbel“ - ' ‘ k 

They keep ind the swell, which slants away to  ‘
leeward of th niece where they saw the hem. At ’
the end of the ittle valley One or ridosiup the side
or the slope and halts so as to hide event-mm but
his head. 'fhen he takes out his field-glass to look
at the herd. ' ’5

“ Just seven, entlemen " he says, quie y. “ Now
if. any one of us eta his animal go away, t may cost 
us the supper. We are save too. Do you think we
can account for one apiece 7‘

“You can bet we will, general," said one of the
youngsters, confidently. _

Custer smiled. ,

“ I’ve been there before, young gentleman. Look
out on don‘t kill your horse, as id, instead of the
b ale. Areyouali ready? '

“All ready, genera ."

Then over the hill goes the little party, and finds
itself only about a'quarier or a mile from the herd.
dead to leeward. » .

They take a slow trot and, ride straight at the
herd. See! a movement naming the animals. which
see the hunters. Next moment a. go the bum»
lees, right into the Wind’s eye, in a numbering gal-
“? “ks so it“? “in l t r n n spmndi

we go o uners,asoa 11 seal), 118'
mto a any line s urrin their horses like mad. ,

" Each man a 6 his Begin on the left!"
shouts Custer, as they begin to come up ith the
huflaloes. Beyond them is a lon hill, and he ani-
maisare ng ully, w e the horses gain
on them every stride.

Not five minutes have passed, but the hunters are
within titty yards, when cracki cracki go the metals,
beginning with the 0 rs. Nothing hurt, but ,
the horses seem fair to . .

Now 0&1: thirt yardst avg; taemmndotggifll ' ‘
grows a per. en y n new as ‘
many feet. and the he scatters in terror and zoo: ,

888$.

 

 

 
 
 

‘ w

 

it

its».

  
  

;

tier. we gone, sure enough.

W.

16

airflv-in 2le directions. hunters after than Such a
scene .:i contusion you never saw fora few minutes.
* 'l‘he pistolsare flashing, and the loud bangi bangi
of the carbines is heard every now and then.

Bee, there’s an old bull down on ‘his knees, the

The Dashing Dragoon.

from his mouth. Don‘t waste pow- :

There‘s another—a
cow. She's stopped; another sure sign.

Look at the youngsters—they‘re both crazy. Not
a round left in either pistol, and haven’t finished a.
buffalo yet. There goes Custer on his big horse the
new one. a great, coarse beast that runs well or a
s urt. but all covered with sweat already. l-le’s

er the kin bnll of the herd, and rides on the
right side. p goes the old Spencer carbine in a
moment.

Bang! and the old bull stumbles and pitches on
its head, the blood pouring out of its mouth. The
big bullet has settled it. Now another hunter has
stopped a bull and live buffaloes are dewn out of
the seven, while the other two have slipped off, and
can be seen a little was on, going down a steep ra-
gilite, headtoremost, w ere few horses would dare to

ow.

So the hunters come slowly hack. and the order»
has cutout the to use of the slain animals. Five
tongues are not sue a bad beginning.

Presently up rumbled the ambulance where the
es and humpr of the animals were placed. while
unters allowed their horses to rest and recover
their breath Custer's big horse was pretty well
tired out. and it was yet early in the day; but Cus-
ter's motto was “never say die," so, after a short
rest, the arty proceeded on its we

From t e crest of a neighboring
was soon descried, and a second chase began.

This was a much longer chase than the first. The
horses were tired, thesherd fresh. ,Custer's big
beast Rave out and tumbled down a ravine, after
the buffalo, snifering a severe sprain of the loins,
which disabled it, so that the general had to cha 0
animals with his orderly, and ride back to his pa y
empt -handed. fl

As a returned, he met two bulls close to him, and
cam. This time, also he used his Spencer
c n land two shots flnis ed his game. When
the _ was reunited. six more tongues had been
ad ’ he first five, and everybod was tired. '
 for lunch, fed an watered their
horses, and started on their return to camp at a slow
‘ ~- trustingto find more buflaloes as the went.

‘ , ienough. as they' topped the first swel . there

wuxanother herd to leeward, and as the animals
smelt them, they all started right up the wind. pass-
inficlose to the party. '

' uflaloes always run up wind; no matter what is
in the way, so that this herd was soon within strik-
ing distance, Without any chase. One bull went
down first fire, the rest scattered, but the king hull
of the herd charged the whole arty viciously.

Then there was some fun. '1 ere were seven hun-

' ters at one bull, but he seemed to mind the pistol-

shots no more than flies. He kept cho. ng all the
time, chasing first one and then the 0 her, till at
last a carbine’bullet brought.him down, and the
thirteenth to e was added to their store.

New tinting; started on its return home, for the
horses co d not. have got up another run. It was
resolved that the contest must stand on thirteen.

it was a long march home. and the day was hot,
but every one was much elated with the y‘s

u m one of the party had failed to do the same.
next

day.
Arrived. in of course the curiosit was we
great to WWE luck the hunters hadymet with):
he Sher adetmld no‘tzl alslk thwereef, who gird
‘ won ave h uh air. e
“To”. is“ “messing”: *1 '3‘." ms”;-
y. so so to
msomehow the nmor spread in camp 333 One1

 

I
i
I

layill a second herd ’

in

' 3:03“. Custer had killed two buffaloes h msell’, 3'

y
i

to be seen what their rivals would do .
' farms.

7-.. ._-,. ,. ......i._,,. . H.-. a. _...__ A.._. W..-

3

arty had on nine tongues. The orderliee
kept cir part oft e secret. very well, and when
the major-’3  rode out next morning, the mean
hers were hi to] of the notion that they had only
ten tongues to get to Win the supper.

The second rty
full of hog; hey had extra horsesand were deter-
mined to t nine to

ten;

Party
me, the
last coming in with the ambulance long after dark.

Then there was a great excitement. The nine
hunters were full of confidence, and began to banter
their rivals as to what kind of champagne they
would have.

Custer’s part only smiled. The tongues would
decide the ques on.

Every one flocked to the senior
the leader of the party could con

longer.

“ General, we’ve beat you,” he cried out, rubbing
his hands. “ You‘ve only nine tongues, and we've

ot eleren. Enough and one to spam, old fellow.

rder on your supper.” .

tili‘luster smiled quietly, and his party kept quite
s l .

“What does the referee say .9" asked Custer.

The referee, a stout, 1011 old omcer,sirinned.

“Orderly,” he said, ‘ b 'ng in the In etc."

Two great baskets were hrou ht in. The first was
that of the major’s party. ven fresh tongues
were coun out. '

“ Well, isn’t that a s uare beat?" asked the major.

“Not quite,” said t e referee. quietl . “ There
all'e fkirtem in the other basket. Count m. if you
case."

You on ht to have seen those fellows faces go
down as t e orderly counted out thirteen tongues.
The major recovered first like a man.

‘I own up, generaL It sa square beat,” he said.

And that’s how (Buster’sdparty won asuxfigr. The
defeated nine telegraph to St, Louis ng the
railroad, and ordered on the supplies, which

or’s ten and
no

camp the do General Hancock arrived
even the ad a {on time, you may be sure.
Next ay t e Sevent (guilty received orders to

march on a scout.

CHAPTER I. .
as isms sitcom—rm cm schemes—s lam

 

on Housman. ,
Wnns General Hancock arrived at the cam in

A ril. 1667, he orde (10qu to much from on
nys north to Fm McPhersoEi Nebraska, which
was on the Union Pacific . This road,
which runs parallel to the Kansas Pacific road. on
which Custer had been operating, was finished much
mirth" his in Ph h airy to
rom o c arson t e cav was more
south-west in a circuit, coming back to the railroad
at Fort Se gwick, and thence st ht south to Fort
Wallace on the Smoky Hill road. w once the column
was to go back to Fort Hays again. .
If you look on the common maps very like}; you
will notbeable to find all these forts. but you
take an old or new Aprleton‘s Rauway' Guide you
can find them. some w t
some without, 38.,
see that Custer
northwest of Fort Hays, and it was pretty certain.
so General Hancock thought. that he would strike
the Cheyennes somewhere or other.
This was only a few years 080. and what a change!
Hardly an Indian them now, [:3 rsilwsg's and
The Union - Pacific 'runs hm
Nebraska. the Kansas Pacific alone the Smoky
galley, and the two have driven away [militia and

ngwasseamexoe ntewbuifalo mm
and one distant Ind legitwar-psrty. that scoured any

ngues. The Custer part kept .
: in camp, and the secon hem shack
‘ in the course of the day, two or at a

reached
. Than

n h thtztfiort berg-e the 
W B 0118. ere
' to tiyescrihe a great chemo-tho

than c. ,
In 1887, when Custer marched. it w ve dif—
ferent. All the way to Fort McPhsno‘alzx-iot 31m

}
i w

   
    
    
 
   
   
  
  
 
   
    
  
   
  
   
   
 
    
   
  
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
  
 
  
  
 
   
    
   
   
    
  

had nine hunters, and started '

 

 

 

 

t

The Dashing ’ Dragoon. .

l7

 

out of sight. When the scouts came. to examine the
trail of this party they found the large feet of shod
American horses, very different from the tracks of
the little bareofooted ponies generally used by the
lndians. It was lainthat the Indians were riding
stolen horses. . to on from the stage company, gne,
powerful animals, worth two hundred and fty
*:._ dollars aniece. ‘
 After a march of three hundred miles and more
r' Custer reacth Fort McPherson on the railroad, and

“terminus of the Union Pacific. General Sherman

was the chief of all the army under Grant, in those
as he is now, and therefore entitled to com-
Goneml Hancock. As soon as he heard of
Gum‘s arrival, Sherman telegraphed him to wait

1

 till 1116 came to him, so the Seventh Caval waited
‘ nesry a week, resting their horses an getting
V , read for the next march.

W ile they were there, one day, s. number of In-
. dians were seen out on the laina near the station,
, and .one of them bore a wh to flag. This man was
’ coming to the fort.
m. As soon as Custer heard of it, he sent out aparty
to meet the Indians; and, very soon, in rode some
" ten 01" tfielve ioturesque warriors, headed by a

2’ ,3 fine. [Powerful ndian chief, whose wanbonnet was
t' .1. one o the handsomest ever seen on the hills and
f " whose leggings were fringed with the p-lOClIB 01

several warriors.

Custer knew his face. It was the Sioux chief,
Pawnee-Killer, a at friend of the Cheyenne?-
O‘ultor had met h in in the first Hancock council.

course be was curious to know what Pawnee-
r wanted. He soon learned.

The chief came in, he said, because he loved the
white man, and hated war. He had been afraid
that the soldiens were coming to kill all his children,
no he had lied; but now he wanted to make friends.
He wu quite ready to bring in all his tribe and set-
tle down. His was only a little way on.
' would the Big Yellow chief let him have a little

coffee and sugar to show the squaws? then they
* would all come in. Of course he was him . The

'soldion had frightened am; the buns 0. Could
"it! Yellow chief give s men 311111100“ 36
was of8i

ve
busing hie! b a in an

e C went on egging an ' m “K,

the time watching Custhr’s camg, to mhow may!)
men more were. The end of was. that be quite
W Custer, as Satanta dld Hancock and mm
and all the food he wanted. Then he rode away,
not eternal fidelity to the white mani and as
soon as e was out or gun-shot had asood fish at
the way he‘hsd fooled ig Chief.

lie was hardly out of sight before the whistle of a
locomotive was heard, and General Sherman arrived
- the station to see Custer. or course Custer re
Pawnee-Killer’s visit, and the first question
« asked was: ’ N
. u arrest him? Where is he?

. no. fieneml. My orders were not to hurt
 t oeable: and this chief
in h s tribe to—mormw."

“  never see im." said the Reneral, curtly.
map came to beg ‘Be not what he wanted.

e

o

some ammunition. Just to hum

 
   
   
 
  
 
 

u
, sndnow hesoff. Hislod may postimvbenear
‘ here, and I so you mayo. . Saddle on, and
 A; . u. , at once, I: you come on his d,

 do one of two things: bring it in, or des-
' . there was nothing for Custer to do but

General Sherman was a very different
Hancock, a re. nervous, excitable fel-
hard atw and very keen. Hancock

7 l older, and being to or living, was
m and good-nature therefore

7 with these wil Indian chiefs.
' _ arr After Ge Sherman‘s ar-
8eventh Cavalry. three hundred and fifty

y;

blankets; wanted some. Could not the ‘

!

Married that General Sherman was out at Juliet, the. .

 

strong, was winding over llié‘ [loin in Column 01*
fours, receded by a stron bod of scouts”: and f-ll-
lowod y twenty wagons, eavi y loaded With pro-
visions and corn.

The scouts soon found the trail of Pawnee-Killer’s
band, which was quite broad and plain, and follow:
ed it all day to the south-west, toward the head.
waters of the Regublican river. The trail was that
of a war-party 0 some thirty men, and more than
half rode large American horses, stolen from the
stage companies, Not a trace was to be seen how-
ever, of lodge-poles, andl unless these were found.
every one knew it was hopeless to try and follow
Pawnee-Killer, if the Indian wished to escape.

That do the column made its camp by the Re-
publican ver, and not an Indian had been seen. The
wagons were corraled in a square, the men pitched
their tents in regular streets and the horses were
turned out tawgrm in a hol 0w close to the camp
under a guard, while a strong chain of mounted
pickets was thrown out- nll round the camp.

At this lace the river was small, shallow and
easily to able, and low swells surrounded the hol
low 11 which the camg was itched. No Indian
sign had been seen by l e soon 3, and it was the ex-

citation of eve one that Pawnee-Killer was new
m: to the mounts ns, faraway. . '

What was the surprise of every one in the morn
ing, to hear, just before sunrise, the furious rattle
of carbine-shots, followed by] the yells of attackin
Indians and the tramp of undreds of frighten
horses. Out of the tents plun ed the men in their
shirts, catching up carbines an belts as they run,
and runnin to their horses. .

de t e camp, in the gray dawn of the morn-

ing, came astrong party of mounted Indians, as hard

as thechould tear, yelling at the to of their voices,

firing all directions, shskin red b unkets and bells,

find swooping down on the p cket-llne and herd at
0 .

rses.

Had the animals of the re moot been all in one
herd, loose, there‘is little oubt that the Indians
would have stain ed the whole body, so ungovem-
able do horses ecome when terrified in a large
mass. . -

Very luckily. however, only a few baggage 
had been left in the herd, the rest of the animals
having been brought in to the picket‘rope late at
night, within fifty feet of the men. This is the rule
in a cavalry regiment. Each company has a heavy
cable called a picket-rope, which is stretched on
short posts along the front of the com any streets.
each soldier's tent being close tohis orse which
is tied to the picket-rope by the halter. This fact
saved Custer‘s horses. The presence of so many
men whom the horses knew. and the opening or a
smart tire ofcarbines on the Indians, calmed the
horses, and drove off the Indians, so that almost
before one could say there had been an attack, the
stanlpeding art had hauled off, finding the sur—
prise balked y t e soldiers. '

The fight was not over, however, by any means.

A}! the light. grew strohger all the tops of the
swells were to be seen covered with mounted war-
riors, riding to and fro, and evidently planning an

attack. .

As you may im no, they did not blow stable-
call or breakfast-c ’ that mornian in the Seventh.
It was all hurry and bustle. 5an e up and lead out
was the word. and it is surprisi how fast a man
learns toget ready if there are ndians near him.

inside of ten minutes the whole regiment was
mounted, and the different squadrons were deploy:
in out on the plain around the camp to repel the

. They were none to soon. As soon as it
was fairly light the whole country seemed to swann
with warriors, and the scouts afterward declared
that there must have been at least a thousand
Indians, near) three to one of the soldiers

The Indians . evidentl made up their minds to
try what the BigYellow of was made at, and
made a Rrsnd charge on the camp. It was the first

 

 

18

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

lndien cha e mister had seen, and he never to at l
- m m a the signal of the ugle to charge, full 25 d.

l .

Fer all quarters of the compass, streaming on in
irregular clouds, down come the warriors, crouched
over the necks of their swift little war—ponies goin
at a. perfectly trantlc‘gollo . The 'dust rose behind
them inngreat' clou , on through that cloud one
might see the feathers tossing, scarlet streamers
waving, arms flashing. On they come like birds
flying over the ground.

Crock! crack! crack! see the flashes of their.

rifles, and hear the bullets. piou.’ plow! punt! thump!

Nearer they come, howling like a pack of wolves.
Hi!!! Yip! 'p.’! 111?!!! HI. HIYAIIHI

How they come! I looks as if they would ride
over everything. Now they’re within range of the
thin skirmish line of horsemen that stretches round
the cam , and seal Out flames a. long line of spit-
ting 9% and the rattle of carbines becomes in-
cessunt. T 9 thin blue smoke curls up in pufls, and
through the veil one may see the lndions turning.

Then awn they fgo, all round the camp, in their
flavorite me bod 0 (attack, abandoning the charge,
and “circling.”

Now the real fun begins. A long file of Indian)
warriors, every man at full speed, goes tearing round
and round, the camp of the seventh. Every warrior
is cutting up all sorts of pranks to show his horse~
mnnship. Some are hanging over behind their
horses, shelteied from bullets, while they fire under
the pony‘s neck or over the saddle. Here a fellow
stands 11 like u. circus-rider, yelling and shaking his
gun whi e another stands on his head.

All of them kceg going as hard as the can tear,
round and round, mug all the time. c soldiers
cannothit the warriors, try their best. Now and
then a. pony 30% over, but his rider is up before the
illo-iidltal‘ii can get at him, and jumps up behind a

on . '

Tho ilriug is incessant, but vci few folks are
hurt. This kind oi: fighting is full 0 excitement and
rapid motion, but it does not mean real business.
Presently Custer determined to break it up.

He drew in 0. whole squadron and so contracted
his skirmish line that the Indians thought he was

. getting1 frightened. Much encouraged, they con-
:fite their own circle galloped closer and closer,
shot more rapidly t ion ever. All of a sudden.
Custor'i‘ormed his squadron and charged the ring,
pistol in hand.

“Heyl what u char el Now one may see the
weak point of Indian fig ting. The warriors cannot
stand a charge. They break and scatter in a. mo-
ment, as Custer bursts through the ring. Now, too,
one may see the advantage of discip inc. The In—
dians, man for men. are better riders. shots and

fighters than the soldiers, but see how the soldiers ,

drive theml No sooner through the circle than the
3?:an wheels to one side, and sweeps up the long
ii of warriors, throwing them into confused masses
and driving them like shee .
his new maneuver uzz esthem. There is a, loud
~ yelling1 of 1saline signzfifiunud this geftmrgoment isanity
goes ew coo. ', spec, ey men
The attack hagl gen toiled. p
Custer drew ofll his men to camp; the Indians
clustered on the neighboring hills. After a little
out came a white flag from the Indian ranks; Custer
went out himself to meet it, and found in the bearer
none other than his moral friend, Pawnee—Killer, as
sweet and smiling as ever. What could he want?

CHAPTER XI.

mun mnnmrmuonnnv~-monsuxrr—wsm;

, mo—susrunosD—nnmsrusn.
3 ‘Wnn did Pawnee-Killer want with Custer? It
Moncame outthnt he asked for another talk with

them: Chief, and came to propose a meeting in

slghtof the we forces by the river-bank. to which

each person shou‘d be entitled to bring only six

com ions. floater at once consented, but, sus-

treaehery. ordered a whole; squadron to be

 

 

l

 

Chief ' 9 sugar, love white brothers.

ready, mounted, ust outside or the camp, awuillug

Then, with live 0133er and a b er, he went
down to the bank to meet Pawnee— ' er. Every
man of the  had his revolver stuck loosely in
his belt, an his hand on it all through the inter-
view, n precaution soon lound to be very necessary.
, PawneoKillcr came swaggering in, with rat-en

chiefs, instead of six, and opened the conversations;
With a sonorous “Howl” Then,” ’

BK shakin hill]
the ch efs wen through the some operation, and
the talk commenced through an interpreter.

Pawnee-Killer wanted to know how long
diets were going to eta , and whether he couldn't

t some more coffee an sugar out of the Big Chief,

at was all. ‘ , '

As soon as Custer could command his face, for he
could not help laughing at the outrageous coolness
of the lndian. he angrily retorted by asking how
the "able; dared to try and steal his horses that
m0 118 .

Pawnee-Killer took matters v coolly. He
thought it was hardly worth disput about“ He
wanted to know how long the soldiers would stay
there, as they disturbed the buffalo. Any coiree
and s or to s ? Pawnee-Killer very git chietl'.
0 any 0

Spam?
t returned a decided negative. Wanted to
1:33:15  Pawnee-Killer would come into the fort,

h had romised. r
“flames—killer couldn’t say. Some time, b -and-
by. Wasn‘t sure he could go at all. unless s got

coflee and s or.
Bogs: other bnnkugwas lined with Indians, loailng
around, and Just then one of them came wading
over the stream. and walked up to Custer, to shake
hands and say ” How." Several more were prepar-
ing to follggv, and Custer realized that treachery
was intend .

He turned to PawneeKiiler, and pointed to an:

bugler. .

Just order your men back, chi .“ he said, in
English, “ or my mon_will blow his trumpet, and
bring down all m soldiers."

As he 3 he t b ler, an inielliEent fellow
raised his £3310 to sougfiland Pawnee looked
distiu-bed. It was clear he chief understood Eng~
lish. Without waitin for the interpreter, he
ordered his men bag; and began to withdraw
sulkily. .

“ Vi hite chief, b tool!" was his ing gree ,
as he waded into t e river, and Cume “fin
horse and rode back. The young genera had
learned his second lesson in Indian warfare. Alter
that he never indulged in talks with hostile chiefs
unless he felt sure that he had the whip-baud of
them. Pawnee-Killer had given him his last, instruc-
tions in treachery, and he never trusted an Indian

sin. '
I“The whole or the Seventh Cavalry was therefore
mounted, and started to attack Pawuee« and
his band. As seen asthe chief saw Custer Wu in
earnest he fled with all his men th h the were
more than half as numerous again as t e re ment;
and before half an hour was over not on Indian was
to be seen. The i'ngigity With which they vanished
was surprisi to ter at the tune, but in utter
years he logo the secret to he very mama

Every In in, goin to war, takes two ponies, at
least, one to travel wigl'ixbone to light from. On these
he carries nothin : e soldiers have only one
horse apiece on wfii t0 tollow and each horseis
loaded down with clothes and forage and pro
visions. Every low miles the Indians can chanfi:
horses: so there is no wonder that he goes 1:
fastest. Beingin their own country too, theintiians
can ascetth and hide. wmh the whites cannotde

Without getting into tron -
Of this last maneuver they had a nothing-instance
that very afternoon Custer rammed tocnmp after ,

a. fruitless chase. and maroon more Indian: came

the self?

2
?

 

 

 

   
  

?

“m...  Amwn- . .9 w

in sight on the opposite side to that on which they
wen: spied in the morning. There were only about
twanty and Custer Sent out a troop of fifty men to
chase t em 01!. The Indians moved slowly ed and
the map followed, and scattered, as the In
scatter .

No sooner were the two es of soldiers about a
mile apart than at least a undred Indians came out
of the umerous narrow ravines, hid in the prairie,
and gafioped down on the smallest of the parties.

The oil‘lcer in command at once dismounted three
out of eve four men, had the horses led in a little
column in t 9 middle, deployed his dismounted men
in a circle of skirmishers, and so fought his way

to earn .

Had the fidians been white tree the would
have charge 1 and ridden right over lit 6 band;
hilt, being Indians, they had their peculiar wealt-
ness, which‘is this: they cannot stand a close fight:
wherethey must lose men. They always try to
their enemies without losing any of their own war-
nors. and that makes them cowardl in some things,
while they are brave in others. So e kept circling
round the little troop at full-speed, s oat away
and hardly ever hitting anything, while the idler-s,
firing slow] , from the ground, managed to kill two

' indiana an wound two others, before they reached

camp. The other party was not attacked. .
Some days after, Custer's wagon-train which he
had sent to Fort Wallace under a guard of’flf men,
to get rovisions for a lo er scout was at by
Ieven undred lndians, w o fought in net the same
way, drciin round and round. The 0 cer in com-
mhnd eav his men in just the same we as the

” mentioned had done, b puttin his orses in

middle. between two co umns o wagons, and
deployin his dismounted skirmishers all round the
train. 3 also heat off the Indians: so that in this
Custer and the Seventh Cavalry found out
a1 about how to fight Indians. a lesson of
I , y often afterward availed themselves.
, had that they could not successfully fight
for the indinns could outride the soldiers,
_ . radian ponies never got , while their
m lg horses soon became unmanageable. So
mwags, after that, fought on foot, round their
316 I w enever the got into a tight ghee among
We, and always ound the lan wor well.
linen after these events, Gus r proceeded on his
but scout, and marched out of the lndinn country,
Douro the settlements. Here he got into fresh
imubl from another source. His men began to
not one or two, but ten or a dozen at a time,
last he found out that there was a plot for

halfth inn .
"0 afternoon, after a march, when the horses
in b ad ht, before their oilicers‘ faces,
'22.: my“

cup armed, and determined to desert.
(331,? the guard in cm had saddled homes, and

  
 

 at once pursued t e deserters, one of whom

ahotdea an ther wounded, some more being
 Prisons-.3. ' sudden and severe treatment
. _ the men, and there were no more desertions,
‘ the result of the difficulty was much trouble for

W. as we shall soon hear.
pursued his march to Fort Wallace, discover-

3‘3 on the way the victims of a terrible Indian
macabre. A young oli'lcer named Lieutenant
yd°rtwhfit¥eeummw ‘3 ‘°' CW’RW‘i
l as ea c erman. n
bymlghwnee-Killers band, and killed, with eve

nan-tuber of his party. Caste; found their bodi a

andsohackedw lecesbythelp 5

one could be Such a horrible

. :n‘ in never seen outside of an Indian battle-field,

Claim never forgot it. / He little thought that

I the day‘ would come when he and the flower of ms
omosns

,andmenwouldbemnd intheumeeondl.

allmooutdthecountry:

“ a. DedMlmmthMwaMflmin the
, w ennui-Etna

m
, up the cam

 

. The Dashing Dragoon. ' 19

quesflon remained what next to do, The original
orders for the scent were to return from Fort‘
Wallace to Fort Hays, whence Custer first started,
but the horses of the figment were too much
exhausted to march toget er, and the ravisions
and forage at Fort Wallace were found to so bad
that the men were falling sick. So Custer decided
to leave the main body of his regimentrthere, take
the best men and horses, and march Fort Hays
himself, to see General Hancock, who he could
send back good provisions for his men. ‘

He made a march of one hundred and fifty miles
in two do a and a half, reaching Fort Hays but
found nelt er provisions nor Hancock there. fie-era
ing that General Hancock was at Fort Barker, Sixty
Im an off, he determined to ush on with one or two
omcere and men, leaving h escort behind, for the
road was no longer dangerous in twelve hours
more he was at Fort Barker and found, to his sur-

rise, that the Kansas Pacific head had been finished
that post,‘which was now a railway station.
There was no cock there either however, no
one but Custer‘s own colonel, old General A. J.
Smith, who commanded the department.
Fro Custer learned that Hancock had given
lg and retired” to Fort Leavenworth, V
too far oi! E: followed, while active movements
had been sto pod for the year. General Smith gave
Custer on to send back the wagon-train to
the figment under a junior oflicer, and to go it);
railroad himself to Fort Riley, ninety miles 0 ,

'where Mrs. Custer and the general’s sister were

livi from whom he had now been separated ever
since h, it being then J uly.,18ti7.

(hister went there, suppodng’ell was right. How
refloiced those at home were to see him. no one can
to but those who have been in mmriar posxtiona, as
soldiers or sailors. Within a week, however, he was
rudely awakened in his dream of ha piness by an
order anal, and was soon after t by court.
marti , on some chargge prepared by a uni
enemy of his, who had termined to injure im.

He was charged'with leaving his men to go on a
journey on irate business, and with excessive
cruelt andi e conduct in stopping the attem ted
deser one of h men by shooting a eserter. t
unluckyjourney to Fort Riley wasmade the when
for the whole trial, and Custer was fine “ con-
demned to be suspended from rank and pay for a
whole year. v .

Of course this was a heavy blow for the r fe—l
low, after trying so hard to o his~dutyg bu he had
to submit and go backto Monroe, leaving the Seventh
Cazéih'y to go out without him, and fight the ludiaus
no your. '

As'it happened however, this very unjust sen- r k' I

tence, passed on uster, was the means in the end '
of giving him the greatest triumph of his life. He
went awn , and the war languished all the summer
of 1968. obody seemed to have any success. The
Indianadid more mischief than they had done for
gears. General Hancock was removed, and General

herldan put in his place. but even then thin did .
not come right. The troops had the worst, t e In-
dlfigatlhi; beet, glthe summer;1 be d h

esno ugeseoou one the a,dto

send for uster before his year was out, “’3 he re—
ceived a telegam from Sheridan stating that Shen
man and all e officers of the Seventh had united
with him to ask the President to send Custer beekto
the plains, to show the emcers how to he Indians.

The same day the order arrived from nshin ton
and Custer started for the West, arriving at 7‘0
Hays the last day of September, 1868, to meet Gen-
emn Sibeling i ih o rt ti b u '

eoune nee mennans
for Sheridan had firmined g: somethinghevgr
known on the plains before his time. -This was a.
winter campaign the Indians, and it was to .4
legs this Ougt he wantedhCét:1 thé deg"
was now is up rose gran

mama-t successful unis ofpaii his lam career.



 

 

 
      

a

  

Sheridan’s reasons for a winter campaign werel
hunded on common sense. In the summer, the sol- r

dicrs could not catch the Indians, who had plenty of
ponies, fat with grass, and as much was as they
could shoot. In he winter, it was erent. The
troops could carry alo wagon-loads of oats and
feed their horses, while t e Indian ponies could only
be kept alive down in the hollows of streams, where
there were enough cottonwood trees for the animals
tagged on the bark.

it was, the poor creatures were miserably thin,
and uite unable to march far, so that, if the tribe
was ound, it was probable the soldiers could catch
them. For these reasons, Custer was to take out
the Seventh Cavalry as soon as the winter set in, to
hunt Indians. ‘

 

CHAPTER XII.

A QUEER CHARACTER-A WINTER (‘lAUPAlGN—BRJII
'LIANT RESULTS.

[T was some time before Custer considered him-
self quite ready for the Indians. He found his regi-
ment full of green recruits fresh frqm the towns of
the East, men who hardl lmew how to ride a horso
to water, leave alone ht on him, They were
miserable shots, and con d, some of them, scarce]
hit a barn door irom the barn-yard fence. 6
found them encampcd among the Indians, and so
scared that they hardly dared eave camp. He very
soon changed that, however, by sending out large
scouting parties at night, to fri hten the Indians.
Finally, he left the camp where e found the reg'.
ment, moved in, close to Fort Dodge, on the Arkan-
sas River. out of reach of Indian annoyances, and
set to work to drill his men in earnest, to become
good riders and good shots. Every day he had tar-
get ractice, and out of all the companies he
selec the very best shots. which he organized into
a separate troop called the “Sharpshooters.” To
these he promised to give certain special privileges,
such as exemption from picket duty, and the privi-
llehge of always being at the head of the column.

0 consequence of this promise was, that all the
soldiers were eager to be sharpshooters, and shot

theirve best, the whole regiment improving daily.

While e was drilling. of course the Indians were

doing what they pleased all over the country, but
Custer did not mind that. It was just us we] they
should imagine themselves secure. He could not
catch them till the snow was on the ground, and the
less suspicion they had of a winter campaign, the
more like] he was to find them, Al; last, after a
long mare , with a strong1 column, through the In-
dian Territory down to t e borders of Texas, at the
“place where mp Supply now stands. the first
snow came, in a tremen ous blinding storm, and
the Seventh Cavalry, with a numerous wagon train,
msmrtedxmson its journey to find the Indians, November

The winter had set in with a vengeance, for the

. storm lasted the whole of the first day and all night;

and when it cleared up at last, there were eighteen
inches of snow on the ground, with the thermome-
irr down about zero. This was a real winter cam
K: and no mistake. Man men would have

i for the storm, for even t e Indian uidrs lost
their way, and could not tell where Wolf reek was,
Bhe place where the regiment was to encamp the

rst ht.

011355: would not be beaten, however. He had a
ma , he knew the direction of Wolf Creek, so he
too his course by com ass, and pushed on, reach~
ing the creek safely, on excelling the guides. Of
t guides he had plenty on this ex edition.
Fillt, ere were twenty Gauges. friendl ndians,
from arr-null tribe on «innervation in In ian Terri-
tory. Their chiefs were Little Beaver and H
Then he had several white and half-breed
“mum some of whom novels have been writ-

lly there was California Joe. who was

The Dashing Dragoon.

i

 

 

fitter-ward one of the most useful scouts Custer ever
a

( .

California Joe was a tall. broad-shoulder rer
low with a tremendous brown beard, and a sh 8.}:
curs that looked 8.81! the had never seen a, 31ml)
for years. His at pecu inrity was a short brier-
woo pipe, whic he never sto smoking, da or
» except when asleep, ea , or on aan an
trail. He would talk you blind for hours,and had
the usintest expressions in his speech you ever
hear . He had great contempt for the-powers of
aregular officer to fight or catch Indian but he
soon conceived a great liking for Custer, fin ing him
so different from the rest, and they worked together
harmgniously all the time they were comrades
to st er.’ ’ ' /

en there was Romeo, a half-breed Indian, who
acted an interpreter a short, squat, jolly little fel-
low, who looked as if he thought of not but eat-

ing, but who could “lift a trail " better t an ost
men. There were several others not so well 1: 'in,
but California Joe and Romeo were always er's

favorites.

The column proceeded south in the direction of
Texas, bearing west toward the head-waters of the
Wasbitn River, in which country the Indians were
expected to be found wintering, anywhere wi in a
hundred miles. The soldiers had not traveled hree
days, before they found how wise Custer had on
to wait for the snow. By the banks of tbsi na-
dian River, they found a broad fresh trail, e deutly
that of the last war-party of the season. goinghome,
and the greenest recruit could have folio militia
such asnow. . *. 

Their troubles were over, as far as finding“: ' .
dians was concerned, for it was clear that the .:
was made b men quite unsuspiclous that The
would be fol owed, and therefore .of we r

marks. It was found, quite by surp "‘ e t is-
ter was crossing his wagon train ove ‘2; . r“
Canadian, an o ration which took seve hours,

all(l,dlll'ing whlc of course the re ment could not
move. To utilize the time, One r sent out two
squadrons under Major Elliott, to scout down the
river and see what the could see. This detachment
found the Indian trai , about ten miles elow Cus-
ter's ford, leading off to the south-west. jor Elli-
ott was a very brave and acious officer, av. he
realized that there was no t me to be lost, so h‘ mt
off on the trail at once, send back a scout nam: d
Jack Corbett, to tell Custer of discovery.

Corbett found Custer at the. crossing, arriving just
as the last wagon was drawn slowly la the steep
bank, with three teams in front of it. e mode of
following the Indians was now very soon settled.
The Seventh cavalry had twelve companies in all
divided into six “s neurons." Major Elliptthad
two squadrons; Cus er left one as a riffor the
wagons, and with the other three rons, six
companies. determined to strike of! o the south-
east in the direction in wl.\.h Corbett pronounced
the trail to be leading. The wagons were to follow
his trail as fast as they could come with the guard.
or course there was a danger that Indians might

ounce on them, but Custer decided to risk that;

e was satisfied, from the snow, and from the total
absence of tracks outside of e war-trail, that the
Indians were hugging their 5. When he and
Elliott united they would he e ten com ea, or
about seven hundred men, an be 3nd it bestto
move quickly.

In ten minutes from Corbett‘s arrival, therefore,
away went the column at a fast walk, over the
frozen snow. to catch the Indians. snow ». *-
not hear so deep as it was further north. where we,
had come from and it had thawed and frozen into a
hard Wt so that was/easy. V ,

They took it the march about I: adjust as
the sun set t éy came on Elliott's where he
was followinz the Indians. Now the wait ‘was
growing hot. That in was full moccasin.- the

rail Was so broad and envy that the! co follow

 

    
  
   
  
    
    
   
   
  
 
   
   
   
   
    
  
    
   
   
 
 
   
   
  
 
 
   
  
   
    
  
    
 
   
    
  
   

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ye... m. , my...

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WW .,.w,...._.. c».

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of
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The Dashing Dragoon. , i 21

 

it after sunset. Of course they did so with pru-
dence. All talking was flogged in the column,
which swept on at a long, 3 hing walk. such as
cavalry horses soon acquire. and which is always
mar-Yrs id at night, when the animals think they
a. camp‘.

Ar e o’cloc they came u to Mafor Elliott's
party. which had halted, and t e whoe regiment
was dismounted. r V

The men and horses were all pretty well tired, and
needed food, but the question was how to cook cof— ,
lee. The trail had led them down into the valley of
a stream. which they afterward found to be the
W _ where there were high-banks and heavy
timbers,» it was decided to risk making small fires,
low down in the hollow, trusting to the cold weather
to keep prowling Indians at home. ' 3; A .

If not seen. it was well worth the risk to give the
men the refreshment of hot coffee, which no one
appreciates so much as a shivering soldier, alters
long march. V '

Burner, was cooked. the horses received a double
 ptoats, and after an hour's halt the pursuit
wos‘resumed. Now, however, it was necessag to
take extra precautions. Little Beaver and ard
Ropedgronounced the trail to have been made that
W ty. and that the Indians had probably passed
jus be ore sunset.

it was almost certain that. the cam would be
found in the valley of the same river which thely had
’ust reached. and probably not very far off. It was
herefore necessary not to alarm the Indians till the
r meat was prepared to clash on them, and the
no _, the frozen snow under the horses‘ feet
con] heard a quarter or a mile off.
' Ti :3, , the new march was arr
In tr “ '0 all went little Beaver and ard Rope, on
foot liding over the snow-crustin their soft moc»
casii, dike silent spirits Custer riding a little behind
themi’at'a slow ace. The other Indian scouts were
thro "it out in directions also on foot, to watch
for igdkin foes, while the w

    
 

to scouts rode in a lit-

y, hree or four hundred yards back. The

out in column of fours, was at least half a
m e behind, only Pust in si ht.

a“10,111 went the cg umfio‘nd tfio new w for about

our more w on a s progress.

[fa molt JIM, he said. A littlepgurthcr, after a cou-

tlo Eggnog and they discovered the dim embers

i

tle

rted re. The Indian scouts crept u to it,
und no one alive, but plant of pony racks.
It was pronounced to be a tire in e b some Indian
[1 in charge of the pony herd be onging to the ,
vfle. The herd had gone, but could not be far
.1!!-— he vill must be very near. You may fanc
how caution y the scouts stole on now, the 
merit halting some we. off. At the very nexth L
Hard pe waved  Custer, stole up to the top,
pooped er, and instantly fell flat on his face. then 1
crept wly back to Custer, laid his hand on the i,
general’s bridle and whisgered:

“ Map Injun down. I Ire.“ .

"How do on know i" whis red hack Custer.

“Ha Mar dog hark," said ardRope, quietly. ,

Custer dismounted, crept to the crest of the hill, ‘
PM (Mar and there. in the midst of the timber, 
were the white lodges of an Indian village, sleeping I
in the moonshine. Th re was no mistake.

He went beckto his ores, and sent ascent to call
up the omcers ot the Seventh, telling them to come i
quietly, leovi their snbers behind. He led them i
tothe top ofnfihe hill showing them, for the first
time in their lives, an Indian village full of enemies, |
which the white man had caught at last. There was i
no Won as tothe catching—the only one was, i
wou A the Indians stnly caught! Against their l
essay” Custer soon prov ded.

Di . his regiment into four divisions. he or. '
den A three 01 these to make circuits, abouts mile
( them-outoeomeinonallsidesjust,

rou
.,  I k t. commanded by himself.'wlthi
’ . . r r:

 

 

 

the sharpshooters and the band, remained grhere
they were, while the others started; and the rest of
that cold moonlight night was passed in dead
silence, waiting till the preparations were complete.
It was along weary wait, out the success at last at-
tained paid {or all. The Indians were sound asleep
and suspected nothing till daylight..when all the de
tachments simultaneously burst on them, the band
pla “Garryowen,” the men cheering. carbines
an pistols crackln , gallo ing horses tearin ,
through the camp. he resu t was a complete an
overw elming defeat for the whole band, which
proved to be the village of Black Kettle,aChey<
enne chief. Overahundred warriors were killed.
and some seventy women and children were taken
prisoners, while nine hundred nice and all the
stud of the Village was capt . About flft war-
riors got away by a bold dash in the first con sion,
but the rest were completely defeated.
b9N0 sooner was the battle over than fresh troubles

an.

is turned out that there were four other bands.
encamped within afew miles of Black Kettle's vil—
la e. and the warriors from these made a fierce
at ck on Custer, to rescue the herd of ponies. Cus-
ter soon tound.flthat he had nearly two thousand
fresh Indians to fight. Many men in such a strait
would have lost their heads and retreated; not so
Custer. He was bound to ve those fellows ales
son, to make them fear t e white man for some
time to come.

He strung out most of his men in a skirmish line.
to kee off the Indians awhile, then detailed a firing—
party 0 destroy the village and shoot the ponies,
only keeping enough of these to mount his prison-
ers. The Indians, maddened at the sight, attacked
the cavalry fiercely but without success. They
were so cowed by black Kettle's fate that they
fought feebly. No sooner was the village in ashes
than Custer called in his men, mounted. formed
line and marched right at the next Indian village,
9.5 he meant to repeat the operation.

That settled the business. The Indians waited no
10 or. They had found their match at last in the
“ ellow Devil-Chief," as they called Custer after
that time. No sooner was the Seventh fairly on its
march, than the whole Indian force scattered.
There were Kiowas and Comanches Arapahoos in
plenty and another small band of éheyennes. but
hey all tied in haste, though twice as numerous as
the soldiers.

It was about five miles to the nelu'est camp, but
before the column arrived there not an Indian could
be seen, while the lodges were found standing, full
flatun‘, and all 'deserwd. Not even a lodge-pole

n i].

By the time Custer reached the camp it was dark.
and the moon had not vet risen. He halted awhile ’
sent out scouts who found no Indians, then turn
and marched ofl straight across country to his wag-
ons, which he found safe in camp. Not an Indian
had been near them. He concluded that he had

> done enou h for one trip, so he dispatched Califng

Joe and ack Corbett across country to carry
news to General Sheridan, and followed them, the
next day himself. ~

Camp Supply was reached in safety, and General
Sheridan reviewed the regiment, complimen it
highly on its successful ex From that y
forth there was no more trouble with the Indians of
the South-west. Custer had cowed them completely.
Satanta and the Kiowas came in that winter after
some trouble, and ceased hostilities. Before flier-ch.
1869. the Arapahoes had followed their example;
and ear] in the spring Custer had ccm ted his
triumph y chasin down the last hand 0 the Che ~
ennes under Medic ne-Arrow, who mndered wit ~
cut a fight. ,

Such was the first and grandest of all the Indian
campaigns of General Custer. the greatest Indian-
flzhier of the Amerlcan army.

.— .F’.‘
. .‘r‘%.hz

 

 

 

22

The Dashing- Dragoon.

 

W m
Paton-“snow ENGLISH mm; m m-

um Hm.
Tn: tlnul paciflcation of the Indians of the South-
west by the eflorts of General Cluster occurred in
1869, and raised his reputation as an Indian-fighter
far above that of angflofficer of the arm . A brief
recapitulation of w the had done w show the
reason for this feeling He was recalled from arrest
in Se (ember, 1868. of
had t ree months‘ expel-ten ce on the plains. In six
months from September 1868, that is ,in March
1869. Custer'and the Seventh had destro ed one ban
of Cheyennes, corn ed the tribe 0 Kiowas to
wine into their r rvation, persuaded the whole
tribe of the Arapahoes to follow their example, and
finally capturedthelnst of the remainin Cheyennes,

and brouught them to peace. No one e e had ever
gone b so much, except with an army behind
m.

Peace now reigned on the lains for several years
and Custer among the rest an opr-tun ty of
enjoying the reward of his labors. e Seventh
was scattered among the frontier posts, and Custer
himself, with a few companies, took command at
F'ort Hays, where he 5 nt some of the haxépiest
years of his life, till Ti, when he was or ered
away to the States.

The first summer he was overrun with visitom
from the East and Europe, who wanted to see the
famous Custer and enjoy a buffalo-hunt. First came
a younyihEnglish ioni, who had been making the
tour of eworid. He was a great rider, 0. crack
shot, very fond of hunting. Henbad shot t ers in
India. and came to America to see if the You had
anything in the way of game worth killing. This
youn lordcame to Newport soon after his arrival.
and al the rich eople in society potted him.

The youngl lee. however—dwomen are contrary
creatures, you know; didn't much like the patron-
izing way t is youn lord talked about the plains. It
seems that he once said:

“ It‘s nothing to kill a buffalo. my dear Miss Blank.
You see, when a. fellow's killed ti ers and elephants,
all the rest seems very tame. ou've nothing very
dangerous on the plains. Buffalo! why allyou have

to do is to ride fast enough to catch them, and shoot ‘~

straight. You see. these follows on the plains brag

' a ooddeal."

hen the beautiful Miss Blank was settled for
she had a brother on the plains, and she had een
doing akfiood deal of boosting about the buflaloes
he had led.

So she flashed out:

“ Very much obliged. my lord, for {our opinion,
Butflarierhaps you wouldn't say so i you'd seen a

u o.

“ Oh well. you know, that‘s all very well, you
know, ut—"

“And as for killing one I‘ll bet you a. dozen ir
gt gloves you can t kill a buffalo on your

not.

This nettled the young lord in turn, and when Miss
Dash Miss Maud-so and all the row joined in to
tense 111 about the buffalo, he finally declared that
he‘d start for the West next week, have one hunt,
and bring back at least one buitnlo tail, or lose a
dozen pair of gloves to each lady.

80 down to Fort Ha he came by railroad, with a
letter from General 8 eridan to Custer, and a party
was at once organized.

This hunt was a very splendid one, for there was
a la crowd of hunters. Besides the English lord

‘ andt 0 friend who traveled with him, there were

several officers of the Seventh and a edparty of
excursionists from St. Louis who arrlv j
the hunt was star-tin out. The hand of the regi-
ment was along and are was a of am-
bulrgmes and wagons, beside- horsemen of the
our . ._

T y W . from the camp of the regiment early
m‘tfi demand marched own about twenqx mm:

one that time he had only '

ustas,

4 before they went into camp themselves. Casters
summer post was at Big Creek, about fifteen miles
from Fort Hays, but the soldiers had mod r 1'

all the me long fore, so that it was necer’ \ L
l at on do of ther circle before hopinfi‘ -.‘.
‘ uffalo. The huntin party camped bya t s-
‘ nin brook, and the Indian scouts were sent gut in

a all tions to find buffalo signs, while supper Was
l being cooked. '
‘ About an hour after sunset they returned, with
the news that buffalo were grazing or lying down in
’ several large herds, not two miles from camp.
‘1 This once every on and pistols were

cleaned rifles ooked to, sad es overhauled that
,night. it was arranged that in the morning the
l hunters shouldvstart out after breakfast. and then
I the night was devoted to sleep. '

The rty was very lar 6 now. The En lish and

l the 0 cars of the Sevrnt were nearlyt ‘ 'stron ,

and the St. Louis people had more than a undr ,
I among whom were some fort ladies. One of these
‘ ladle the beautiful Miss . of Cincinnati, had
: actufily‘ expressed a determination to ride out with
the hu t, and as she was known tobea splendid
rider there was much curiosity e ressed as to
whether she would kill a bufl'alo, for 13 carried two
revolvers. .

At last the dawn began to streak the east, and
long before sunrise the whole can) ‘ was alive,
breakfast dispatched, and horses sad ed. ‘Just as
the sun showed his face, the hunters rode out of
camp, and no sooner had they topped the next swell
than, suns enou la, there was aflaud herd of nearly
a thousand b alo, dead to w dward. peacefully
feeding on the prairie grass.

Now the hunt was arranged1 all the horsemen and
Miss T. strung out in a sk ish line, riding abreast
about thirty eet apart, at a slow pace, toward
herd. They numbered about sixt riders all told.

In the center was Custer, Miss . next to him, the
two English lords on either side. It was understood
that they should keep abreast till the herd Etarted,
after which it was to be every one to ' himself.

It was pretty hard work to hold in the horses, for
the ht of so many companions, and the scent of
the intent bnflalo blowing down on the fresh
morning bieene, excited them great] . The buifaio
were hun , and. as usual, feeding eads up wind,
so that e line was within a quarter of a m e
before they took the alarm. Then arose a gre t

sts started 0 at a trot, breaking into I.
lumbering :1qu after a few steps.

Now the of hunters started, full speed and
went racing away for the herd. Custer, on his
tborou hhred, the English lords, and Miss T. were
ahead, ing better mounted than an one else, and
they soon found themselves nearln l e herd. Now
they were close to them in the dus , and the buffalo
be an to scatter. The beasts could not run so fast
as n the spring. for the summer grasses had fatten-
ed them and silence their wind, while the horses
were in splendi condition. As the game scattered,
the horsemen dashed into the main he aldthe
crackin of pistols began. The En iish 0rd was,
determ ned to win his bet, and be due ed singled
‘ out his bufi'aio and flnhhed him in sho order.
, with three shots. Little Miss 11 had shrunk from
1 the center of the hard but she was away after a
‘ sindgle bonnie. closely followed b two orderlies, de-

ta ed by Custer to take care 0 her. The uoky
Western rl fired away at her bullshit!!! g w
of hard ri n and perseverance brought him a) _v

 

after three 5 rots. Then she mi ht have had a hard”

time. but for the orderiies who ashed in tiring and

distracting the buflaio’s attention, so that presentt’ly ‘ 

he stopped, the blood flowing from his moot

te sunk down dead. You may lane ow

delighted was Miss T., but she was ts! from an ed.
, No sooner had one of the orderliea onto! the tail of
‘thebulltogivetohernsa ‘

, that net
‘ needs be u Wham. wins

38MB after. .

 

gumbling bellow and the mass of huge biack _
a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A elo bent. “13‘s roly

 

 

 

The Dashing Dragoon. 23

 

coming) in ‘her direction. Wonderful to relate, she
ended killing this fellow too, but not till she had
empti the twelve barrels of her revolvers, and
been. chased round and round by the bufl'alo.
Luckily she was so light, and her horse 50 good, that
the 32th never got near her and the orderlies had
no excu. for interferln till it was time to cut on
the tail 0 the second b o. w

in the !mean time, the rest of the party had not;
been idle. There was enough noise to make one
imagine a regular battle was going on, but buffaloes
and hunters alike were scattered all over the
, e inla cloud of dust, a very few minutes’ gal-

, them miles away. At last they began

  
   

‘13,, Valovrly, with tired horses every. man
talking atlthe to of his voice, and all boasting of
their auccoss ix; they had killed an thing. We
have said‘ nothing of Custer, but be ad made a
splendid score for all that. He was now an old,
ohmrien buffalo-hunter, and seldom took more
than two ote to finish his game. He had killed
seven human, and thfe Egglish lords had killed tour
ottygood or ginners. H
But thfir had stopped sneering at the run-res.
“By 5016, general. t‘s not so tame as thought.
One old fellow cha me as viciously as a rogue

 

H
hat w the o dest lord‘s opinion, and his friend
confirmed _ it. He had narrowly escaped death
twiCe. Once the buffalo‘s horn grazed his horse's
Ride and ripped his saddlecloth oil', and another
buffalo threw him, horse and all, falling dead
Within two feet of the prostrate hunter. ‘

m do ’3 dinner was a jolly one. Eighty-two
mall!) been killed, and the wagons were all
load“! meat to go back to camp. The Charm
P6539 “Wed. and Miss ’1‘.’s health was drank again
an own. as the Diana of the Prairies. Next day
the hunters and excursionists went back to Fort

, and the party broke up.

hunt was but one of many such leasant ex-
wl‘fiwbich made the summers of 1 9 and mo
“16 delightful of Custer's life. His little wxfe
WM “ilk him, and his sister Mag ie. now first own
PP “0 be 3- youu lady; the cars of is ttal-
ion Vere devot to him. and made With _the1r
fammesafpleasant circle of society. in the winter,
"men “Mi/Ora come no more, the regiment was can-
toued It Fort Ha s, the men in comfortable bar-
racks» the horses 11 open stables, the on‘icers in cot-
mgefi. Then they used to get up private theatricals,
"‘8 office and ladies taking part the audience
139198 00153 Bed of the soldiers and ciwhans em-
 it {go past. nearlya thousand people in all.

5 l Show was free. you may be sure that the
theaterwds full every evening. and that the actors
had plenty of applause. y, 

80 awn the time, leasant and peaceful,
till the summer 0 1871. when Custer received orders
‘40 'to Louisville, Kentucky, while the whole
of the th Cavalry was taken from the plains,
M , y here and a company there,

With 0 two 00m nies. was stationed
handsome”: small last? about forty miles
from minus. and there a remained, with little
to do. till 1873.

His hm er, Tom Custer, whoggas now a captain
in the Seventh, was ordered to nth Carolina, but
m" ulster Maggie was married to Lieutenant elu-
houn ' ~‘ this time, and as Calhoun was
ntant to Custer the-g were
' u tty cone together. so that t 6 little
‘ ‘  i e was not broken up entn'eigj.
To ml)! his leisure, about this xme. Custer
began to write sketches of his life on the plains,
in) even commenced a memoir of his services
dull the war, but these latter were never finished,

  
 
    

 

 

1m and ills and starts,
m“ ah3th unggsy restlessness.-

‘ Q g" ' Harm) this respect that he
 ' ‘ to data: somahina. and
‘ ,nfiv : i“ 

   I 

never could long enjoy leisure. The two years he

in Kentuck were uneas and restless years,
and he was ve ad in the mi die of 1872 whed‘ he
was summong 1y telegraph once more to his
beloved plains.

Tins time, however, it was not for Indian service,
but only for another grand buflalohunt, which most
of our readers will remember. At that period the
United States was honored by the visit of Prince
Alexis of Russia, who was received with great cor-
diality b the peo 1e. Not very long before the Em-
peror 0 Russia ad liberated all the serfs of his'
empire, 5 measure which so nearly resembled the
emancipation of the American slaves that it had
endeared the Russians to the Americans. Then the
Russians had stood our friends in the Civil War, and
had sold us the whole of Alaska fora small price,
which helped to make us like them. Altogether, no
foreign .rince ever received such a hearty welcome
as the rand Duke Alexis did when he came to
America

And Alexis wanted to see a buffalobunt, so Gen-
eral Sheridan thought he would send for Custer to
show him one.

He could not have sent for a better man.

CHAPTER XIV.
TOUR or m STATES—~BACK. 'ro Trm PLAINS—FIGHT
wrm srrrnm arm,

Tm; Grand Duke Alexis was on his way out West
when Sheridan, telegraphed Custer to come to Fort
Riley. The young rinoe had been in New Yofk a
few weeks before, i once to Niagara Falls. then all
the way to San Francisco on the Pacific Railroad.
which was now oEen from end to end. The run-
ning of that road ad cleared the plains of the In-
dians, and there was no more do r in those places
where Custer had followed after a Cheyennes only
three years before, Buffalo were much scarcer.
however, which was a disadvantage for sport, as
much as the absence of Indiana was an advantage
for safety.

Custer got into the train and was whirled awa to
the West, arrlvin in due time at Fort Riley, w re
the Grand Duke ad already made his appearance.
The famous scout, Cody, was also there—Buffalo Bill
himself in person—and a splendid hunting-party was
:geedily organized, with a. band of music and every-

ing to suit. At least a hundred Indian scouts had
been engaged, who roamed far and wide over the

lains marking down herds of buflalo and driving
em toward the fort, so as to make game seem
filentiful. it was all very well for common folks to

 

ave trouble in finding game, but every one was do— ', '

termined that the Grand Duke should find plenty.

The appommd morning came. and Alexis rode out
with Custer to the hunting-grounds. The Grand
Duke was and is a splendidvlooking fellow, six feet
high, broad and stron . with a leasant face. always
Men . He worea acket an trowsers of stron
gray 0 th, high boots and a fur cap, and carri
'one handsome revolver. His horse was of course a
splendid animal the best money could bu or hire.

Duster wore his well-known frontier (has, with
its fringed cape and sleeves, while his lon ' curls
flowed down over his shoulders. He carried t e new
Springfield carbine just then ' introduced in the
army, and his piece been altered into a sporting
ride by agunsmith, making it a very handsome
weapon. 6 had brought on from Louisville a new
horse, a perfect thoroughbred, and no doubt Alexis
thought bat if all the American generals were like
Custer, they were a handsome set of fellows.

As they got near the hunting-ground (i

own came
Buflalo B full speed, to meet them. Cody was
splendidly ressed in the same ga lyomumented
buckskin suit that he afterward u in the “Scouts
of the Prairie," on the stage. Of course it was not
his wor ' dress, but Alexis never knew the diner-
ence, and was delighted with these handsome
costumes all roundxhim.
who had been driving bunalo. cameo» in no his

Then the Indimi‘“ mg,

 

'ter

e

l.

7g" uri to St.

 

-

5 found that allthe r ride h

 

 

’ received
,the invitation, and Mrs. Custer joined the rt v,
which made quite an extended tour of all the

0

~

4

 

hats, and all say
falo over the nex hi .

It is needless to describe this hunt any further, for
all buifalo-hunts are much the same, and this was no
exception.

The Grand Duke turned out to be a ood rider and
shot, and killed his buiYalo like a goo fellow. Cus-
shot two, and Buffalo Bill, with his peculiar
knack, finished five in a many shots. Lon

ime.
The Grand Duke 5 out several days buffalo-hunt—
ing and accumulate

and

I
with feathers. The re rted'bufv
t “u y p0 1, the surrender of Lee

The Dasl ing Dragoon.

pmc' :
' :lce had shown him just where to aim to kii every :

quite a little store. of trophies, i
he was somuch delighted with Ouster’s frank}

courtesy of manner, that when the hunt was over he I

.fiivited the general to come with him on the rest of
l back =

s tri through the United States, first oin

- with h m to Louisville, where they met rs. uster,
whose quiet, ladylike demeanor pleased the tines
aswellasthe gallant look of the general. stei-

permission from head-quarters to accept

ut I-
on States, ending at New Orleans, where a Russian
frigate waited for Alexis.

So there was our poor farmer‘s boy, the son of the
vi e blacksmith at New Rumley travelingr about
the nited States on terms of equality with he heir
of the greatest empire in the world, his little wife
holdln her own among the prince and nobles, as if
she h been born to a throne. it was a si ht pecu-
liar to America, and hardly possible an w are else.

The Alexis trip over, Custer returned Louisville
and wore through the next year of idleness as well as
hecould. In the earl spring of 1873, to his great
Joy, the Seventh Cava ry was once more ordered to

he plains, and himself with it.

The occasion was this: it had br-en determined,
since the Pacific Railroad had succeeded so well,
having pacified all the Indians to its south, that an-
other road, throu h the more northerly tc ritories.
should be run. ‘his determination proved, in the
end, very disastrous, inasmuch as the new line ran
through the territories of the Sioux, and the Sioux
were the only Indiana that had so far almost always
had the best of the government in battle.

However, it was settled that the road shouldbe
surve ed, and a military escort. consisting of the
Twen y-second Infantry and Seventh Cavalry, and
General Stanley, With Custer second in command,
was ordered to accompany the surveyor‘s party.

Custer concentrated his regiment at Memphis the
companies coming in from all round the S ates
where they had been scattered, all very glad to at
there. The took boat up the Mississippi and s—
aul where they landed, marching then

erland up the Missouri to the Villa 6 of Bismark,
in Dakotah. Op osite to Bismark, w are the North-
em Pacific road t 16!) termi ated, was Fort Abraham
Lincoln, where the exped on was to concentrate in
May. It was now the beginning of A ril, but the»,
winter was not yet over in those high aiitudes for
the column was overtaken at Yankton A ncy by a
tremendous snow-storm, which nearly roze them
all and left a ard of snow on the ground. Several
in ice were wi h the column inclu lug Mrs. Custer.
who alwa s marched at the head of the troo when
she was owed. and these ladies had a bar timein
the snow. However, it proved to be the last storm
of the season, for a few days after warm weather
set in, and by the time they reached Fort Lincoln,
not a trace of white was on the cum].

Here, to their 1; disa tment, the ladies
been in vain, for tho
hafga was ordered back, and the regiment re-
ce v directions for speed service in the field with
the Stanley Expedition to e Yellowstone River.

The ladies, very reluctantly, had to take the cars
at Bisumrk, and Mrs. Custer returned to Momma.
Custer and the Seventh soon started with the Stan-
ley column. Here a stran e meeting occurred be-
tween Custer and an old and and enemy of his.

is «r

l

 

 

General Rosser, late of the Bentham army.
, r Roam, like many an-
other brave i’ellow who ou ht on the aide in
the Civil War, found himse cut adrift wit no way
to make a living exce t by he lining liffi'hft'esh.
Havin been through est Pain in the same class
with ster he was a good engineer, so he made his
way up to innesota, entered service with the new
railroad as a laborer, and worked his way u to he
chief engineer. Now, therefore,itha ned at he
and Custer, who had not met each ot or since the
surrender at Appomattox, came together two thou.
sand miles away, and eight years later, as friends
and comrades. ‘

As you can fanc , they had. many a pie t talk
over their old batt es, explaimn movemen near-h
other. Those eight years, and is own success had
taken away all the bitterness of past defeats from
Rosser, and he and Custer becamovery close friends
over after.

The column started from Fort Lincoln in the
spring as soon as the grass was well up, and pro-
ceeded due west toward the Yellowstone River on
the line where the railroad was projected. Then-
early progress was quite rapid the plains being

ulte smooth till they came to the line of the Lit-
te Missouri, beyond which the “had lande"com-
menced. These bad lands are horrible places seam—
ed with broad deep fissures, almost impassahle for
wagons, and frequently delayed them so'fliat the
train would only make five miles a dayr. The dis-
tance from the Little Missouri to the ellowatone
was less than two hundred miles, but the we a
were so difficult that it was not till July t at t 4:
goat river was r Then Custer ro _ sad to

neral Stanley that he, Custer, shou ,_ ahead
every day with two or three companies ' cavalry,
pick out a god road, and leave a broad trail for
he wagons follow. General Stanley was only too
glad to assent to this arran. gemeut, which soon
rought Custer into quite a handsome fight.

In the early party of the ourney no ndians had
been seen, and even on the cllowstone it was some
time before any indications of their presence were
met. As it turned out, however, the column was
being watched all the time, and banno less apex-eon
than the now celebrated chief Sit g Bung.-

Sitting Bull was the most daring, obstinate and

imgilacuhle of all the Indians of the N west.
W ten the whole Sioux nation maggdpewé . t

whites, when Red Cloud and Spa Ta 'é ith all
their braves had come in and settled on». agen-
cres, Sitting hull alone held out. With a band
sometimes of less than a. hundred warrio here—

mnined out in the deserts round the Yell stone.

proud of his independence. and seem- as he
thought, from the power of the govern . As
1911 as the Yellowstone country was no ' ted,
Sitt n Bull was left alone in his ioty, but ' com-
in o the Stanle column showed him that hemust
fig t if he ho to drive out the whites. 411 the
summer, whi e Stanley ‘5 great train of n: was
slowly creeping alo the plains, Indians been
seen passing to and r0 between 9

Sitting Bull’s hit]

hand and the different tribes on the of the
lssouri river. Here the Indians to t.me

and cartridges, ostensibly to hunt while ev slip

BedLofl, one or two at a time, really to joinfiltting
U

Therefore, there was very little to wonder at
when Custer, one fine morning, whilevrepoeing his
little squadron of about ninety men. seine ten miles
ahead of the main column, was suddenly attacked
by’ Sitting Bull, with at least three hundred warriors '
w o drove the soldiers to the bank of the river, and ‘1'
besieged them there for several hours. 
h They could not budge Custer and the Seventh.

owever.

As usual, the soldiers fought on fwt‘oending their
horses into shelter, and, as usual, the Indians wanted
their time “circling,” throwing awly ammunition,
when theirflrst charge had beg: repulse.

. l ' " a

    

 

 

, We», r, , , A._ . I _ _ a. . 

The Dashing Dragoon}

8,6

 

 

certain, but the timely srrlvalof two

. ' unted, is

A, s uadmns oi' the Seventh extricated him tron: his
,3!“ d mine. Thaw thesecametobesent upmin
 consequence of carelessness.

% it seemed that, de the main attacking

Custer, there were small hands of dians roaming
about one of them‘ led by a smooth-fared. smiling
dam, vil of a. Sioux. named Ruin-ln-theFaoe. This
swamp h to come on two peaceable quiet
old men, 0 belonged to the main column, but
‘ who had fallen into the habit of roaming away to
collect curiositia, of which the YelloWstone country
is, mil. Rarn-ln-the-Face came on these two old
men, Dr. Houdnger and Mr. Belemn, and killed
them both, leaving their bodies so that the advance
' of the column found them. He also killed a strag-
gler of the Seventh. named Ball, at a. spring.

- The finding oi! these bodies of course made General
Stanley very anxious about Custer’s detachment,
end he at once sent off the rest of the Seventh to

their leader. The new force had not arrived

wit three miles when the war Indians spied it,

. and began to draw oft. Custer. th the quick deci-

sion natural to him, divined the presence of his

.‘ friends. and determined to give his enemies a. les-
a’ SOIL



 

' ‘ 6 Not waiting for the reinforcement be mounted his .

f men charged Sitting Bull, and drove him helter-
« s shelter for new ten miles before he stop d. then
‘ cemeslowl h tocamp,withthelosso only two
mwoun ed.
, - This was his first Indian-fight since 1869, and ended
‘3 in atriumph won dinst tremendous odds. Only
a few days atterwe down came Sitting Bull again,
this timeon the main expedition, with a, much
pl- larger tome. It was computed at the time that
,, atlaetilfteen hundred lndiansin sight,
.50 man allies had joined Sittln Bull.

This im however. the chic did not get ofl.’ so
easily. He adnotcal ted on thepreseuce of a
hat of small rifle-cannon which was in the train,
cal-em hidden.

gusto:- was given the main management 01 this
[lg t, and encouraged the Indians to come on by
throwing out

 

a small force at first. No sooner were
the Indians fairly in sight. clustered in crowds out
of carbine-shot than e artillery ltcheda few
shells in%hem. and sent them y ng, completely

dem .
“let that the expedition had no more tmuhle
trots SittirifieBull, exceptsmall annoyances. At
' the end of summer it broke up, huvmg returned
' :6 Fort Lincoln. .
. (hater was (fidered to take post till further (lll‘BC-
“0118 at Fort ce. Dakota, twenty miles from Lin-
co

CHAPTER XV.
, win mo: anus “reunion—cam or rum-nee
ran-mos.

Tu close of the Yellowstone tion left Custer

- inaquiet, pleasant post, and end led him to enjoy
a leave of absence, which he spent with hislittle
wife, in a trig to the East. Every ml or nearly so
( used 0 receive these leaves, on they cleared
it good deal of eelousy amour! other officers, who
r for bein a“pet"oi the Govt
t. The real reason ,
did his work so well that the Government
he deserved extra favor when the work was

, {have over, he returned to Fort Rice for the
, , winter oi! Dakota, and, as usual, man-
In “much 197mm spitr%ore§v&r¥'d;tw£§foft'
waso or o 1 con,
and ‘ soon after the famous Black Hills -
tion was 05$;th and put under his comman
mu

  
  
 

 

  
 

ition that bro ht Custer most

it exped
7 inning before the people in his ater were. The
v M t e clrcumstanceetesmoundlng it were so
romantic that the whole Uni 1 States was interested

.  , A.

    

e received them was _

 

I

l
l

l

 

liar reuio

, Huw ion Custer 'mlfllll have held out, as be was I in it.‘ In the first place. the Black Hills was‘a  -
peculiar in this, that it was til“ only part

of the' United States territory that had never been
thorou hl explored by white men

The 11 ans considered

it with superstitious awe,

as a. country surrounded «with enchantment. No
white man with the exception of one or two hunters,

had ever heen through i

t, and it was

:1 be-

lleved that even those hunters who cla meder
been there were inventing stories. Two United
States oflicers, Captain Reynolds
Warren, both afterward major-gene is of volun-

Lieutenant

teers, had taken parties around it in 1855 and 1859.

03min Reynolds went up the Yellowstone by bout,
0.

Lieutenant Warren's party went b land from”

Fort Laramie. but neither succeeded lingering

the Black Hills. Reynolds did not ti , and

MP8“

was stopped by the Sioux and compe led to return.

In 1874, as in 1859, there stood the Black as 
they are marked on the ma. . a little cluster ol‘. hills...

Hills

rising in the midst of the arren lains oi the Yel-
lowstone, silent, mysterious, clot ed from base to

summit with dark pine forests, fit

What was in those

dark recesses no

lynamed.

one know

They covered a space about as large as the State of
Connecticut, within a hundred miles of. Fort Lam-

luie

yet totally unknown. ,
The overland route to Calliorniarnn near them, '

but no venturesome traveler had ever penetrated

their recesses.

The Indians 1: the agenci
d or would to

Black Hills, 0

not 8.

except that the were Medicine—that

At last, one
gold-dust, which the
whisky. Of course t
ing them, and by dint

y, two Indians out on a
pretty drunk, came into a fort and exhib
wanted to exchange for ’-

questloned about the

bout them,

enchanted.

res, and

set the traders to question-

or

lying them with liquor,

they managed to extract rom them that the gold
came from the Black Hills. Then of course the ex—
(-l'tcment begun, and every trontiersman was anxious
to go to the Black Hills. But every frontiersman
also l;ch that his chances oi! finding gold were as

one to ten of

losing his scalp. It was moreover far

from certain that the Indians had told the truth

about the
To add

old. .. '
go the difficulties surrounding the Black

Ellis was the fact that the Government, by solemn
treat with the Indians, in 1858, had promised never
to to. 'e the hills away "from the Indians, nor to allow
settlers to go there. In the sum treaty, however.
there was a stipulation that the Government itself
might, it it wished, send exslormg parties through

the country.

No sooner di

the gold st

ory spread

than the Government ordered an ex tion to start

from

Seventh Cavalry. two com men of infantry, a.
te of Gatling guns. n tr of ' hundred we.
a. number of Indian scout .

ml

Fort Laramie, consist

Thine

of t e whole of

,
01118; V
tlon,

nearly as strong as the Stanley column of 373, was
put under the command of Custer aloue.nnd, as
usual where he was uncontrolled by othersI it was

completely successf

Custer started from the fort in J une and

marched
to the Black iiillfigs'hlch he reached in July, euter- 
and passing right thro lilttélfi

ing from the no

heart of the m sterious mung.

He tau

hunters in

and more than ad been repo K the
old times. The first valley where e halted was

riect garden of wild iiowem, so

a
brilliant and 7m—

333 that tho ofiicers at breakfast were ableto {other

no less than seam/am (inferent kinds of h ‘
from their seats, but i ‘ ’
The botanistéo the column .

without risin

down round e table.

goutnted over twg Eludreigmdiflerenth rod Bill?!) the I a
re morning!” s so as e e n u:
gathered for ds tor theirrh'orses' ends, hardfy' ,
stoopégfi rem the saddle. By unanimous consent v
tb ed this place Fiolealley. , ' ,
a" “113.? W twmmitt‘i'au‘t‘ifig
came on 0 on a . -
nine wood. open notches“ ch prairie. ever: v -

s’ . .4
i if;
" v E.

 

ossoln
K

 

d Borne". 

 

 

 

 

a, . 

 

ea

 

.‘

\ h

t

'” hadkfllod

' allui ht, (lane a

26» , «

ety of farming land.  The hills were full of brooks. ,
some with sweet water, some with a strong alkaline 3
flavor. In the beds of these rivulets there were j
strong indications of gold, and at ever halt some of ,
their people washed out several do rs’ worth of ,
dust. For a. long time no human beings were met ‘
. but game was so lentil‘ul and tame that it seemed
a shame to shoot t.
Through the Black Hills marched the Custer col-
umn in 1874, and the expedition seemed to be one

long picnic. A small famil of Indians, with half a 7

dozen w rs, was foun ,but no one else come
near them. It seemed, as the reports had said that _
the Indians had a superstition as to the Black hills, ;
which kept them out of it. The probable reason :
was their fear that if the resence of gold was once
thoroughly known, the w .ite men would pour in;
‘3 and so it subse uently proved. ,

When Custer s expedition returned and the gen-
eral‘s re ort was published, the Black Hills gold
fever se in at once. There was a tremendous ex-
clbement. Miners began to rush in before the winter
began, and some forty or fifty started a little fort
all by themselves, which they named Custer City.
They found plenty of old and a mild winter but
out in the States a per set storm was ragan u out
Uus’tcr’s report. One professor be an to write let-
ters to the papers, declaan tha Custer was a
fraud, that there was no gold n
a shame to let men go there. and so on. All the
some, miners continued to dock in. and the facts,
every day being developed, confli ed Custer and
made out the learned professor to an ignommua.
Custer had said there was gold, and id there was,
first a little. then a ood deal. Final y a Second ex«
pedltion, under an o d hard-headed infantry officer
called Colonel Dodge, was Sent out in the spring 0

' 1875. to see whether Custer’s rgport was so much
exaggerated as the professorsai . The result of this
expe ition completely vindicated Custer. Even
hard-headed old Dodge, with ever dis sitlon to
find fault. had to own up that the B nck {ills was 2:.
level country, and the presence of gold was node
cortn n b agrent rush of miners, who establis urd it
Second city and then a third.

Then the Government began to interfere to stop
mining, and General Crook was sent with n strong
force 0 take the miners away. He found that the
miners were twice as numerous as his soldier and
better armed, but by dint of ,rsunsion he induct-d
them to leave. No sooner but he escorted them to I
the settlements. however. than they slip rd oil 1
again and took twice as many more with l; mu, so 1
that brook wus oblivudto give it up as a bad Job.
One of the most troublesome o the whole lot,
proved to be Old California Joe, who turned up i
finite unexpectedly. He used to travel 011 with the V
' Idlers, when theyflound him in the hills,

, peaceably, till theyvgot to the settlements, and hen .‘

 

 

nst as cholly bid them ,ood-by. on next they
» in the hills, playing seven-

naard of him, it was
up with the minors.
this summer. however. Custer was idle, up at
Fort Lincoln. The only evnnt that occurred to 11m
was tbe'cn ture of Rain-in-the-li‘ace. the Indian who
. Houzin er and Mr. Baleren, two years
before. All that bed can known of them Was that
their bodies had been found. but who did it. except
Indians in genera no one know. That summer.
however, one of star's white scouts, down at
Standin Rock Azency, heard it drunken lndian
called ~in—tboFuce braggln , at a great war-
dnnce, how he had killed two wli to men.
Rain-iu-the~l<‘ace never dreamed that Charley
slicynolds understood his language. The lndians are
“very fond of those dances, whenever there is on ’s-
sue of supplies at. the a encics, and they will stay up
howling, telling about the
V ey have ed and what very real; warriors
are. The are excellent pantom mists and act
1. r stories V: th free: spirit. Rein-ln-the-F‘gce was ,
taproud of his wowlnte men that he rum his

men

* w

the hills, that it was ‘; his

The Dashing Dragoon.

song over and over again till the scout wn~l N3!"
tain from the description that it was these two old
men he had killed. Then he rodeto Port Lincoln
and told Custer.

Custer at once sent a fiuadron of cavalry under
Captain Yates and Capt n Tom Custer, w oauc-

, oeeded. after some tron 1e,tiu capturing Rain-in-the-

Face. It was a very risky hing to do, for the sol-
diors were only sixt strong, and there were at least
six hundred armed dinns at the ency. but they
caught the murderer unawares, an then promised
the Indians, who thered menacineg round, that
it they stirred a 1: er to rescue him he should be
shot at once. It was om Custer who arrested Rain-
in-the-faoe, and the two emcers finally succeeded in
getting him oil from the agen into the fort.

Then Rain-in-the-Face was opt in the guard-
houso for several months. Custer trying his best to
make him confess to the murder. This, however,
was useless. Never was there a nieter and sweeter-
faced Indian than Rain. He loo ed as if hewoulcl
not harm a fly. He protested that he knew nothing
about the murder, loved the white men and all the
rest but Custer cornered him at last. Every day he
use to have him alone in his room and question the
scamp. till at last he extorted a confession from
him. which Rain directly afterward denied. His
friends and relatives came to visit him and beg for
life, but Custer held on to him and was deter-
mined to send him to the States to be tried.

While bowls in the guard-house, Ralnln-thetll‘aco
hnd'his picture taken and a quiet, smooth-looking
Yellow he is,-very much like a woman. with a sweet
smile, but a strange. treacherous look in his 6 es.

After all, however, it was not destined that ster
should send Rain-in-thaFaoe to his trial. After the
Indian had been somesmonths in the guard-house,
he made , s esca by cutting a hole in the rear, one
atom ght. an went off to the hostiles under Site
ting nil, in safety. From thence he sent Custer an
insolent message, the next summer to say that he
had sworn to kill him and es )ecial y be sent word
to Tom Custer that e won d out his heart out,
rind be revenged for that time he was annotated by
' om.

The brothers laughed at the threat. The had
heard such things before. They little dream that
the da was comin , less than a year from that time,
when n-in-the- ace would keep his oath.

The summer of 1875 went on. and the winter canie.
As usual Custer got his leave to visit New York, and
this time he stayed several months, having received
several extensions. In the mean time, however, the
entrance of the miners to the Black Hills had
created reat trouble in the North-west and news
came in mm all quarters that 1876 would rohahkv
see a tremendous Indian war, for the who Sioux

It was therefore determined by General Sheridan,
as he had determined in 1868, to attack the Indians,
if (possible, before they got ready .
an to start all the men available after Sitting Bull.
:21 soon as the weather got clear enough to move
Accordingly orders were issued that three columns
should atartafter Sitting Bull, who was known to be
somewhere in the country to the south 0! the
Yellowstone River, between the Powder and the Big
Horn, and to hunt him out. .

One of these columns, under General Gibbon, was
to start from Fort EULS. Montana, ut the sources of ‘
the Yellowstone, and to move east. A second was
to start from Fort Laramie, under General Lrook,
about 1 500 strong, to move north to the/same point.
The last came from Fort Lincoln, and was denomi-

um, i. nation was preparing to go on the war-path.

noted the “Custer Column " having the Seventh w-

Cav , some infant ,an a bathe of Gaul
himself. U '3‘

guns under Custer in

am..—

 

I.
.1:

to attack him *“

 

 

 

 

 

~ "“"".‘”T""“ A v

The Dashing Dragoon. - 2'7

 

CHAPTER XVI.

mans—Iran awn TRIAL—cums surmnosn—
(moon mssn m: srrrnvo BULL.

Tm: project for conquering Sitting Bull looked
Te nice on paper, and appeared, to man people,
corlttyain of success. It was supposed that e Sioux
chief had, at the utmost, about eight hundred war-
riors, and the different columns were to aggregate
when! two thousand eight hundred men, a coming
at him at the same time. General Gibbon‘s force
was quite small, and all cavah'y, about. four hun-
dred men; Crook had twelve hundred, and the Gas-
ter column was to be the same stre tli.

It was late in Mam-h before the sol iers were able
to move, and then, at last, Crook started from Fort
Laramie ispost was so far south of Fort Lin-
coln that the snow had melted, and every one
thought s ring had come when the column had
started. hey were undecelved before three days
had passed, by the coming of a tremendous snow—
storm, followed b the t ermometerEgoing below
zero, a way it has n the North-west. very expedi-
tlon that starts before Mayin those latitudes has the
somehsxperienoe, and almost the same storm to en-
uoun r.

Custer and Gibbon, being further north, were still
shut in by the deep snow, and unable to move; and
Crook had the first cam ign all to himself. Just
as Custer had done at t e Washita, seven years be-
mre, Crook found the country clear of indians, and
his scouts found a village down in a river valley,
which they might have taken by surprise had they
been led by a man like (luster.

This village was that of a great friend and ally of
Sitt Bull, aSioux chief called Crazy Horse. He
had a ut ahundred and fifty lodges, or some six
hundred warriors. These were struck by General
B nolds, who commanded Crook’s cavalry, and the
v' age was taken and burned, while the herd of
ponies was captured. Owing, however, to the lazi-
ness or misbehavior of some of the commanders of
the detachments surrounding the villsi - the lndlan
warriors got off with very small loss, illed several
soldiers. recaptured their ponies and left General
lie with with the barren honor 0 an em ty victory
wh ch crippled Crook‘s column so much t at it was
obliged to return to Fort Laramie to refit.

it was fully intended that the Custer column
should have started next, but here ll strange train
of circumstances set in. which ended disastroust
tor tho.- nation. It so happened that the tht‘ll Secre-
tary of War, Mr. Belknu i, was being tried in _Wash-
ington for bribery in fie ing a post-ti'xuirrslnp, and
some meddling oplextook it into their heads that
General Custer new somethin about the matter.
Accordingly, he was summone posthaste to Wash—
ington, by a subpcem to testify before aoommittee
of Con The rea fact was that he knew noth-
ing of inportanoe on the subject, and tried hard to
be excused from going. He telegra bed to the com-
mittee, telhm: them how he was etailed to com-
mand an ex ilion in the field, and begging to be
examined Li Fort Lincoln. It was no use; they
would have him, and he was obliged to go. The end
of the matter was that he was kept in Washington
n‘early two months, waiting to be examined, and
that when his testimony was taken it brought him
into a personal quarrel with the President, who
took Mr. Be'knap‘s side in the trial.

When, at last, Custer was let offhhe started at
once for the West, to get back to his station, and
was stopped at Chicago by a telegram from Qenersl
Sherman, who, by onier of the President, directed
General Sheridan to detain Custer and send off the
ex tion without him.

is of course was a terrible blow for Custer. A
great many men in his position would have left the
army, disgusitfd with such treatment, publicly hu-
nriiiated vlt out proper cause. Custer, however,
was remnanny patient of 1mm and quite deter.
mined to live down the slizht. he felt convmced

 

that the President misunderstood him, and would
do him ustioe in the end. He remonstrated so
well wit General Sherman. and final] with the
President himself, that the latter relente so far as
to allow Custer to go on the expedition, in com-
mand of his own regiment. though General Terry
was ordered to take command of t 16 whole column.

Custer was quite content to do as he was ordered.
General Terry was avery fine officer, and a gener-
ous-hearted man. and be trusted Custer imthitly.
He himself had won all his e rience in t e civil
war, never having been in the old alnst Indians,
and he was quite content to take Cus r's advice in
all matters connected with the expedition.

So, at last, in the middle of Mn , 1876, the Terry
Colman, that should have been t e Custer Column,
started from fort Lincoln on the same route, taken
by the Yellowstone e ltion of 1873. and marched
in search of Sitting Bu .

We will not detain ourselves Over the incidents
of the early part of this march It was begun tor
late in the yearto rise the Indians, and Sitting
Bull was atherlng in resh forces every (lay.

it will remembered that his sup osed haunt
was somewhere to the south of the ellowstone
River, between the Big Horn and Powder Rivers. If
the reader will take a map and look at the count ,
he vnll find that the Missouri River describes nealriy
a quarter-circle all round this re ion, at a. distance
of some three hundred miles. 't is rather impor-
tantto remember this fact, for the reason that all
along the Missouri edsts a line of is Indian
arencies, each averaging about five hun war-

ors, fed, clothed, and armed by the government,
and that, all through the summer of 1870, the In-
dians from these uncles were oing off across the

flame to oiu Sit n Bull at he same time that
‘i‘ook, Gi hon and were hunting for him.

The Indians went on orseback, in small squads,
With two or three ponies (apiece, carrying nothing
but themselves and arms. hey lived on buffalo, or
antelope or wolf, or rabbit, or anything they could
find an the ponies got fat on the Spring-grass,
while they traveled thirty miles a day. No wonder
the?’ outstripped a slow column of soldiers, with
the r hundreds of wagons, who could move no l'ast~
er than the slowest team.

The result was that when the scouts of Terry and
Gibbon at last met, on June lot, on the Yellowstone,
at the mouth of Tongue River, Sitting Bull had
somewhere about three thousand warriors, of half a.
dozen different tribes, all snugly corraled in the val-
ley of the Big Horn, no one exactl knew where,
and la midway between Terry and rock, who was
now s owl advancing from the south.

Now at list the campaign commenced in earnest.
The two army columns were about two hunth‘ed
and fifty miles a , and the country between
them was very litt a known. Captain Reynolds, in
1805. had been up some of the streams, but outside
of these the maps were finite loose and full of con-
Jecture. So Crook and erry began to feel for Sit-
ting Bull by scouting over the count .

Crook had quite a 9 force, an he was soon

omed b a number of Indians from the Snake and

row trl we, when he slowly advanced northtoward
the Yellowstone, encam ing at the head-waters of
the To me River about une 15th. The country of
Sitting ull was found to be traversed b the follow-
ing rivers allruiuiiiig north with the erwstone,
counting from west to east—the Big Horn, Rosebud,
Tongue, and Powder.

These streams had others runnln into them,
called the Litiie Horn. Little Rosebu , Little Pow-
der. The Snake scouts soon brought Crook word
that a big Indian village was pitched in the vnllc of
the Little Rosebud, and Crook started to flntf it,
June 16th. Now, for the first time, he began t1
marchjn earnest, passing over fort miles, and an
rlving within about eight miles of S tting Bull’s vil-
lage at night. Had he onl been active enou h to
have marched on all nig t. as Custer did a the

I:

 

 

 

 

(

n

Woshlta there is little doubt but Crook might 1131;: .

sot Wiesel Sitting Bull. As it Mae, 9 allowed
in es and Crowsto go on a three that night, and

W us mm mm at  instead 1 rising
i o s
Bu ed him. by Wurlom
at “newly three t ousend warriors, who
charged again, aging drove back one of his
wings, and weré nlymriven oil at last b the infan-
try. (1lean ood many men on was again
so muoh‘mippledv t he had to {all back to the
Tongue vex-rend send for reinforcements. t
In the ear; tiling, Terry and Gibbon, for away to
the north knewrnothin of all this. The were
hunt ahout for a. that would lead em to
‘ :‘tltting nil. Small parties of Indians had been an-
nnylng Gibbon before he met Tong]; butiainco their
junction all those fellowahnd van" ed.
it  to send out a scouting g)
Terry 00' not sKare Custer for this du ; be
hooded him too muc at headquarters. It was de-
terminotxlfi therefore, to «sendsout jor Reno, the
next so or officer of the Sevent , with six com:
$11108 of that regim ant, to ride up the Powder RIVer
Little Powder, thence round the Tongue or Rose'-
bud, and back to  at the mouth of t? Tongue.
It wafl‘ath htvproba 16 that he might ome on a
Mao ow ere. Reno relished the Little Powder
, in five ys, without seeing asign of Indians, but as
V lire reached. the Tongue on his way, back, he came
across enlarge, brood lodge-gale trail lending south-
ward toward the Rosebu , and his scouts pro-
nounced it not much over a. week old.

arty.

was a, cautious officer too cautious to follow“

well a large’tmil with only companies any fur-
ther than to make sure that it did not scatter. As
soon as he had satisfied himself on this oint, he
made for hendqimrters, which he macho on the
evening of the Elst June. I
new; produced considerablerexcitement, and
resolved to strike for the Indians at once, ,
It must be remembered that every one there was
Dermot!
, 'ore. stest news they had was about the rozy
Horse light. where there were legs than six hundred
.Jidinus, and all Terry feared was that the new trail
might be that of a wandering bond, which would es-
cape it not followed pro
hou’s tome, the combine column now numbered
5 _ sixteen hundred men, with about twelve hundred
, cavalry and a huge train. Terry at once deter-
mined to send Custer 011' on the hunt with the
' Seventh Cavalry, by the direct trail, whier Gibbon
was to move up the Yellowstone by the Big Horn
valley and Te himself wouldfollow Custer with
the intently an train.
' Custer Was ordered to

’l'erry

 

gum-ant of Crook's repulse, three ‘do 3 bow
a

follow the trail and use his ’

like Ditahinplsr‘goon. ’ v r l e 17

There; of course his *

 

own discretion as to what he hould do. as Terry, in":

hm written instructions, said that he hni “ too much
,sconfldenoe in your zeal, energy and ability to wish
to impose upon on precise orders. wh c
hemper your so on when new? in contact with
the enemy.“ This was a sglen id compliment to
Custer nearlyes proud as he, one Wrecei ed in
1868,, when Sherman and Sheridan as for to
end the Indian war. General Terry re mmended
him, however, to make» a wide detour, and send
throu scout: to Gibbons coihmn, so its to prevent
v the In from shp ing out between the two. His
whole (lea in the o are seems to have been that
the Indinns might sh}; otr. , ,
0n t afternoon 0 the 22d J una.'1876, a date that,
_ bated for rnnnya long year. the Boy.
, nearly eight hundred men stron’ ,
ice com and moved outta pass
General orry, are they sat out on
ed 53?“??“3 “Erwin ' Mirth”? ’i‘m" “11"” it?”
on on con 0 success. ‘ e
more no need to win that they believed them!
181%: tohe, vindble ' »
in hisdi hack-

1: t , at w .
akin mm}: a bmtfiedom m 1M an

ore

 

h might}

 

 

, Ibex-e was

’his her was vex

get to ether enough Indiana oif'tlle whole p m to

, into camp at sunset. It was Custer’s, and

“and severe. march, to molten short journey the first
tly. Together with Gib- do
where they have long torried, always need all

 

his short we hair. we had sno'i‘nlms long earls, 5 .
in 1871, while gKButucky. and dressed, when in the

  
   
   
     

States, as quietly as on “one. 3,; ,r 4*
Then tthere was“ A!th h1g1. “ohm migy of the
re men over x so we an ,
a straight Greek face, and go most in K

.. agflmceut
black heard you ever so  the giris‘were iniovetfi
mgdfilfint Cooke, the ‘Queen’s Own," as they ‘ ,

There was Tom Custer. the general’s double, a lit. , v, ‘ ,_
tie youn tor, just as nervous, active and handsome, ’" '
one of t e smartest cavalr oflloers inzthe sex-vine. ‘
Calhoun, Just as big as 000 e, and even hendsomer ‘ a,
in his Becolinr style, with a soft delicate flee of the - v .1, :
same reek t pe, fair hair and dark eyeemOalhoun ?
was Custer's rother-in-law. Then there was M or ,
Reno, rather stoutish, with a lace somethln lke'
that 0; No on, but spoiled b a little mus he.
tain lifted. Ben 11, with. in clean-
Bhaven young- coking face. bold and hearty, while
and nearly snow-white. ~‘ .
These were the p neiyglomoers who figured in the
fight that followed. thohgh there were others whose
names will come in inter; , > _ V,
' To judge how the fitment felt about the coming " _
fight, a word or two suffice. A lad once Belle
o of the officers of the Seventh ithe ad any idea 1’
of 'ow many Indians it would take to whip the Sev-
enth Cavalry all together. Ho.,hesitatod,w ondered,
and finellv said that he did he could ‘

   

 

Win r eBeventh. And he believed it, as did all.
Th Jami never seen, for at least ten yearn, more
than tvm thousand Indians together, and they haul
whipped the Indians one to four men? a time. a

So they rode on? the trail of the adieu banatto
find gating Bull, as» they were going to; wedding.’f _ _

- ‘ CHAPTER XVII.
run xiv an mwn—cnsmn's us'r BATTLE. .
0n the ‘ of June,1876, in the (onetime
Seventh Cavalry left camp at the mouth of the -
bud river, where it empties into the Yellowstone,
and parched up the Rosebud twelve mile 120i”)?
gout ,
cavalry generals‘ practice, when beginning a long '

 

~y.

y. Men and horses, first starting trom en‘an
8

seasoning and are apt/to become too weary ii!”
marched hard the first day. ’  y 4.

Next day, refreshed by their rest, with muscles

ot into good trainin by their first day’s experiennw,

eyanresscd on muc more rapidly, following- the
bran lodge-pole trail that told ,how Villager
"had preceded them. They‘ passed several Indium ,
comm where the troll diverged, or where other : '
ham 3 had formerly enonmped but saw no ,

‘ When they had made thirty-three mil they aiii
wentM&amf. This was them of one. ext:
dz!y,,._ V g“ g, ,t e trail was much fresher. and the
camps mfilfinfi' The column made twenty-e ht ;
miles that, ,, ndwtvent into camp at sunset, w en 2-
the scouts were sentput in all directions to hunt for
sign. The moon wfionly four days old, and the
scoutst butnsh , time to work. At hammer , 
nine they come back, and (luster called his miners A i
to other and gave them the news. - . '*  . " r i

doubt the Inn

giro acofits re rted that b on
dian village waspoin the valleyof (fitle. Big Horn 3 ‘
which was divided from the Rosebud b w 
5. These hills must be crossed, I fie be
impossible to do so in the daytime .' being

t
seen by the Indians. It'mu, ,be done lathe
grid theymust be prepared move in an hour and”

At eleven ohm" , new" , rdin ly. the Seventh moved
silent out of cam on hinted on their "
memllxyin the dark, t? ' the divide.  w

 

, on (or three hours, when the scout came to ~
that the divide could not“  V

to that all their trouble y I

a,

,ythrownygewu.

 

a 



   

 

 n ' e e
W “,2.
The limbs tt ' ngtodowas to
feed and mt begins”, so that th
forthe ,t, c was now?

V The men: rested from two to five 0
than rel d its march after sunrise, crossin§ the
wide at e ht o'clock J Imp 96th, 1876. At that ime,

midsummer, the sun rises at about four o’clock in

whose high latitudes, and it begins to be light at halt-
pnxtihree, so that the really would have gained

y
,nothin ,"lfih one]! ni
v' ,At 

make gaffes and
mig tbetresh
65350 place

e .
clock, and

ht.
they (angered the valley of the
_ t vale 0 death, from which so many
I to wm, amtih  Italian scoultls
. lug: reson e es eneig -
borhoodif » ‘ were the scouts of Sitting Bull.

No sooner did these fellows see the dust or the
cavalry rising Over the hills. than th minted, laid
whip to. their ponies, and made for the I e w c "
Creator's Indian scouts deelared they could: see,
fifteen miles off. The white men could see notliinf
even with telesoo , huh ‘; dians \vere too 0 d
at their trade to , deceiv “Elie had seen the
faint smite of, the'vfllage morning 6 high in the r
air. and knew the 6 there,

(sleariyit was no usewai ‘ or hiding; nothing
= was left but to push on, and j to the village heft)”
the Sioux scouts, or with them, So away went the
column at a long. i walk of five miles an
hour. it was no u - ; tro , the distance heingioo
fresh to pass at ‘pace without running the

nurses. and coming .in blown. As they pr j d

«hang, Custer called up Me or Reno, his secon

cincme and Captain Ben 11, the senior captain,

nndfiifided his regiment into-ignite battalions on

Wellington Ho intended to e tactics ' ich

had succeeded so Well at the ashita and’ g
 cwzl war, by attacking the enemyin fro!) and

on both flanks at the same time. There were twelve

companies in the Seventh, undone Md to be left as

a guard for the pack train. The other eleven were

thus Med: Custer kept five with himself for the
i main attack, gave three to Major Reno, and three to

Captain Benteen. The company with the packs

«was left with Captain McDougall.

Then away went the column site:- the Sioux. The

village was invisible to all but the friendly Indians, ‘-

and Luster was so cautious and fearful that they
fight be mistaken, that he sent captain Bentee'n
to the left front, in case lurking bands might be
waltin to harass his flanks and rear. Benteen was
. 'ord ’ .w sweep everything before him, and to
L ‘ the main trail as soon as he was sure the
We clear. Reno’s battalion was at the left
«the Mn column, where Custer rode with the.
. ' 1115. and the Seventh ressed on in three short
, columns, Benteen left. no center. Custer right.
ileuteen vcr soon went out of sight behind some
' lime, but re ed to the mm trairabout
o’é‘iock. at which time Custer and Reno we
three miles ahead. . _ i
_ é: lost, about twelve o’clock,” '  
sight of the end of Sitting ’sw
commotion was

, agent 1ame hscrvable. Aclond
0 net hung over thev ‘ finafie Indianscouldbe
- I, seen tearing down then ads the Wildefitvflcli‘
, fusion, warriors galloping to and fro, everything in
a inrmll.’ With Custer, aswe know, to see was to
‘ect, and there in otblng in all his career sushi]:—

mgas his es lo break up and destroy a flyin
foe,“ He 1;: «finding the valley on the righfi
may om, and the village was mark-fly,

Mon the opposite bank, stretc n
y hidden by the bin 8

own“ ,the time-Ito strike.

in r, 8:5 rap ‘8: has on
and the w ole aim

The 'Dashirril'iga Dragoon.

v mostassoon

V fifmngasstoofifl

\

this time the cloud of  flu;
thicker than ever. a a own

«i
to and another lord an
and rear, his favorite moron"

About a mile below he V5 is en ,,
some tail, bluffs. fromwhem he ,,
whole village, and Reno‘s e—fi
moment he i» w tl ‘

ted a fig

hundred [in , ,
' , in; m. back it im.
sptainfienteen, when

thousand. 'i‘ucxc * ‘ \
Eeier, with a hasty note to C
e judged  on the hack trail, as he was ,
“Bantam,  an, be quick, big «village, bm‘ug'
packs. Ming pads". V  “9:5 '
' Such was our hero’s last order,end thatlirumpeter’
,was the last lmng white man that ever saw the face
of allant Cavalry Custer.
Ghee soongrhrmflghe note $0119 thigh sway went

3 r an s e companes, an were act to
s ht behind the bluffs.

n the mean time Major Reno threw out his three
com ies into. line and gallopecl at the vilinm
driv gbsck aswarm of Indians with perfect 2
He had one hundred and twegliyyomcera and “7 .,
and twentgflve scouts and mm ‘3, one hundred an .
forty-five all. He chained right (mead, fo ' nearly ‘
.two dishes, at the edge (at a great cloud of “2(3in
dust, till he came to a mtch of wood in the river
bottom, beyond which y ihe edge of thevi .
Note man had been hurt, so for Throngh“’~
wood he went, and then be Mlddcnly halted. ,

Before him was a tram (unions cloud of dust,whleb
entirely hid the village, and a, great swarm of Indian
warriors came tearin down out of, theyclo Inn

110 theirli tic “r, yellin like

muggy:ng a perfect ain of b V
came, bu lets that went “‘hlhllllifi overhead, cutting
the leaves of! the’trces. The crowd wasso immen I
and the sounds so horrible, that Major Reno ha! , 
as it struck by lightning. in great haste he die
" diluted his men, sent his horses into the wood, and
lined its edge with Skirmieliers, who began tiring. ,
v The Indians could be seen. still comin on, about‘r'
half smile otf, shyin or! from the Iron of the sol-'
(hers, and sweepm the left, as if to drive them
into the river. eywame tearing on like devils
Incarnate. and Ma'or Reno suddenly) changed his
mind. He called or the horses and ordered the
men to “prepare to mount", This took them baclr
into the wood in a. great hurry. The Indians, think
sing it a retreat, gave a tremendous howl of triumtfih
and came tea on faster than even-past 3
wood, to get beh nd the soldieis. In a moment
more the men were mounted, as it to charge, andel-
dismounted again. ,

Reno had almost concluded to hold the wood.
when a. patter of bullets hiamgg through the leaves
told that the gxnltant toe h reached the other

in '  I
n no deal ,madeli his mindafie [aw
himse v , km by num rs and determined
to retreat to the river. A momen later the whole
command was mounted, andf-g‘lalloping toward the
stream in a. confused mass, the ndians racinmfter
them on all sides, firing away at close range'wiih
their Winchester rifles. Away they went, helter-
em!  men one; the  “i
- n on n momen t a 6‘
unmixed to y D

so
, pieces. “Down at the river’the rout
was horrible; as men and horses plunged in crowd
therh the 55:3?sz the huddlgd

taxi on mee resistance. ,

the hints went toremos Rana ahead, his hart,
£310, his face pale, his hat on utter beaten.
ostessoonashereaehpdthetopat hills.
skirmishlinowasleenco' downthetreil to»
wardhim. Itwas Benteennr 0 had receivodOur

 

tel-ls order, and was slowly advancing. "v
A moment later. far down the var. they heard

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

'ommotion set in among the In-

,. Their fire ceased, and away
s , ward the leaving
in one on the hill. while t e tiring
every moment into volleys

i - pcessant that the Indians afterward
""tearin cloth.”

- 5
1t them!

‘60 was in no condition to enter another ‘»

" I I ’5 men were cowed, and he himself seemed
I , S? osthis head entirely. He waited on the
. ,.v ill Bente’sn‘stnen had all got up, and soon after
nptam MacDou all came hug?!)th in with the
pack-train. All time the LIE own the river
was heard at intervals, when the w n lulled sharp
and nemesever; but, as a fresh gale was blowing,
here weretimes when it was inaudible. Gel on
. incer of ' 6 command seemed . ,
ight be n terrible danger. This’was the second
aptain of the meat, Captsiu‘Weir a. devoted
friend of Custer. e was nearly
itmploglng CReno and Benteen to vangh to
item at uster was being  a uster
was calling for them. it was useless, itber would
advance, u'll'ge believed that  retreaptigq.
0 one co eve, up n y, was -
e for him to be defeated.
_ Poor Weir was nearly frantic, he could, do noth-
' mg. am could not order out his couipa‘n , buthe
oonld'gg himself. In a fit of desperation, e called
his 0 rly and three old soldiers whom he could
trust, and started omenly five men, to try and and

r.
He rode rs i , a ’the count was deserled.‘
p dgtboggs mil ry

When he had e 06, he tofnped a blufl,
and saw the w ole valley below full (X dians, gal-
l° m “dim his dad by
5 saw own com
Lieutenant Edgerley cumin after himW’fiie brave
(allowm could not desert eir ca tain, and had
statted, u'é’tgfiut‘ orders, to remue in. Reno and
Ben . the rest, remained on the hill behind,
still watching. “

Now the Indians ht si ht of Weir. and came
tearing ta meet him. is tle comm; was soon
domed andflghtinf hard, fallinf on Reno,
In an hour mere t was driven n, and the whole
side was all covered with Indians, coming for

noandheueen. r

The remnantof the Seventh Cavalry 380 men
made altiastyitihreiestworifi on the hill, and defendeg

emse esw espera on re ulslngeve assau
ofthelndia‘ns. ’ p I?

They had been waiting idly on the hill from half-
psst two till six, but now they had it, hot and furi-
ous till sunset. , 

 ht gsve’them a spell of refibut next do. the
hatte ed rlously, all the ti it was Jig]: the
indians c {ht up to the breastworlcs, the

y riven

. caval
on t ‘
and the (air departure wasispeedily

.wg s

‘oftheBigH

ster 5

withanxie ‘
GB, 30 

 

, _ a .0. ..- . .
clearhy the arrival or General Terry‘s column, which
came up in the afternoon. '

Then. at last, the Seventh were enabled to fits
the glass where they heard those volleys onthe h,
and earned the terrible trnth. There. in the valley

orn lay Custer and his five com es,

every man dead, and most of them so !

leceshss to be unrecognizable The trai
hat Custer had gone down the river and charged ,
toward a ford, where he was met by the Indians x
and driven back. His attack must have taken lace g,
after Reno's rout. for all the Indians left Reno 0 go
and fl ht Custer, as we have already seen.

The no of (Buster‘s retreat wasmarked by dead
bodies, to the top of a little hill where he mule his
last stand. To cover the retreat, Lieutenant Cal-

 

: honn‘s company had first been thrown out, and

every man had fallen in his place on the skirmish
line with Lieutennnts Caihounand Crittenden in
their places, soon to the tactics, a little in rear. r,
of their men. There ey lay, where they had been.
killed, doing their duty to the lasté” facing death like
men. ‘A lit le further on lay on in Keegh‘s cem—
, similarly d . ano er little hand of
gross. Then. on the top of the hill, is a mass of
dead men and horses and in their m dst, with a
smile upon his lips, as if asleexi; laynthe body of gal-
lant Cavalry Custer, with his: r'ot are close to him.
brave Captain Tom Custer. Boston Custer a little
way off, with little Antie Reed, Ouster‘s nephew.

1 Then, around their chief. fallen as they tought,.were

handsome Colonel Cook, Captains Yates and Alger-
non Sm‘ith, Lieutenant Bell and the rest of that de-
voted little band. Not a so dier esca . :

Buttons man a w scout name “ Curie " got
out of the flgflt alive by disguising himse in a.
Sioux blanket during the confusion and so escaping
to theBlg Horn River, where he met the Government
steamer. He told the story, the same which was
marked by the trail. He told how the Indians
{cured out in vast numbers, surrounding Custer.

ow they charfigd sin and again, driven back
every time by t sol iers, as long as Custer lived.
How the presence of that heroic soul cheered up
and inspired the men the position olfihe balms
groved: every man fallen in his hen

uster died the remnant were, a .massacred,
almost unresisting. Their heart was broken.

The grandest testimony or his valor was found,
however, in one wondertul fact. Among all the
mutilated bodies, “1“?de and hacked to pieces,
without another excep ion Custer lay with a bull

er in 5 heart, hut otherwise

his brain, anoth
totally untouched. So brave was he that even Rain-
in-the-Face, the man who shot him, respected his
dead foe too much to offer him an indignity. He

had kept his oath but he could do no more. 2
So ended the is of the flower of the American
arrayed-he brave, the gentle the heroic. the people‘s

sou more like im.

l1

1‘ heavl . r ; ido ' Cassi Custer. G bless‘him, and mu we
2% thye'lndians suddenly decamped. 1” W11 '2 " , . y
,0 .

x.

V. was sun.

 

 

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32 OCTAVO PAGES. (PRICE, 5 CENTS. /

 

 

l Deerhuncer theg¥&outoft-lle Grout 26 Red River Rovers. B ' "? -.
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