'I" llll'l‘ll STRANGE“.

T11.“ Flt"l‘ll)\l '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~—_»

Vol. I.

Single
Number.

 in; ﬁling that:

The Story of Gen. George A. Custer

From West Paint to the Big Horn.

BY CAPTAIN FRED’K WHITTAKER,

Al‘l‘HOR or “woons Aim WATERS.“ “RIFLE AND un-
‘ rowan,“ are, ETC.

CHAPTER I.
rrsrnn AS A BOY—AS A TEACHER—AS A FADET AT
wns'r pom".
GEORGE Amrsrnoxq Ccsrnn was born in a villa e in
Harrison count-y, Ohio, almost at the edge of enn-
sylmnia. It is ten chances to one it' you can ﬁnd

JUST AS l'l'ﬁ'l'iil‘. “AME UP; THEY HEAR A LUNG. LUCD ('RY FROM ONE OF THE INDIANS.

in.“
$11.50 a year. Entered at the Post Office at New York. N. Y.. as Second Class Mall Matter.

Copyrighted in 1882 by BEADLE AND ADAMS.

April 26, 1882.

 

PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY BEADLE AND ADAMS.

No. 98 \VILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK.

Harrison county is the count
few miles off, at the meetln
is a little village called New
Was born, forty-two years ago, on the 5th Decemv
ber, 1839, in a little cotta 9..
loge blacksmith, who too to farming soon after his
boy‘s birth. and at New Rumley young Custer was
brought up, on the form, like many another noor
man‘s son, going to country (listrictschonl. hey
always called him Antie or Armstrongin thosv (lays.
Somehow or other his middle name was preferred
by all his friends. all through his life.

01’ course we all want to know what sort of a boy
. Autie was. There were several remarka‘nle things
about him. He was a frank. honest, manly boy. al—
ways full of fun; could 11m faster, jump further.
wrestle better than any other boy of his class. He
was a. boy nll over, and got into plenty of mischief,
as hovs will. How many airs of pantaloons he
, tore, c imlving trees and van tin};r fences. I dare not
‘ calculate. '

seat, Cadiz; and a
0 some country roads.

 

the place on an ordinary map. In the midst of 

umley. There Custer ‘

His father was the vil- ‘

Out of school he was the best catcher at ;

No. 20.

Price.
Five Centl.

base-ball in that part. of the county. and there was
not a fellow of his size could throw him wrestling.

But he never got into a mean scrape, never lied.
and, what is more remarkable still. never had a. sin-
gle ﬁght in all his boy life.

Autie Custer irew up like other boys, strong and
hear! y. When e was twelve, his elder sister mar-
ried, and became Mrs. Reed. She left New Rumley
with her husband to go out to Monroe. Michigan,
and asked her father to let Autie come with her for
a year or two. Father Custer consented. and Autie
went “out West.“ to Monroe, where he stayed at
school until he was nearly sixteen.

Monroe is on the western shore of Lake Erie, just
half-way between Detroit and Toledo. It is quite an
old place, and there was once a great battle close to
it, in the war of 1812, between the British forces un-
der General Proctor, assisted by the Indian chief,
Tecumseh, on one side. and a force of Kentucky
Mounted Riﬂemen on the other. under General Win-
chester. The Americans were surprised at Monroe.
which was then called "Frenchtown," and the end

HE HAS l"(“L‘.VI) THE TRAIL!

 

‘ He had learned at] that

. ﬁction, he woul

' ' for four lonsilyears at West

Wt

‘ he had mule u
I ’ 'ifhecould. ’

~ w: Mrﬁgﬁbg,
nm the

g it was that they were all massacred, by the In’
some Custer, used very often to go down tolthe
little WWI), which runs through Monroe, to
the spot whmthe battle was fou ht, while he look-
ed at the laee‘where the poor fel ows had retreated
oyerthe‘ ver on the ice, on that terrible winter's
. ,‘ to ﬁnd themselves sluu litered at last. It
was there that he ﬁrst conceived he idea of becom~
“hut a. soldier, to defend the frontier farmers against
ﬁst such terrible disasters as the massacre of the
we: in. :

*ItWes' now the our 1856 and Autie was sixteen,
ey could, teach him at
school. Had he cared for nothing bu play he would
never have been snythin in after- 2. As it was,
at sixteen he came back New Rumle , as full of
fun as ever, but havin learned so muCh t the could
make his living teac n school.

, It was through this but he got into West Point
' I» became the’greut soldier he was when he died,
story is worth listening to. We all know that
is the great milits'r school of America,
' theyvtrain u ofﬁcers, ut that’s about the
edge. It was all (luster knew then,
ins-mind he would to West
, , ebudheurd that ea member
dongress had the power to send one person there,
and that there was some examination to be passed.
He did not personally; know any member of Con-
grass, but he knew w o the member from his dis-
trict was. So he wrote to that member a short,
maul letter, telling him he was very anxious to go
to ' est Paint, and asking Mr. Bingham whether
there was a vacancy and what were the qualiﬁca-
tions required.

  
  
 

 Observe here, one thing. Custer did not trust to

friends, politics, or inﬂuence, to get what he wanted.
He Went to the fountain-head, and asked for it. If
any reader of these lines wants to go to West Point
or Annapolis, let him do the some. Write strai ht
m tbsmember of Congress, for our district. I he
doesiuotnnswer, or say; “no " ecidcdly, giveit up.
You; cannot get into est ﬁoint. If you trust to
frlends, on ma be ke t waiting for months, only
to be re used at t. I you write to head-quarters,
you are soon out of your troubles, one way or the
other. Custer found it so. There was a vacancy
but another you man from the next county had
a lied for it, and lngham wrote to Custer, tellin
m that if this young man failed to pass the exam -
give the next chance to Custer.
The examination was in January, and it was then
. . innate were eight long, weary months to wait
‘ are he would know. Custer kept on teaching all
the‘tlme, and every Saturday went to school himself
“the Normal School. He made up his mind that
when the examination came, he would be ready for

 it. The youn man from Jefferson county thought

If all so. 9, as Mr. Bingham had promised him
the appointment. The time came and this conﬂ‘
dent 01mg man was “ lucked," that is, failed to
pass t e examination. hen, in went young Custer,
and never seed a. (huestion. His eight months
workjmd ' him we . He found himself a cadet
in the Uni States service, with a. certain future
before him, and a chance to do almost thing.

Suppose he had ven up the right to t at young
man, and ne lected liS studies, he would not have
been ready or his ogp‘ortunity. As it was, when it
came, it found him a \ to take it. Had it not come,
his car's study would have made him a better
teac er, able to command a bi her salary. So you
use, Buster’s “ luck " consisted ere in getting ready
in time. The other young man's “ bad luck was—-
his laziness.

How Custer really had to o to school in earnest
olnt. First, they drilled
him to more with the other cadets, in line and col-
uum, carrying a musket, sometimes at a. walk.
sometimes running, aim; at in exact line with the
mt, beads ug, toes out, 1. he was nearly tired out.
This was in t e June encampment, when the cadets
sleep in tents. Then he was sent into barracks, and
all the winter he had to study algebra, geometry,
surveying, French, Spanish and military history,
the relief being drill, drill, drill. ed a
yenrw nheroseadmand

’ while his drill was changed to 10mm
sun-send ,
 think the must have been fun, anyway, the

Memes, but these folks wouldn’t think so
as out Point. They ride «for business there not
, ' The class is mounted on great troop

old fellow with hard mouths horses that
momentous ddenbyadozendﬂf
every week, an
trickster et a rider off. For a little while the upils
ride slow y round the school in ﬁle horses a] fully
saddled cadets slttlnge upright. Then the riding-’-
matter halt- them and llszhem to “ cross sun-ups.”
Eve cadet must take his feet out ofthe stirrups,
and row them across the saddle, so as to ride en-
 belence, orb ell ing with the knees to
the , Ill and en away goes the long
cg, all round the ring.
umble off, and by the

st harder
big

he cadets
- e v lesson is over, hardl one has escaped a
tumble. That’s the way they earn to ride at West
hunt, by tum off until they can stick on at
any pace, on any me, and then they are free of
all horse creation. It ends by leaving these Dung
West Point cadets let: (1 horsemen, and ster
soon became one of t e best there.

But I did not intend to dwell long u on West
Point, except to show how was ruined ‘to
become what he became in after life. He went in,
J me, 1851, A gay boy, full of spirits; he come out,
June, 18m, a rave ofﬁcer, a perfect horseman a
good shot, a. good swordsman, understanding n-

nto

to ride in the ri ingaschool: me ,

erent 1e
which know all the most effectual.

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

fentry, cavalry and artillery, able to command, hav-
i learned to obey. All heseadvant es he had
{1 ed by sticking to his work at echo . watching

‘5 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 a vacancy at West Point, and ﬁnding
Mr. Bingham willing to ive it to him. Those were
things not due to him , but everything else was
the ruit of his own hard work. ‘ ‘
At the close of ()uster’s career at West Paint, how-
ever, one other thing occurred to him, not the re-
sult of his own exertions, but of something over
which he had :no control. This was, the breaking
out of the eat civil wnr,_‘which began just at the
very time til-at Custer graduated, and which aﬁected
his future very seriously. Before 1861 the cadets
had to stay ﬁve years in West Pomt, at the end of
which time they were examined by a. board of
visitors and graduated. The successful ones were
thenlput on probation in regiments as “ brevet sec-
and eute‘nants "where they generally served at
least a year before they were promoted‘to second
lieutenants.- The army was very small, only sixteen
thousand men, the ofﬁcers few in number, only
about tutelve hundred 1n all, and the Academy used
to graduate about 31x officers every years So it
was very hard to ﬁnd 1) aces for all the graduates,
and they had to wait for vacancies, liv ng mean-
while as extra ofﬁcers by brevet. When a man be
came second lieutenant at last, he had to wait an-
other long, weary time before he became a ﬁrst
lieutenant. and at least ten years before he became
a captain. No matter how men brave deeds he
might do, it would not help him a it an more than
it does now.’ He could not be promote , simpl be
cause there was no vacancy above him, am the
only way to create a vacancy is to kill an officer or
get him to resign.

This slowness of promotion in a small regular

army is one of the reasons why army ofﬁcers always
wish for war. It kills off the colonels, and majors,
and captains, and leaves vacancies to be ﬁlled by
the second lieutenants. Before (Buster’s time there
had only been one wanslnce West Point was found-
ed. This was the Mexican war in 1846-7. which bed
been the means of promo ever so many Zoning
graduates to high stations in the amiy w ile it
acted; but since that all the ofﬁcers had to do was
to sta around frontier forts on the plains, with an
occas onal skirmish with the Indians, where no one
was much hurt. This made promotion very slow
oﬁ’lccrs very lazy, and as a consequence led man of
them into bad habits to while away the time. his
is the case now, owing to the same causes. Put a
man into a. little post on the plains, with hardly analvi
one to talk to, and the chances are that he wi l f
into bad habits, especially drinking and gambling
with what few com anions he has.

From this sort 0 bad and useless life Custer was
very fortunately saved by the great events which
attended his graduation.

CHAPTER II.
m2 can” WAR—CUSTER AT ecu. nun—on 'rrxr.
anrcmonmv.

ALL of our readers have heard of the 8great war
that this country went through from 1 l to 1865.
The older ones, no doubt, remember its passage,
and many even took part in it. A 00d many more
had fathers, brothers, uncles in but war, some
North, some South. I do not here propose to say
much about it, except to explain how Custer come
there, and how he got his name of Cavalry Custer.

The immediate reason of the war was this: A good
many of the Southern States of the Union—that is
Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississip l, Alabama
Geo: in, Florida, South' and North urolina an
Virg nut—became dissatisﬁed with the United States
government, and determined to separate and set up
a ovemment of their own which they did,«cnllln€
it he Confederate States. This was in. 188nm“! a
ﬁrst it was supposed that there was no wuy'the
United States could stop them. It so It ‘ ,
however, that there were certain forts an other
propel-twin the coasts of these seceded States which

id not long to them, but to the United ates;
and. it became a question who should hold these
forts. At last the war began in South Carolina, by
the poo in of that State ﬁrm on Fort Sumter in
the mid is of the harbor of C arleston and tubers?
it from the United States troops. Then the Pr ~
dent culled for more tris to take . it back, and the

cat civil War began, 9.1 of a sudden. When this

ppened Cdster 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 t e war.
All old friendships were broken up, and these lads
friends and schoolmate, all knew when they parted
that when next they met it would be on the attic.
field, as enemies, under different ﬂags. For near}
two months after the taking of Fort Sumter ho
parties did nothin but gather together their soldiers
and drill them. he Confederates :had made their
capital city at Richmond; Virginia, and the Union
troops were gathered in front of Washington to prev
tect their own capital and try to capture Richmcmd.
It was thought that if they could do hat, the Confed-
erates would be so much disheartened that they would

give up the ﬁght, and that was reaugathe way the

war Was ended at last. But before t t time there
his ties

werem terrl but tobadoukhtﬁhon ds
ofmenki , - - andfourlo'n   hwy)
benﬂustercameot hawthorn

W 11 _ - ' 
tiered to Somme regiment in which he had been
medea second lieutenant. This regiment was the
Fifth Re lar Cavalry, audit was out in the ﬁeld [in
front of asliington at a little stream called Bull

Teal soldier

the no he" «the
. by $53611 holdﬁg the rupe,*w

 

night from Washington, and that very day saw his
ﬁrst battle. The Union soldiers, under General Mar
under General

 

  
   

. .621 came a.
sudden change. The Union troops were seized with
a. panic and ran awe. , frightened to death, throw-
ing away their mu ets, ﬂags, everything, and a
great many kept onell the wag to Washington. The
only troo that staid and (11 their duty were the
few re , among whom was Cnster‘s regiment,
and one! or two regiments of old steady militia.
There were not many men killed or Wounded. but
the Umon troops lost nearly everything they had:
Thus they found out in their ﬁrst battle that it is
no? enollgh to have ’ lenty of men. and guns to
gum a victory, but the the men must be old soldiers
to stand up aﬁunst misfortune if it comes. ‘ .

After Bull an, therefore, the Union men did not
try to do an more. gghting for some time. They
staid aroun Washin on. behindazing‘of forts, and
began to train and drill their me to make them
andyheyehospanew ‘ Meneml
McClellan. dnllingvgoltglers Whither hard work
the new ofﬁces from es Point were- v ' useful,
and Lieutenant Custer worked orchard usesgy.’ The
winter passed away, the spnng came, and at last
McClellan determined to move, for he found that he
now had a real army of soldiers of more than a hun-
dredthousand men, enough, as he thought, to take
Richmond.

It was determined to move against the Confeder-
ates, bnt not by land, over the old Bull Run battle—
ﬁeld. lllcClellan preferred to move his men by sea,
and set them down in the peninsula formed by the
mouths of the Panumkey and James rivers, on
which Richmond] . By so doing he thought he
could get close to ichmond without a ﬁght, as the
Southerners had no ships to ﬁght at sea.

It In _ as well be remarked here, to those who are
not qui e certain about the places hereafter men
tioned, that they can never clearly understand a
battle or campaign unless they follow it on the map;
then everything comes lain.

The Unlon 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,
to defend Washington. This army took a whole
month to move by sea, bit by bit, but at last it was
all landed at Fort Monroe, at the very end of the
Peninsula, and began to move toward Richmond.
Before long McClellan found that the enemy had got
round in front of him, and had dug a great ch ch
across the Peninsula, witha bank behind it at the
village of Yorktown, the very~
ton captured Cornwallis an the English army
eighty years before. Behind the ditchnnd ban
were the Southern army, with cannons and guns, all
ready to saﬁ. “ You can‘t go an further.”

So McCle on bad to stop an dig a ditch of his
own, sending for big guns in his turn. and making a.
regular siege of it. This siege ﬁrst brought Custer
into notice. Although the anny was large and well-
drilled, there was hardly any one in it who under
stood how to make cod. fortiﬁcations, so that the
young West Point 0 cers, who had been tan ht all
this kind of work, were much in request, and ster
found himself taken from his company and ap-
pointed an engineer ofﬁcer.

It was here but he had quite a little adventure
one night. He was ordered to take a party of sol—
diers, with spades, out close to the Southern lines
and dig a ditch for a riﬂe-pit, thstwas to be made so
close to the enemy that one might have thrown a.
stone in on either side. It was a 76 dark night or
the soldiers must have been seen. I they had been
the enemy could have killed them all. for they were
out in the o n ground, while the enemy were lying
down behin their rest ditch and bank.

This sort of wor was, of course, the reverse of
Eleasure to Custer and his men. But they knew it

ad to be done, or General McClellan would never
get to Richmond: so out the went into the dark,
without saying a word, and gegan to shovel away
in dead Silence. Luckily it was soft ground. or the
enemy must have heard them. gait was. While
they worked, they could hear the hem soldiers
talkin to each other around their camp-ﬁres, and
could rdly believe but what they won (1 be found
out. Lieutenant'ﬂuster walked softly around among
his men, giv all orders in a whisper, and so
they kc ton nig 1;, till, when the morning dawn.
ed, the  ers ware snz rised to see the long
line of bank t Indicated t e rzﬂe~pit and were
greeted with such a ﬁre athnt they could no longer
work I , guns in that neighborhood,

so the siege went on, every day McClellan bring-
ing upzmore was and getting ready for a. bombard-
ment.  find out what the enemy were doing, the
Union army to send up balloons at the end of
a long rope, and each balloon had an officer with a
spy-glass. Here, again, Custer was made useful.
and he was the first ofﬁcer who was sent up to

watch the enemy. Housed to do this every mom‘
ing and evening, when the enemy had their camp- \

ﬁres lighted, so that he coalidestimate their numbers
by the line of ﬁres. r ‘ ‘

At last, one morning. when he went up, long be.
fore sunrise, he noticed som g strange. I More
were no more j/‘res; and th he .waited till day.
li ht. none were seen. Then... and made Up

' mind that they _ mam stolen away in

was Pulled down

he went and re-

ported whnt he had seen.
Then it was found out that the Southern general,
Johnston, seeing that McClellan was uite readg to

Run, He reached his company, after riding uh I bstter down his works, and that he ad deta

lace where Washing ,

J.

“No.

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

 

him 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 arm , but the Union soldiers soon
found out, and so id mister, when they saw the
long train of army wagons, stretching for miles and
miles, cutting up the soft road into mud where the
horses stuck fast, and the‘wheels were buried, and
the soldiers were up to their knees in red cla , and
everything was miserable. There was no on in
that, and no fun when they came up with the
enemy, some seven miles off, at Williamsburg, and
had a furious battle where nearl three thousand
men ware killed and wounded. hen, very slowly
and cautiously, General McClellan moved his army
up the Peninsula, following General Johnston, and
only movmz a few miles a day, but without much
ﬂghtin At last General Johnston drew back right
into Bchmond, behind a little stream called he
Chickahonnny, and waited for the Union troops to
attack him.

Here was the place where Custer found his second
great chance in life, and took it. The army was
comm slo wly along on the road toward Richmond.
and be ween them and the enemy is a valley. We
bottom of which was filled with a ark. swam y
forest, hiding the Chickahominy from view. On t e
other side were some low hills; and, beyond that,
every one knew that they would be able to see the
church steeples of Richmond. the city they had
come from their homes on purpose to take. It
was only four miles of! now, and they felt full of
be e as they marched along.

t must not be supposed that the army could see
anything of Richmond. For that matter, they
could not see any enemy, they could not even see
the whole of their own army. When we think what
a number of them there were, we can imagine this.
McClellan had an arm of n. hundred thousand men.
We all know a cityo a hundred thousand poo la
is a vex ' big city. There are not many such in t e
United ‘tates. An urmy stretches over much more
ground than a city, and if McClellan's army had
marched all on one road, with its wagons, it would
have made a column fif! y miles long. But, instead
of that, it was broken into ever so man little
Columns, moving abreast of each other, and a 1 these
little columns found themselves stopped at the same
time by the great dark swamp and black forest,
where the stream of the Chickahominy, just like a
river of ink. stole alon‘g between black banks of
mud. There was no tell ng how deep that was, nor
how many of the enemy in ht be hiding in the
dark thicket on the other si e, waiting to pick off
the. Union morn if they tried to cross. 80 the army
halted, and went into camp, and McClellan told his
chief en ' eer, Colonel Barnard, to go down and ex-
amine t e river. -

Barnard beckoned to a ounsz officer near by, and,
of course we all know w o the young officer was.
It was Leutenant Custer, whose opportunity had
come. The old engineer , alloped down to the river,
followed by Custer and t e1}; were soon outside the
line of sentinels. called “pic ets," that were placed
there to watch the enemy.

These pickets were at the edge of the wood, and
several of them warned Barnard and Custer to go
no further, for the felt sure that the woods were
I of enemtes. e old engineer on smiled and
went on into the wood. He ‘a/l seen. mm the top
of the hill, with a spy- lass, that the enemy‘s main
ckets were on the at r side of the river: He and
- ster tied their horses in the wood. and then went
on foot throu the swamp, now nearly dry, till at
last they stoo right at the edge] of the deep, black
Stream that W35 mull!!! 31 s y alo between its
muddy banks, and on. the at or side 0 which was
another deep, mystenous-looking forest.

Then Ba turned to Command pointed to the
other bank.

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

one.

Very few people would have liked that order,
with a muddy bankand astream like a may of ink
to cross. Neither did Custer. He was a poor swim-
mer, and had all his clothes on. Moreover-,1: he
went across, there was a chance that the enemy
might shoot him from behind a tree, or wait 5nd
capture him on the other side. Most men won]
118“) tsted, for a. moment. ~ ~

Without a word, Custer drew his revolver, held it
“P in the sir and jumped into the black, slimylwa-
tenant: to his breast, while be commenced his peril-
ous Jon-"335’. Ell alone.

CHAPTER III.
A summons mr~raonorios~m Anvmnna.

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 t0 feel “18  Of an enemy’s
bullet, but for all that he went on, the water, black
and full of slime up to his armpits, 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, dangermxs—looldng hole. bad enough at my
time, but doubly disagreeable now, when the other
bank was occupied by we enemies.

9n he went, slowly wad n , till he had pmsed the
middle of the stream and t 6 water began to sink
toward his waist. All this time dead silence on the
otherbank. Behind him stood old Colonel Barnard
watching ominously. The old engineer had found
all he. wanted. now Custer had passed the middle of
(the river. saw that it was not u to a man‘s
neck anywhere, and he wanted to cal Crater back.

But he did not dare do this. He knew that the
enemy must be 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 we ,
and Custer and haniard might both be shot. So
began to beckon and wave his hand, to call the
young oiﬁcer back. ' .

But Custer was too bus watching the chem ’8
side of the river to notice arnard. He went so 1y
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 enemy. Ee slowly crept
forward into the wood, keeping his pistol ready for

use.

He had only gone a few steps when he caught
sight of the enemy’s picket sentinel. standin With
his back to him, leaning .on his musket, a. ut a
hundred yards off. He realized, then, how he had
escu being seen. The enem were not
watc ing the hue of the rivercaref ly. He crept
slowly forward, and soon found that the belt of
wood was quite narrow at that place, and that there
was open ground beyond, and that in the middle of
that ground there was quite 9. lat e 1party of the
enemy. with a camp-ﬁre, round w ic they were
loungin , half asleep. The river made quite a curve
round t iis place, and he saw an open spot higher
up, where a part might be crossed, which would
get right behind t e enemy‘s party.

Then, having seen all he wanted, he,quietly went
back to the bank, where he first saw Colonel Bar-
nard making signals to him tocome back. Custer
nodded in reply, let himself uietl down into the
water, and waded safely w en he told the
old engineer all he had seen.

Barnard was a queer, silent old officer, quite deaf.
His hearing had once been injured by standin too
close to a heavy 1111 when it was ﬁred 05. e lis-
tened to all the Custer told him as they walked
back to their horses, but said nothing. Then they
mounted and rode back to McClellan’s eadquarters,
over the hill. v

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 posted. He told Ba to
come with him, and as they went along, the old en-
gineer told him all about Custer’s pas of the
river. Then the eneml. wanted to see t e youn
ofﬁcer, and poor %)uster, covered with black mu ,
and (lapping wet, rode up to the general, feeliglg
very ill the face, for the general and all his 0 -
cers were dressed in brilliant uniforms.

McClellan very kindly questioned (mm about the

river and the reunifellow answered promptly. He
{7,011ini {he eneral all 6 had observed in each a clear,

ness- ke W33. that McClellan was at once struck
with his knowl go.

Then he suddenly turned to Custer. and asked
him how he would like to come on his stat! as a

on La .

8011 can fancy how Custer felt then. Of course
he was very thankful; and within a week 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.

How sim Is now seems the story of the we Cus-
ter found his piece of “luck,” as some caled it.
He found it by doing a dangerous dut in the WM!
way ible. When Barnard told h m to jump in,
hm ﬁe hesitated, he would never have been made a
captain He knew that if the enemy saw him, he
would be shot, but he knew that it was his duty to
go, live or die; so he went. He might have stopped
in the middle of the river and come back, but he
knew that it was his dut to get all the news he
could. so he went on. e might have shot the
picket who had his back turned. but he seemed to
do 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
(mater 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 read for examination,
when the young man from Je erson county was
not. Now it made him a captain on McClelinn’s
staff, because McClellan saw that he was a man who
always did his duty.

The time on the general‘s staff, of course passed
:3? pleasantly for Custer, and he soon had the
. .sfactlon of seeing the army cross the Chicka-
a fair sight of Richmond

homlny. and of gettin
on the siege of Richmon

only four miles on.
gun.

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 fortiﬁcations and attacked £311: of
McClellan‘s a v at a place called Fairoaks tion,
just outside of chmond, killing a number of men
and puttl the Union troops to ﬂight» They did
not follow- p their victory. however, on soocunt of
a, very severe wound received 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-(ytuaners, till they had an mm
as large, and a. last even larger than McCle .
This army was put under the command of General
Robert E. Lee.

Of course people have allheard of General Lee,
but you dont know egen-hops of what family he
came. 9 had man-l the meat—granddaughter“
Mrs. Washington, the wife of General Wuhington.
Mrs. Washington, you know was a widow with two
children, when she mauled ashington. Her-eldest
son was called Mr. Oustis, and his grandeth
had curried General Ice. bringing with her all of
Washington‘s old estate at Mount Vernon, w-nich
belonged to her father, whose name was George

 

~.

Washington Parke onus, under the teamed
Washington’s will. So, very st , here a
General Lee, his estates at Mount._ onion in
hands of the Union troops, ﬁghtingragsinst those

very troops. ,- h

And very well he to ht. too dor Lee was a V

eneral, and he had wit him' terrible Stonewall

ackson, as he .was called whose very name wed
afterward to frighten the ﬁnion soldiers, for-be had
a way of always catching them in front and rear 3%
the same time and ﬁghting worse than any one they
ever heard of. Andso Leeand Jackson anamormm
ing came out of. Richmond, marched all round lic-
Clellan’s army till. they got behind it, and mddenly
attacked b su rise. _ '

Then to ow a terrible battle, that lasted, oil and
on, for seven long days, in which Lee drove the
Union men back ever day and which ended a
last at the battle of M vern liliLwhen theSoutbem
ens were ﬁnallf' beaten in their turn, and the W.
troops had a ong rest behind fortiﬁcations, bribe
James River, where the Union gunboats 
them with their heavy guns. »

This was a dreadful blow for McClellan smith
staff, among whom Custer was the most active. M
throu h the “Seven Days’ Fight” Cumm- was on
horse ack, riding from place to place,
orders, with little or nothm to eat and hardy any
sleep, but always cheerfu and ready for duty.
just as before, he did his duty the best that he km

011'.

Atlast all was (prist- and McClellan lay at Harri-
son‘s Landing on the ame’s river, thinkinﬁewlnt he
should do next to take Richmond. Wh be m
awaiting, Custer had another adventure, by Whichb
gained a horse and a beautiful sword, which!”
afterwa wore all through the war.

He was sent out into the Peninsula with sporty of

three hundred cavalry to scout, that is, togﬁnd ﬂ
there was an enemy in that vicinity. a, it», to
beat them. The traveled on through stood.

for some time wi bout seeing anything, them rill-
ing in a long column, four abreast. Ahead of the,
main body, a bun yards, was a. small comp .
the men scattered out into a long line about 3
feetapart, soastosoourthewoodsinaldlrectims.
These men are called “ﬂankers ” or “ skirmishers,”
and mvslry _nlways advance that way, covered by
these skirmishers, when they think the w
isnear them. If thev did not have them the”
body in t run headlogg into an ambush, and.

ve b punished. ith a line of scattered

mi rs t e ambush would be stirred up, andmﬂd ‘
only kill one or two at most, giving the main bad;
time to get ready. 0! course the skirmish ﬁne
the place of most danger, but where you are m to
see the enemy ﬁrst, and Custer always went m >
with the skirmishers to see what was to be new.
for himself, instead of riding with the comma. The
general had told him to go with his and
ﬁnd out all he could, and he was not going to iota-y
one else do his business.

At last, as they were in the woods, they a! I»
cloud of blue smoke ahead, where the country rand
opened into a clearing, and distinguished horse Id!
soldiers, with an old house andrbarn and a bayonet.
They had not been seen themselves yet.

So Custer halted the sldrmishers, sent back was
to the column to close up, and in a moment lam
sway went the Union oavah'y into the elem“
timed, yelling at the top of their voices, his:
p and wa their swords, while the one?
taken completely y surprise, scattered and.“
“Thy a“ tCnste r} aheadof a...

on away wen r or ev ' .
on his black horse Harry. He saw at a siege! all
the enemy were only a rty of ca , outon the
same errand ashimsel , and thatall t couldlia
done was to break them up and take at max;
prisoners as possible. He saw one Southern M,
mounted on a. beautiful chestnut home, and away he
went after him. The Smitherner’s horse was better
than his own, but therewass very high fencebefm
them and be hoped that would his
enemy. Away went the Southerner till he one to
the lance. when he put sﬁurs to his homeend went
over Without touching. 051: men would have ten
up] litter the but Custer was one of those f ’

w 0 never 19 up. He dug the-spursinto ,
went at the fence, and over he popped, too. a
Southern ofﬁcer had pulled up on heotberdlle,
thinkinngme famouth hesawlh
mod to ﬂee once more. By 3
tmwever, Custer was close. to him. The
Son omcerhndwaltedtoolong.0pmt
Custer's pistol. .~ _ .
m“ Snoodrrenderl" heshouted, as they galloped W,
e w . - ‘ r - ’
The ofﬁcer n. irned his head a momeﬂhe'nm ck

in hilsspurs and went away, faster ever. .He
was as .
“Sun-en er, say! Surrender, or I fire!" cried

r.

No answer. Bang! .

The fugitive emcergave a shout, and Mathis
horse, clutching Wildly at the ' and the next
moment Custer pulled up beside his and body._

He had hardly time to reﬂect, when two more of
tbeensmycame Mathim,chubga
little bugler ho , who be gone too- tar in thechsse.
At sight of t e young captain they halted and
turned, but too late.

“Come on,.lohnny," he criedto his busier: and
any they went after the late puma-n, one of when

d 31.“ ’
8 “Mad IMF an“! Gm‘“

Then the ofﬁcer and huglur rode sin - bonito
the villaze.-where they heard the (Info?!

 

l

blowing the recall. * As they came along, theymot
the chestnut charger of the slain oﬂlcer straying

 

  

 

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

 

loose, evidently puzzled at what was goin on. As
it saw the other horses it trotted up, w innying,
glad of company.

Custer caught the bridle. At the pommel of the
saddle was a long, straight sword. All throu h the
war, after that, he always wore that sword. t was
his, fairly won, and now it hangs up in his house in
xenﬁoe,tthough the arm that wielded it is long faded
11] 0 us .

 

CHAPTER 1V.
or: snsnmnn’s STAFF—THE cannon AT ALDlE—MADE
A BRIGADIER-GENERAL—END or ms was.

AFTER 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 S aim,
and bore a legend in S anish on its blade. “ raw
me not without cause,s loathe me not without honor.’
It was good counsel, and Custer kept it. He and
his party returned to headquarters, and reported
what they had done, and then everything was quiet
for some weeks.

General Lee, however, hadno idea of leaving them
in peace for long. Thinking himself safe from
McClellan‘s beaten army, he started off with his
own men inland to take Washington, and the Presi-
dent, in great haste, sent for McClellau's force to
come back by water. Before they had all got to
\Vashingon, Lee was back on the old Bull Run
battle-ﬁeld, where he fought another great battle,
beatina what Union forces there were in that place,
under eneral Pope, and was on] restrained from
going into Washington by McClel an’s arrival.

Then McClellan, who had been in disgrace on
account of his defeats in front of Richmond, was
once more put in command. and followed Lee in a.
long march up mto Maryland, where he finally beat
him in two bottles near Sha sharp: and Harper’s
Ferry, drivmg Lee back into V rgiuia.

But, after that, McClellan lay still so long without
movmg, that the President got impatient, and when
the choral at last began to move, President
Linco n suddenly sent an order dismissing him from
the command of the army and telling him to go
home. This wasaterrible low to poor McClellan
and to his staff, for they had to go home too. To
Custer in particular, it seemed as if all his fair pros-
pects were destroyed, and he was dreadfully cast
down. But there was nothing to do but obey orders;
so Custer and his general had to leave the army and
go back to the North, leaving their comrades to ﬁght
the enemy without them.

That was a dreary winter for poor Custer, in
1862, and into 1863. The army had a bad time of it,
for General Burnside the next general, suﬂeredu
bloody defeat at Fredericksburg, where more than
ten thousand men were killed or wounded. At last
the winter were away, and Custer returned to the
front, being ordered to join his old cavalry regiment
as a simple lieutenant. Some men would have been
sulky at the loss of rank, and refused the offer, but
Custer felt it was his duty to go, to help his country.
So he went, and soon found his reward.

The Arm of the Potomac was now under General
Hooker, w o suffered a defeat as bad as Btu-uside‘s,
at a place called Chancellorsville, a few miles from
Fredericksburg; but General Hooker, spite of his
defeat. did one thing that helped his army to their
next victory, and gave Custer his third great chance.
Hooker gathered all the loose cavalry regiments into
a single at body, and called it the “Cavalry
Corps.” his cavalry corps he soon after gave to
General Pleasanton to command; and General
IPleasanton, who had known Custer as the best
officer on McClellan‘s staﬂ, asked him to come on
his own staff.

So Custer found his reward for sinking his angry
feelings and doing his duty. He was a staff—officer
once more. And a splendid stat‘f-oﬂ‘lccr he made as
I’leasanton 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, crossvd the
Bappahannock river, close to the mountains, and
marched down the Shenandoah valley toward
Mtaryggnd and Pennsylvania. This was in the spring
0 lti i.

Hooker no sooner found him gone. than he
marched to head of! Lee from Washington, and sent
the cavalry corps to hover round the enemy’s
column and hinder his march. With the cava ry
went Pleasanton and young Custer, and met the
chem close to the mountains, at a little village
calle Aldie. Here Custer went out with a brigade
of cavalry under Colonel Kllpatrick, and they both
met the Southern General Stuart, who engaged
them ﬁercely. At one time the Southern cavalry
came down the road in a grand charge to take Kil-

. patrlck’s guns, and the colonel was obli ed to order
I a counter-charge with two regiments of lOI‘Se.
All was ready, and the line began to move, when
r ,. the enemy ﬁred a great volley, and yelled so ﬁercely
“that the Union cavalr began to falter and turn
‘ back. Colonel Kilpatrick‘s horse was shot. and the
. men began to run away. Then all of asudden, out
dashed Custer, full speed. He wore ve long hair
zhen, and rode a splendid horse, and al the men
stopped to look at him he was so handsome.

He waved his sword cheerily, and called out,
“Come on, boys! Don’t be afraid: We can beat
those fellowsi’

Then, withoutlooking back he rode straight at the
enemy, and the Union cavalry gave a great yell,
and followed him, in such a tremendous charge,
that they swept the Southern cavalry from the field.
took their guns, and won a glorious victory, all
owinai,r to Custer's example.

General Pleasanton was so pleased that he sent in
Custer's name at once for promotion; and a week
later, there came a great yellow letter to Pleasan-

 

ton’s head uarters, directed to BRIGADIER-GEN-
ERAL GE GE A. CUSTER. 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 dlﬁerent
thing. on see, from s. quarrelsome disposition
and ﬁg ting. The uarrelsome and ii hting men
almost always try to lave the best of a Il"l1t, and to
hurt other eople without getting hurt t iemselves.
When they ‘nd themselves all alone, with stronger
men than themselves coming at them, they general-
ly run away, while the truly brave man 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 frightened felt ashamed of themselves,
when they saw this one boy officer riding all alone to
get killed for their sakes. So they tried to do their
duff/J too, and ended by winning the victory.

’ at battle made Custerageneral, and Pleasanton
ordered him at once to take command of a brigade
of cavalry.

Some of my readers perhaps don‘t know what a
brigade is, so I will tel you in as few words as
possible how an army is divided nowadays.

The ﬁrst and smallest body of troops is called a
company, and is commanded by a copra/'71, with two
lieutenants and severalrcrgeants and cor zorals under
him. Twelve companies or troops of cavalry make
a regiment, under a colonel. Two or more regiments
make a brigade, under a Imigazlier-geueral. Custer’s
new brigade was made of four regiments, all coming
from Michigan, where he had been at school. It
was therefore known 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 officer in rank, either a lieutenant-
t'oloneJOi'avlttlj01-. If there are none of these, the
oldest captain commands the regiment.

Two or more brigades make a division. Custer‘s
bri ade and two others were made into a division
cal ed the “Third Division,” and put under General
Kil atrick, who had been Colonel Kil )atrick at
A] ie. Three divisions made up the Cava ry Corps,
under Pleasonton.

Now, for all the rest of the summer, Custer was
kept pretty busy. He was not the sort of man to
rest on his honors, and be satisfied with being called
“General Custer.” He knew that his rank was only
a. trust given to him by the nation, and that he was
expected to win battles with his brigade. And win
them he did, wherever he went.

At first the men and officers of his new br' ade
did not like him at all. He was so young and y-
ish-looking, that they thought it a shame to have
him set over gray-headed men. But Custer
was so kind and respectful in his manner to old
officers, and so wonderfully brave in battle, that
very soon they all learned to like him. Whenever
there was a charge to be made, out rode the boy
general in front of them all, waving his long sword,
and calling out, “ Jome along, bo st”

And they never hesitated to fol ow this handsome

ov. .

Before three weeks were over, he was known all
through the army as “the boy general with the
golden lock ” and every one wanted to see him.
He wore his bright yellow hair in long curls over his
shoulders, under a very broad black felt hat, and
always dressed in a jacket and trowsers of black
velvet, covered with gold embroidery, while a blue
sailor‘s shirt with a broad collar was tied at the
neck with a bright crimson necktie. This dress
made him remarkable everywhere; and his men
could see who was coming long before he was close
by. A good many people laughed at him, but he
never cared. He just went ahead and did his duty:
and retty soon people found out that whenever
the ( anger was greatest, the boy general was at lllS
)est.

He never ﬂinched, even when all hope seemed
gone. 'He headed ever charge that was made, and
seemed to light just us well when the enemy were
all around as w ien he was driving them. Twice
during that summer he and all his brigade were sur-
rounded by heavy forces of the enemy, and had to
ﬁght their way out; but the bov general was always
the first in the charge, and led his men safe through
all their perils.

Then, when they were in camp, the boy general
was always quiet and modest. Healiowed no drink-
ing and neither smoked nor drank himself. He was
deeply religious, and had the chaplain read pra ers
eVery Sunday morning.r re ularlv. He romaine , as
before, a good son and rother. and always sent
home part of his pay to take care of his father and
mother. With all his dash and reputation, he never
became vain and puffed up, but was as jolly and full
of fun, when dutv was over, round the campfire. as
if he were stilla boy at school.

So the year were on, the cavalry winning battle
after battle. General Lee was first defeated in
Pennsylvania at the great battle of Gettysburg. 3”“
driven back into Virginia, and followed all the way
to Culpepper near the Rapidan river, where both
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 put over Meade‘s head. General Pleasanton
was sen out west, and another western general

 

named Sheridan, was sent to Virginia to comman
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 general,
but Sheridan was a better one, and he soon found
out that Custer could do his duty better than any
general in the cavalry corps. T at year General
Grant drove Lee slowly but surely back on Rich»
mond and by the end of the summer had him be—
sieged in Petersburg, to the south of Richmond.
while Sheridan, with the cavalry, made long expedi—
tions all over the country behind Lee’s anny, dc-
stroying the railroads.

Then Lee tried to get Grant away from Peters-
burg by sending an army down the Shenandoah
Val ey to threaten the city of Washington, but
Grant would no let go. He only sent away Sllcl‘lddn,
with part of his cavalry and some infantr ', to meet
the Southern army of General Earl . . 6 end 01
it was, that Sheridan beat Early in three grth
battles,and drovehim into Richmond: and ﬁnally Lee
was forced to leave Richmond and ﬂ ' to the open
country, where Sheridan and Grant fol owed so fast,
Custer 5 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 this time the man who had done most
work was General (luster, now a ‘major-general in
command ot“ the Old 'l‘hird Division, the same who
was once little Autie Custer, son of the NewRumley
blacksmith and farmer. His sin 1e dmsnon took
more prisoners, three times over, i an it had men.-
and ruptured e'u-ry gun Iliad the emmy ever 11ml
against them, nerer havim lost (1 single gun. or a weigh
.770”, but capturing maze ago-than all the rest of (hr
cumin ('0) . h

Butjnoulwpcace was come, and all the army of
volunteers was dischar ed and sent home. Along
with them went Genera Custer, With lus‘wlt'c, after
ayear‘s sta in Texas, and in 1866 was ‘ mustered
out " from {icing a general, and found himself once
more plain Captain Custer of the Regular army.

CHAPTER V.
A CHANGE or BASE—ON run PLAINS—INDIAN TACTICS.

WE are now coming to the happiest time of Gus—-
ter‘s life. At ﬁrst it was pretty hard for him, of
course, to come down from being a general to ‘a
simple captain, but that did not last long. In 18%
Con ress determined to add some more re iments
to tie regular army, and as Custer was he best
cavalry ofﬁcer in the country, the Presndent _offcrcd
to give him the command of one of these regiments.
called the Seventh Cavah'y. He was not mod» is full
colonel, though. There were so many old oﬁlcers,
who had been enerals of the volunteers before
Custer was ma e one, that it was difficult 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 of the Seventh, while Custer, who was made
lieutenant-colonel, the next officer in a regiment, had
the full commaxtid of the men, for Smith was too old
to be able to e out.

Custer foungd himself, therefore, in the end of 1866,
once more ordered on active service, for which he
was very glad. Like all honest- men he hated to lead
a lazy, useless life, and draw pay from the Govern
ment without doin anythin for it._ A great many
worthless men, w l0 have friends in Congress, get
into the regular army every year, with no other ob-
ject than to lead 'ust such a lazy life. but all such
men Custer heartily despised, as other brave, honest
men do. In time of peace it is nothing to be proud
of, to be an army ofﬁcer, unless there IS something
useful to do, and some one to protect from harm.
Custer knew that there was only one pmce left
where the army was really useful, and that was out
on the lains, to protect the frontier settlers from
the robgeries and murders of the lndian war pal'tll‘S.
Very glad was he then, when he was sent out to Fort
inley, in Kansas, to take charge of the Seventh Cav-
a 1 .
it 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, 1n the
winter of 1806, ver little progress had been made In
the road. It had een started, m those days, ﬁt in
both ends of the line: and there remained, Jetwei u
ihe California terminus and that at Felt Itiiey, a
gap of more than a thousand miles. over which the
Indians roamed as they leased. That was many
vears ago, remember, an a good many things have
happened since then.

Fort Riley, whole the eastern end of the Kansas
road terminated, was the post to which (luster was
assigned, and where the oﬁ'icers of his new regi—
ment began to ﬂock in. The reader must not 11n-
agine from the name “ fort," great frownan 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 nun].
ber of low groggeries and boarding—houseS, where
the railway laborers lived. To get the money out l
of these poor fellows and the soldiers, the Whole of
the little town swarmed with gamblers, thieves and
Iooso characters of all sorts, men and women. In»
side the fort itself, the place being gnawed by SPn~
tries, things were quiet, the bad characters not be-
ing allowed there, but in the town and round the
station, Fort Riley was a little hell upon earth. It is a
stran e thing, and shows what a c_ursc money may
some {mes be, that this state of socxety followed the
Paciﬁc Railroad as it was built, steadily tracking
it from station to station as it advancedy alwaxg
having gamblers and thieves after the money paid
to the laborers. ‘ .

Here Custer and his wife were obliged to stay all

 

 

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

5

 

the winter, he drillin his men and seeing to the dis-
cipline of his new 0 core. till in the spring of 1867 a
grand expedition was ordered ainst the Indians,
and Custer, with hisnew Seven Cavalry was or-
dered to leave the fort and join General Hancock,
the commander of all that country, at another fort
culled Harker, iiinet miles west. Fort Harker was
on the Smoky Kill ork of the Kansas river, right
in the center of the State of Kansas. If you have a
late large map of that State. 1you can follow Custer‘s
campaigns hereafter. as I to _the story.

on my ask what the Indians had been doing to
make this expedition necessary. The fact was, the
Indians know well enough that, by the time the rail-
road was ﬁnished, their 00d (lays on the plains
would be all over. Not be iig strong enough to pre-
vent the white men from working. thw contented
themselves by killing every man, woman and child
they could catch away from help, and annoying the
stage-roads in purl lcuhii'.

Between the two ends of the Pacific Railroad, in
those days, there ran a line of sta ecosches along
the Smok Hill Fork, out to Co credo. On this
stage-roe 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
were strongly guarded with soldiers. Every now
and than they would do so, and then gallop away,
after killing a dozen passengers. You may ask why
the soldiers at the one did not follow them. So
the did. but the Indians never attacked unless the
sol iers were a long Way off and before they could
be followed the were out of, sight, when it was use-
less for the ers to pursue.

But all the while that the Indian war parties were
doing this, the tribes were pretending to be at per~
fect ce 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
whatI mean y thi, or how the Indians had an
such right, so I Will try to explain in as few we 5
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 up in the State of Massachusetts,
and so on out to California. Some white men,'like
William Penn, paid the Indians honestly for their
land Others, suchas Daniel Boone and the Ken-
tuckians, moved rlght in and took the land by force,
driving owe the Indians and killing them. Out on
the plains the Missouri the kind was held by sevv
eral great tribes, called the Sioux, Cheyennes and
Arapahoes. At one time there were also Paw-
nces, Arickarees and Blackfeet, but these tribes are
almost extinct now. The Sioux roamed over Kan-
sns, Nebraska, and Montana, in 1867, up to the
British lin 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 rincipally the Cheyennes that were in trou-
ble in 1 i6. All the summer before Custcr‘s arrival,
they had been plundering the s re-roads, murder—
ing assengers, attacking the stations, 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 agreed to y them for their lands, so much a

car, in blanks and food, it the Indians will only
p on certain lands rmrred for them in the In~
dim Territory, and hence culled “Reservations.”
The whole of the Indian Territory is marked off
thus In reservations for the different tribes' and
Whenever they 0 to come to them they find a
“grass: this“ Immnmentggg he *5 g“sz
~ I“, 081' ' c ets an ca
tie. The Indians are told that if they stav on—the re~

serrations, the Great F r—as they me pres].
dent— will take care of them. but that, it the go
off he will send soldiers after them to p ' t am.

no 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 ey were off killing MBble
farmers and travelers. This sort of thing,' lasted all
the summer, while there was )plenty o grass for
ponies, and in the winter t e used to come in,
andremolnquiet and able, 0 all seeming, or
elm} so on and hide n the mountain valleys till

spr us- - -

it was determined, in 1867, that the Government
*1th “T and break up this system, by making the
Indians come in on their proper reservations. So
General Hancock started out with infantry, cavalry,
and artillery, in the month of April, from Fort Riley,
(Rigor (goamanding theboavah-y.

e W D l' “738 over, {It the  was vet 
indeed. column was headgsouthrwest rim
the Arkansas river, where the Cheyennes had their
camp, when & tremendous snow—storm visited the
so ers, and cotﬁelled them to go into camp, and
start fires to avo being frozen to death.

As it was, the poor cavalry horses um huddled
together at the picket-rope. so we and cold they
could hardly stand, and it was feared that ouster g
regiment would lose all its horses. The only way
they kept the poor creamres from lying down um
dying, was to have a man walking up and down the
line allnight long, with a great whip, the
horses move about. This fearful cold only
one night, but Custer never forgot it. Two or three
days after they came to ﬁne weather and green
grass; manner, for the tint time in his llfe,saw

an Indian tribe read for war.
The expedition sudydenly 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 not starting what
is called the “ Peace Polio 3‘ an. the soldiers were
ordered not to hurt the Indians if
be avoided. Hancock called a halt, and so did the
Indians: and a council took place.

General Hancock rode out, and Custer went with
him, along with a. number of staﬂ-oﬁlcers, while on
the other side out came Pawnee Killer Little Bull
and Big Bull (and who knows what other kind of
Big”? and Bear“). to have a talk with the white
c e . -

Custer was ve much struck with the appearance
of these Indian c iefs, and they seemed to ave been
equally taken with his looks. He wore his lon
curls still, but he had dropped all his old velvet on
ﬁeld. Instead of this, he now were a white deei'skin

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 generallv carried a
light sporting riﬂe. The Indians were so much
struck with is a pearance, as he sat on his thor-
oughbred horse, 1: c picture of health and courage,
tlila'tfthey named him at once the “Big Yellow
ie ‘

On his part, Custer admired the looks of the In-
dians very much. Every chief was stripped to the
waist. They wore silver bracelets on their arms,
necklaces of grizzly bears” claws, and silver medals
on their naked breasts. On their heads, each wore
his “ war—bonnet,” a cap of wolfskin or tiger cat, the
bend of the animal grinning above the man‘s head,
while a crest of e le’s feathers rose high above,
and then fell down be back, as far as the horse‘s
croup. The chiefs wore scarlet or buckskin leg-

ings, fringed with horse hair, and some had the
rin e made of human hair. from the scalps of
whi e poo )le. Every man bore a lance, bow and
quiver, an a riﬂe, generally a repeater, and all had
revolvers in their belts, seine one, some as man as
four or five. They rode the sguited little Imian
ponies, speckled and spotted wit all sorts of colors,
full of life and spirit. These horses had feathers
stuck into the. hendstalls of their bridles or knotted
into their manes, while every one had a swig, with
long black hair, ha  from his bit under h chin.
Eve one was sad I with the light Comanche
sadd e, which all the Indians now use, and most had
scarlet saddle blankets.

Such wild, (picturesque, dare-devil warriors you
never saw, an it seemed for some time as if it were
impossible to stave off a tight for long. However,
the chiefs who came forward were peaceabl dis-
posed, and it was ﬁnally agreed that the so diers
should advance and autism}: near the Indians, prom-
ismg to do them no harm. t was General Hancock‘s
objec to get the chiefs to come to council, and then
to induce them to bring in the. squaws and children
to their reservation.

The Indians promised everything very fairly and
sweetlly, and then the column moved on. They ex:
poem 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 off. As they ad-
vanced, all the Cheyenne braves rode away before
them, along witha good many warriors on foot.
The soldiers marched their best, the cavalry actual-
ly trotted all the way, and so did the batte , while
the Indians did not seem to be making muc haste.
All the same, though,,the soldiers found the y
ennes leavl them fast behind so that, long before
they got to t e village, not an Indian was in si ht.

’1 on at last they saw the villa e, an assem loge
of some three hundred white lo gee, pitched in a
beautiful green grassy hollow. surrounded with
trees, with a little stream running by it and Custer
was in sight of his ﬁrst Indian camp.

CHAPTER VI.
INDIAK consists—now AND swans—5mm son A

 

ram.

Gasman Humour, as the St Idlers approached 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 part1 for fear of Indian treachery. the
general orders his camp pitched a mile from that
of the Cheyennes, and surrounded it with sentrles.
Then, as it was late in the (la . he ordered a feast,
and entertained some of the c iefs, who «we (1 bet-
ter than ever, and all swore that they were going to
be very good.

Evening came on and then night, and it was duly
arranogled that .the Indians should come to agreed
coun in the morning. Then everythin was quiet
and the soldiers were all sound asleep. w on one o
the general’s Indian scouts, who had been prowling
round the Che enile camp came hurrying Mekm
the middle of 9 night, wiih the news that the In-
dians were stealing away, leaving the village stand-

mi' posed
hentberowasaﬂnebustlessm beau .
General Hancock was furious: and :yrdered pail the
cavalry out, under Custer, to surrmmd the vi
and capture all the Indiana that were left. dead or
alive. As ulckly as the could be waked, but with-
out sound_ng b as, the cavalrymen 'were
routed out of the r tents upln and
rode out to surround the v e. There westright
moon] lit, and they could see the white lodges
grou under the trees, like rows of ghosts, but
not a ﬁgure or ﬁre was visible. By the time the vil-
lage was quite cumunded, they found out when
too . minding nausea entirely,l'eeving
not a soul behind.

it could possibly '

, were some twenty or thirty scouts, some w

‘ men draw ﬁfteen pounds of cats apiece, sup

 

Custer thus took his first lesson in Indian tricks,
and he never forgot the results of that ni ht‘ expe-
rience. He had ound that it is never e to let an
Indian go, when once you have him in sight. In a
match of cunning, the Indian issure to Win. Nothing
was left but to report to General Hancock, and the!
general at once 0 *red Custer to take all the cav-
alry and follow the ndians, hoping to catch them.

All the rest of the night was spent in getti the
men ready for next da ‘5 trip. t was impossi le to
follow the trail of the ndisns till daylight and very
difﬁcult then. Left to themselves, the so iers could
never have done it, but, along With the ex {lineni

e an
some Indians. It was on these that they had to de—
pend to catch the Cheyennes. All that night the
cavalry soldiers were up and working. Each man
had to get three days pork and hard tack, and a.
weeks” coffee and sugar ready for the march.

Starting on a long scout after Indians is not so
one . First, you must put your coffee and sugar in
lltt e b , and tie them up very tight, or the alt-
ing of ﬁg: horse will shake them all over the an die-
bags, on the pork and haid tack. Each article must
be wedged in so tight it cannot be moved. Then mg
e
to be enough on the plains, along with the grit: to
keep a horse three days. This grain goes into a
long, narrow canvas Leg, and fills it up ii ht, till it
loo '5 like A huge sausage. Then the end 0 the be
is tied, and this sausage is strapped on the backo
the saddle so that it cannot sha e about.

One may say, well, all this can be done in half an
hour. That is true, but it takes another halfhour
for the sergeants of the different companies to o to
the commissery and have their portions weighs out
to be distributed afterward tot e men, one b one.
Then all the horses’ feet have to be looked o. If
a shoe is loose it must be taken off and reset, for it
would never do for a horse to lose a shoe, out on a.
long march. That horse Would soon go lame and.
have to be left behind. _ ,.

At last, however, everything was ready, just as the
first streaks of dawn were ctmingin the east. The
wagon train of the Seventh Cava was all bar-
nesscd up and ready to move out. T en the bugles
sounded ‘ to horse,” and each orderly sergeant or-
dered his company to lead out their horses. Thom
they stood in along line, each man at his horse's
head, till they had counted fours. beginning on the
right, each man calling successive] ,“one—two—-
three—four; one—twc—thiec—four, ’ to the end of
the line. Then each sergeant tinned to his captain.
who sat on his horse a little behind him, and touched
his cap. A mcment later, all the captains called out,
“ Prepare tomount." At that word each No. 1 andNo.
8 led out his horse to the front. the other numbers
standin still. This was to give the men room to
get on t eir horses. At the same time and all to
Eether, each man put his foot in the stirrup,de

is horse’s mane in one hand, the enamel of the
saddle with the other. “Mounti” s outed all the
captains. In another moment, just like a machine,
every man of the Seventh Cavalgnzpmng up threw
his leg over, and took his seat. that is the way
a cavalry re iment starts out. A civilian might
think a goo deal of fuss is made about a title
thing, but that is on] the beginning of what soldiei 5
call “ discipline." very man has his ntmber and
place, and never forgt ts it, and so, no matter what
the (rowd, everything is alwa sin order.

A few minutes later, the w ole regiment started
out in columns of fours, followed by its train ‘of
forty eat wagons. It may be said wb did they
take t o wagons, when the men carried t rte days”
food? It must be remembered that the gn at plains
of the West stretch for thousands of miles every
way, and that neither Custer nor any of his rffkers
knew how far they would have to 0 before they
caught the Cheyennes. 'Ihe reasonl ey carried ro-
viswns on the horses was that the might be ab 6 to
leave their wagons for a three sys’ scout at any
time, but with their wagons they could stay out a.
whole month.

I am telli my readers all those little things to
rive them an es of what Me on the lain: real]
is, when there is alargebodyof men 0 be mov .
Remember that on the plains there are (ply two
things to be found for food—grass for the hours—
,c-ame for the men. It is not always so easy to and
game as one may‘ihink, and when it is found, it is
not so easy to catch it. Moreover, one builan will
feed three hundred men: and the Seventh Cara .
ofﬁcers and all, numbered nearly four hundred. I
they had to take the wagons with them. and (f
course they could on] go as tastes the wagons soul,
that is to say at a w k or slow trot.

Perhaps you begin to see now one reason why the
soldiers don’t catc ,the Indians oftener than they
do. It is because the Indians, accustomed frcm
childhood to live on the plain, have m wagons. ’Iheir
ponies live on grass, they live on buffalo and olbcr

me. We then, you may say they cannot ku i)

that in rge numbers anymore than the so
dies, or they would starve too. That is just vim;
is the matter. Whenever they want to move is”.
and coca the soldiers, th are ob ed to split
up into parties, and seat in all us, so
that they can live on hunting, eatin any usinal
that comiels in theirwoy. They‘onlygetg In in c
villages 17 game 3 very him I
mo‘pifipeooe, sending out their hunﬂnggporticu in:

But all this time we are keeping the Seventh Cav-
drv and Custer waiting. when we might to be on the
trail of the Cheyennes. It makes no dlﬂercnce.

"drain MWWM‘M lathehard “y
ou co . as
rock and ﬂier-e ' ‘ u t

, arosomnn and horse-tracks
that youorloooldn‘t makeyhgg-dyoruﬂo! them.

    

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

6

But stay; there are those with Custer who can
ﬁnd the trail, and just see them 0, now! There
they come out of cum at full gs. lop, dressed in
gray and brown, with o d fur caps, bitr white hots.

uckskin coats, red shirts, dirty and ragged-looking,
with wild, matted hair and bigsgeards, mounted on
ponies, big horses and mules; eral dirt -lookin

milans among them with striped hand 'erchie 5
round their heads, am their shirts hanﬁling out be—
hind. Do you know those fellows? '
«outs. Some have been onadruuk all night. Al~
most all have been gambling, and there‘s not one of
them you would like to meet in a dark place alone.
But, rough asthey look, there is more in those fel-
lows than you think. Look there! There‘s one
very diﬂerent from the rest. He rides abeautlful
sleek black mare, a racer, and has a silver-mounted
saddle and bridle. That fellow’s a dandy. See how
clean his buckskin suit is, all trimmed with beads,
and how csrefullv his hair is curled. Did you ever
see a handsomer face in your life, with its hi 1:,
thin nose, and that long silk mustache? And w at
a perfect cavalier. As he rl es near Custer, you see
that the are very much alike in figure, tall and
slender, ong-limbed and graceful. Their faces are
not unlike, onl Custer's curls and mustache are
vellow, this re ow's are dark. That man is Wild

ill, the best pistol-shot and the bravest scout on the
frontier, but as quiet and caceuble a man as you’d
wish to find, as quiet as ‘uster. It wouldn‘t do to
try and bully him, though, for Wild Bill has killed
more men than any scout on the frontier, and the
worst despcrad'oes are afraid of him. If he points
a istol ataman he never need shoot twice. He
ki is ever time.

Will V ild Bill find the trail for Custer? No.
There are some things no white scout can do like
an Indian, and all the scouts fall back as soon as
they get to the abandoned camp, and let the Indians

0 to the front. The column of soldlnrs is a few
tunvired yards off, linlted’, and waiting for the long
Tile of wagons to lumber out, and the white scouts
are clustered in a knot at the further cud of the
village.

Sec, the Indian scouts~two Delawares a Shaw-
nee.a Creek, and a Cherokee—have leaped off their
horses, and stretch out into a circle round the fur-
ther end of the village. The whole ground is cov-
ered with pony tracks, crossing and recrossing lu
inextricable confusion. The scouts run out just like
so many hounds trying to ﬁnd a scent, at a long,
swinging lope, peering at the tracks as they go, and
hunt 113 all over the round.

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 the front, to see if the scouts have found
the trail. He rides a beautiful bright bay horse,
thorou hbred. and looks like an thing but a soldier
in his aunty buckskin dress. ll round his horse
see those (logs capering.x There are Blueber and
Maids, his famous Scotc (leerhounds, given him by
Mr. Barker of Detroit. There are several fox-
haunds and a white S itz dog, and Custer looks
more like a huntsman t an a general.

Hark! Just as Custer comes up, they hear along,
loud cry from one of the Indians. It comes from
that dingy‘looking fellow, with a dirty face, one or
two broken feathers in his hair. Dirty us he looks,
he is the smartest trailer of his nation, one of the
tribe of Delawores who once lived in Maryland. He

' has found the trail!

Away oes Custer, dogs and all and the scouts
follow. hen they come up, the belaware points
to the ground. A straight ouble furrow runs out
from the confusion of tracks and you can see other
furrows near it streaking off in one direction from
the camp. These furrows look as if a man had been
dragging): stick behind him in the dust, on each
side of In. There are, however pony tracks be-
tween the furrows, so it seems th
have carried the sticks.

So he did. Those furrows are the marks of what
is calloda "lodge- ole trail." They are made by
the ends of the o as with which the Indians put up
their lodges. hen the uaws take the lodge
down, they tie the poles bozo her at one end, throw
Th over a pen ‘s back and let the other end trail.

8

onthe po es behind the on , the lace the
of skins that makes the fridge. T c2, on the
Pony, puta new and all the children they have
hgigge around ose, and Mr. Indian is ready to move
Whenever you see a fresh 10d lo trail on
m3 know that the women and cﬁlgfen are a'loyng,
a there isachance of catching the Indians, for
the never runawa from their families. In this
ins once the scouts sci seen len of broad trails
of h an. all mavina; in d eren directions, and
made very plain. but what they wanted to
was. the main trail. The knew that the
fodlnﬂn trying to escape. wou d 3 read cut just
lines on purpose to conceal the r movements,
but they knew thatif there wasaslnzle lo 6 car-
ried or, it probably belon ed to the chief’s am ,
and that the Indians woul be sure to come back
*“a'fﬁhiiio‘limbu out... a.
w w an more vc e
anal; the columnngstertzad, and away \ggnt the
scouts on the little narrow lodge-pole trail, careless
of the pony tracks elsewhere, just as the sun rose
over the (by plains of Karma

_. ‘ ,_ ' gamma vn.
m, MFWA “MDWHE FIRST

at a, horse must

T ’  trail “became lain that
u » soon so
inﬂow it at a troté and wﬁenevor a

I piece 0! soft ground came along hey could see the

  

ey are the ,-

 

marks half a mile ahead. The scouts pronounced
the trail about twelve hours old, and it Was clear
that the Indians were nowhere near. So the column
swept on its wayas fast as the wagons could be
driven. the scouts ranging on so far ahead as to be
almost out of sight at times, the column of cavalry
only about half a mile in front of the wagons.

here they were on the broad reen plamsnthe
grass now sprung well up, and hiding the crevices
and dog-holes" that make riding so dangerous. The
country stretched away in waves like a great sea on
all sides, and as the sun came out hot, the monotony
of 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 antelopes standing on
the swells, watching the soldiers wi h curiosity; and
some distant moving 8 ecks, when examined
through a telescope, turne 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.
He knew that the Indians were out of reach at pres.
cut, and he was always devotedly fond of hunting.
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 off, and he
made up his mind to have one if he could.

“Come, Blucher! Come, Maldal” he cried. and
away he went over the plain with his two gallant
grayhounds The antelopes stood watching him in
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 leisurely, skirting the foot of the next
swell to leeward of the antelopes, in ho er: of sur-
prisin them. Sure enough, when he rm 9 over the
next r dge, there were the retty creatures not three
hundred yards off still sta. ng at the distant wagons
which they could see through a dip in the swell.

The next moment the antelopes saw Custer, and
then—you have seen race-horses run, but you never
saw anything run like those prong-horns. Away
wont Custer at the top speed of his thoroughbred
horse, and away \vent the two ruyhounds, stretch-
lug,r out strai Fill: in their frantic eagerness. They
might as well have chased a bird. The antelopes
left them behind as if Custer had ridden on a cart-
horse and the do s had been fat la ~dogs. Before
one could say, “ ack Robinson ” t e 1)r0ng~homis
were out of gun-shot, and then they began to stop
and look back, as if inviting the hunter to come on.

In those days Custer was very green athuntiug
nntclopes, or he never would have tried to run them
down. For a mile or two they are the swiftest ani-
mals on the continent, though they can‘t last if
hunted by relays of horses. However, he had'all
this to learn yet, so he kept on, sometimes getting
near the game, but always distanced whenever they
got fri htened, ﬁll at last he gave it up as a bad Jo
and ca led back his dogs.

There was not much run left in the greyhounds.
They were quite exhausted already, for they had
been fed so high 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 carried Custer quite out of sight of
the wagons, and be hardly know where he was Bo
he began to cor all around the horizon for land-
marks. Noth ng all round but the green. plains,
dotted with patches of bushes, one hillock Just like
another.

See, what’s that?

Custer started in his saddle, and shaded his eyes
with his hand. Not ahalf‘milc from him, was a
great black beast, quietly feeding in a green bottom,
and it needed no one to tell Custer, any more than
it would you, had you seen it, what it was. He had
never seen one in his life before except-in a icture,
but there stood a real live morale waiting or him.

Who cares for untelopes now? A moment later,
Custer had turned his horse, and was going straight
for the buffalo. Tho beast was feeding, with its
head turned away, and the general was able to ride
softly up to with n a few hundred yards, wheuxthe
buﬁaio suddenly tossed up its head, wheeled round
to look, and then started off at a lumbering gallop.

"Hurral now we’re off," thought Custer; and
away went his 5 lendid home, full speed, the do
running ahead. he buffalo looked henéy and aw -
ward, but somehow it uzzled even Oust r‘s splendid
horse to’ catch up wi h it. tired as the horse was
with the run after the antelo es. However. the
dogs had rccovemd their breat by this time, and
they had nothing to carry. so the skimmed away
over the plain. and were soon up w th the buffalo.

Look at that! Brave Blucher! The gallant dog
made a grand leap and caught the buffalo by the
car. No use, Blueber. He‘s too much for 1you. See,
the great black beast stops a moment. s akes its
huge head, and sends poor Blucher ﬂying, 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 given up long ago, but a. thor-
0 hbred will run till it drops dead.

way goes the buffalo again, Maids. after it on the
otherside. Good Maldal See she tries the same
leap as old Blucher, but misses t. The buffalo gives
a low, angry) bellow and makes a ~dash of its t
head at the rave dog. No use old fellow, M dais
too quick. There comes Blue or again, plucky as
ever, and heads off the buffalo, barking loudly. The
great brute comes to a trot and now Custer is up
within twenty feet of the old follow. 7

* These “dog-holes," as the plainsmen call them,
are the burrows of the rtdric-dog, or American
marmot, an animal, thatl ves in regular villages of
holes, so close together as to be dsngemustorlde
over.

 

“ Buck, (logs, back!" he shouts, and out comes his
big revolver. Now the buffalo starts on? again and
Custer after him. See, the hunter pomts his pistol
at the beast, right in the midst of the black mass,
behind the shoulder. Now to fetch the heartl The
pistol quivers and settles to a good mm, and not ten

eet separated man and game both at full speed,
when—1m I—ronnd comes the o d bull with a furious
bellow at the horse, and the charger shies off so
suddenly that Custer, who is leaning over to shoot,
ﬁnds himself almost off. Crack! 3. ﬂash, a report,
and the next moment down goes the horse, shot
dead, while Custer goes ﬂying one way the pistol
the other, right in front of the buffs 0, 'on the
groun .

Another moment and the beast will be on him,
when Muidmand Blucher fall at the buffalo on the
other side, and the great animal turns away with a.
snoxt of rage, and gallops off, leaving Custer alone,

Here’s a nice ending for a. buffalo‘hnnt, truly.
The hunter rises from the ground, shaken and
bruised, and looks ruefully at his dead horse. A
thousand dollars gone, shot by accident, and not
even a buii'alo to show for it. Custer’s ﬁnger had
been on the trigger when the buffalocharged, 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 buﬁaioes.

He sat down on the dead horse. pretty well cast
down, and presently the two dogs came slowly trot-
ting back, as if to ask what was the matter with
lllell‘ master. I-icxe was a. pretty situation to be in.
Out on the plains without a horse, no riﬂe—for he
had left that behind—nothinglbut two pistols and a.
sword and he had no idea w ere he was. “ Well,”
thought Custer, as he always did, “ it’s no use crying
over spilt milk. I must find the column, or maybe
the Indians will find me.”

So he started off on foot, followin like a sensible
man, the back trail of his horse e knew where
he had come from, and he Lidged that he might find
the column or its trail if ewent on long enough.
He was saved the trouble of a long tram , however.
No sooner had he topped the next swell 1; an he saw
the dust of his own men, the cavalry guidon ﬂutter—
ing high above it' and within half an hour he had
another horse, and was riding along at the head of
his column, as if nothing ha happened. A party
went off and took the equipments from the dead
horse, while the column pursued its way.

That day the scouts went on very 'ragidly. the
trail of the Cheyennes getting plainer an plaiuer.
Fresh trails of parties of horsemen began to oin
it from each side, showin that the scouts were right.
in their supposition. to scattered Indians were
beginning to reunite, thinking themselves out of
danger. Several small lodge-pole trails joined the
first, till the main trail was as plain ssaroad,tuid as
oas ' to follow. ‘

ll oreover, the earth had not fallen down and
Eta 'ed, as it would have if the dew had fallen on it.

lusshowed that part of the trail must have been
made since daylight; how long? was the question.
The head trailer said just after sunrise, and his rea-
son will give you some idea of what trailing is in its
nature.

“ See dirt all stuck up big lumps, general.” be said
in his broken English. “Maybe so, must be wet,
much heap. Dirt little bit stick now—see."

He pointed to the lodge-pole marks. The dirt at
the edge of the furrows was in good-sized lumps
and seemed to he stuck together. Then he are
another furrow close beside it, and showed how the
dry dust fell awe. 'in small particles on each side.
It was lain that he dirt must have been we‘t when
the 10 ge-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 -
bly gained four hours on the Cheyennes, who had
started twelve hours ahead of the soldiers.

This was very encouraging. The wagons were
gushed to a trot, and the regiment was 6 vided into

ve or six little short columns, each moving abreast
of the others, at some ﬁve hundred Vards off. By
this means the soldiers commands a view of a.
lung expanse of country, and the horses in the rear
of e column were not tired by trotting to catch

u .

Brine trail grew fresher whenever the ground was
soft, but sometimes they came to long hard stretches
of barren ground, only covered with the short, bub
l‘alo grass, and as hard as a rock underneath. All
the same the Delaware: and Shawnees pushed on,
pointing out the trail by a few bent blades of grass,
quite conﬁdent the were right.

Presently, away rom the column, as they turned
the edge of a swell what should they all see but a
herd of forty or {my buffaloes, rig u in front of
their path. Custer was delighted. Every one re~
alized that the Indians must still be out of reach, or
the buffalo would not be grazing at . The gen-
eral was determined to kill a 310 and Wipe out
the disgrace of the morning.

A short consultation was held, and away went
Custer, with four or ﬁve ofﬁcers who could be
spared, after those buffalo. About two miles ahead
was a little river with very steep banks, which the
scouts said would delay the wagons at least an hour,
so there was time for a hunt. Moreoverthe river
might stop the herd. |

Soawayﬂwent Custer on a fresh horse, outstrip-
Eing all as ofﬁcers, and they were within a few

undred yards of the herd before the animals too]:
the alarm. Then what a scsmperingl The bones
seemed to 0 crazy with eagerness, leaping half out
of their us as it were,and coming up rapidly
with the buffalo. ‘

 

i
i
i

 

Now they’re up, Custer first. No mistake this
time. He’s into the herd, which is scattering, and
singles‘ out a large fat cow. Now he’s within range.
Crack! No horse killed that time. You might hear
the slap of the bullet into the. buﬁalo‘s Slde. She
shakes her head and turns viciously on Custer, but
he has not forgotten the lesson of the old bull. As
the horse shies, he shies with it, and the buffalo,
ﬁnding herself unable to catch the horse, turns and
trots oﬂ'. Round spins Custer, and again comes the
crack of his pistol. _

That did the busmess. The cow stag ers and
drops on her knees, and a moment later own she
goes, dead. '

Custer has killed his first buﬂalo; and as he pulls
up, he hears the cracking of pistols that tells of his
friends being hard at work beside him.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

ran mm snows nor—cono—rmns our—SWEET
sum“.

Tan ofﬁcers 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 buﬂaio.
Only one of them succeeded in bag 'n his game.
He was a cool old fellow who never till he was
sure of his mark. and he took three shots before he
ﬁnished his buffalo. Another ﬁred away twelve
shots out of two revolvers. and was to swear
he hit his bull every time but the old ellow lum-
bered away, and, as no blood was found, the_cop-
rain was obliged to own up he might have missed
every time, owing to his excxtement. 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 off the field. A l the rest had a good
laugh at that oﬁ‘lcer, you ma be sure, and he didn’t
get over it for a long time. . ext chance he had he
stuck to his buffalo 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 excitement.

“Look, general, look!” he cried, and pointed to
the other side of the stream. It ran between high
steep banks, in the midst of a charming little green
valley, covered with very long grass and bushes.

,There, on the other side, tied to a tree, were two In-
dian ponies, saddled and bridle/I.

The scout gave a ion cry and waved his hand in
the air. and u came t e other scouts in a hurry.
headed by ild Bill. They had not been huntin .
but attending to their business of trailing. They i
saw what was the matter, and down the steep bank
went the whole crowd, and over the river, Custer in
their midst. ‘

The scent was growing very hot now. The ponies
tied to the trees were evidently Indian property,
and they were both covered with sweat, not yet dry.
Whoever owned them could not be far from 'them.
A little way oil were the ashes of a number of ﬁres,
and in one of them the embers were still smoking.
The Indians must have stopped for breakfast, not
more than five hours before.

But who owned the ponies, and where were they?
The Delaware soon solved that question.

He said that they must have belonged to two
scouts who had been left behind to watch for our-

suit and that it was therefore plain that the Indians
00 not have been aware the. they were followed,
till the buffalo-hunters had nearl run into them.
Hesaidthax the scouts were pro bly somewhere
down the stream, looking for ame for breakfast,
and was confident that one 0 them was a great
Warehief of the Cheyennes. called Roman Nose.

“ How do you know that. chief?” asked Custer.

The Delaware pointed to one of the ponies. 0n
the saddle hung a white buckskin frock, every new
fringed with locks of human hair, on scalfm.

“ hat is the jacket of Roman Nose. have seen

,him wear it man a time," he said in his own lan-
81 to-Wlld B 1, who interpreted to Custer.
was conclusive. The scent was struck. The
uegtion now was how to hurry up the w one.
they came, lumbering along to the ban 3 of
the stream, but it was a ve diﬂ'erent thing
them across to gain over w th the caval alone. It
was fully an hour ore a place coul be found

where the could cross, and all this time the
scouts were it u and down the stream for
man N and On the other side of

so phlnwuialmdlt wasv

to wait for these lumba‘lngmzéngntgngu :l? 1’33

not dareto abandon tbeln, cries: either ban of
round

Indians might be row
chance to capture tgemnng ' Wm for a

At. last the us were got om gum};
gaugeme :5, a sharp trail, the ’ﬁggcmemg

Still the trail kept single and broad. It
that the tribe still thought itself out of da "5, “$11,:
sun began to sink lower and lower, and am just
as he was almost touching the horizon, a. milk.“
dark timber in a. green bottom showed that y had
come to another stream.

All this time the oﬁlcers and ‘Custor had been
watching the horizon in all directions, with great in-
tentness. - Every now and then they could see dark
moving objects in the distance, which everybody
was ready to swear must be Indians. They could
almost see the feathers.

But the Delaware chief only shook his head and

1 bed.
Waybe so no Injun, general—only buff‘lo.”

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

h “ Yes, but out there," said Custer, “ I can see the
orses.” .

“ Mustang,” said the Delaware, brieﬂy. .

If an oﬂ‘iccr rode out and halted, turning a tele—
scope on the moving masses, It always turned out
the Indian was right. it was nothing but a_herd of
buffalo or mustangs. So they went on till they
reached the stream and evening at the same time,
when a halt was called.

The scou‘ts then announced that they could not
follow the trail any longer, that they must wait for
dayli lit. The horses were all pretty well ragged
out, or they had ridden all day on Without alt-
ing. Moreover the scouts told them t at this stream
was the last they would come to for twenty miles.
It was clearly impossible, therefore to .push on.
They must- go into camp, lost and feed their horses,
and make double haste in the morning. The wagon-
teams especially needed rest and food. So they
crossed the stream and went into camp, ﬁnding
splendid ass and abundance of wood.

One th g the noticed here which showed that
Roman Nose an his companion must have at least
reached the tribe and given the alarm. There wags
noﬁro-s. The Indians had evidently pushed on in
great haste,

Of course there were two sides to this business. If
the Indians had the start, an advantage, it was also
clear that the would have to push on all night, with
tired horses, or at least twenty miles, without rest
or water; and that the freshened strel th of their
pursuers might enable them probably 0 catch up
next day, if they went into camp at night. It was
clear that, so far, they had outstripped the Indians.

So, they went into ennuiI setting a strong picket
outsxde to watch, while t 6 horses en’oyed them-
selves amazingly in the deep ass of t e river bot
tom. ' Their course during 9 day had been due

north from the place they had left, which was on >

the banks of the Arkansas river. They were now
ap roachng the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas, a
va e then traversed by a stage road, and through
whic the Kansas Pacific Railroad now runs. Since
those days, only a few years ago now, there has been
a. great change there. In the solitary prairies,
through which Custer then chased the roving Chey-
ennes, not an Indian is now to be seen, and the
screami locomotive (lashes through the valleys,
cutting t e swells like aship on the ocean, while
great farms, where thousands of cattle roam over
square miles of territox , occu y the old hunting
grounds of, Cheyenne an Arapa oe.

Next morning, while the stars were still shining
the clear notes of the bugle rung out the “ reveille."
That means “ Wake upl" A moment later out ro -
ed the rollickin notes of the “ stable cell," to which
the soldiers use to sing the old song:

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

corn-
For if you don’t do it, the colonel shall know it,
And t‘hgn you shall rue it, as sure as you’re
l‘u. ’ '

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

By the time the sun rose every horse had been
carefully brushed down as clean as a new gin, and
felt re y fora march. while the men were a break-
fast. The scouts were aiready out, scattered over
the plain, searching for the trail, and brought back

news. .

The trailer began to scatter again!

The Delaware chief decided to follow the center
one guided by the marks of the lodge-poles, and the
column started on. Very soon they discovered that
the country had changed very much in character.
Instead of rolling ﬂgreen and plenty of game
there was a dry, at is , with scanty grass and
quantities of low brain les. This plain was seamed
with great cracks, sometimes ten or twenty feet
deep, and opening out to six or eight feet wide.
These cracks delayed the wagons very much, for
they had to be taken round to the has. 3 of the ﬁs-
sures before they could pass.

The ground grew sohard that they could hardly
see the trail even of the lodge-poles, and the further
they went the more the trail scattered. Presently
they saw a few black specks in the distance, and
coming 11 found them to be broken down ponies.
abandons as unable to kee up. '

This was encouraging. elen-essed on at a. trot.
Presently they came on a bun e of lodge-poles on
the ound, where it had been thrown on, then
snot er, then another. ,

At last the lodge- is trail ceased.

Now who was to nd where were the warriors and
where the women and children? The pony tracks
became fewer every moment. Here one turned on,
there another—one to the right, one to the left.
Wéiéclgiwas to be followetiitzh 16 t at

ve youan ideao e perp xi ,you mu,
imagine that every half mileor so a. purgy of Indians
broke oil on each side, and as soon as the were out
of sight, hid behind a swell of the p e. whence

the were now sat watcbi the column from
each side, some for the  The soldiers kc
on the Indians breaking off. so that by the time
so tu mlgcbhe‘d the Smoky HillBiver Road, the last
pon rec ared. .

Soy had taken his next lesson in Indian war-

fare—that soldiers can never catch ions it the
Indians don’t want it, or unless theyare taketn 11813

surmise. It was closr now that he need chase
no eager. Of all the hundreds Of melts
who was to tell which was warrior which
how smgthe Indians might unite

rs
~ dogn the

squaw or
if the so
thing left to do was to march

', The 0an
stage road, and warn the poo-

moky Hi

 

‘7

pic that the Indians were u and gain to ht
everybody, not in small parties, but thegbest gig-2y
knew how.

That was the last Custer saw of the Cheyennes
that year. As he went down the stage road he
found they had been before him. Stations were
found burned, horses had been carried on, men
killed, scalped and burned in their own houses,
where the wolves were seen feeding on their half-
consumed bodies. Before the column reached Fort
Hays, the new terminus of the Kansas Paciﬁc Rail-
road, Custer had seen enough sickening sights to
show thait Indian warfare meant ngguarter.

At Fort Hays he halted to wait 0 ers; and there
he was joined b General Hancock, with the rest of
the expedition. be general was pretty sulky about
the escape of the Cheyennes, but e thought he had
made up for it h another move. The heyennes
had gone off to t e nerth. but on the south there
were ’ the Kiowas and Arapahoes; and with these
the general had held a grand council.

Here there came Lone Wolf and Satanta, the ﬁrst
and second chiefs of the Kiowas, and Little Raven
and Yellow Bear, ﬁrst and second of the Arapahoes,
besides minor chiefs. This council was held at Fort
Dodge, in the south of Kansas and no one ever
knew such good boysas those iowas and Arapa-
hoes. Tlley wouldn't kill white men, like the Chey»
ennes, not a bit of it. They loved the white man
and hated the Cheyennes. All they wanted was
plenty of blankets and beef, and leave to say how
much they hated the Cheyenncs. ,

Satanta made such a pretty speech that General
Hancock was delighted, so delighted that he insisted
on giving the chief one of his own coats, with a
ma’or-general‘s shoulder—straps. Satanta 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 Wiih all his
men, killed a soldier, stole several horses, and rode
up to the stockade dressed in the very coat Hancock
had giver. him. So the poor old general was fooled
once more by the scainps.

However, when he met Custer, the General did not
know of his friend Satunta's domgs. He only thought
of the Cheyennes in the north. So he ordered Cus-
ter to take the whole of the Seventh Cavalry. three
hundred and ﬁfty men then, with twenty wagons,
and start of to the north-west. through Kansas into
Nebraska, to scout the Nebraska river.

While Custer was pre ring for this expedition,
he had one or two adven ures near Fort Hays.

CHAPTER IX.

Tn Se mamas“ °" ‘iwﬁ’iﬁr n Bay
2: ven v y was v o 5 ex-
ting the arrival of General ahead: every d ,
ut with little todo meanwhile. To pass away i; e
time the officers used to go out buffalo bunting
whenever they were off duty, but had done very 1i -
tie except to tire their horses and shoot away ammu-
nition so far. There were some twenty omcers alto—
gether. and one evening they were sitting round the
camp-ﬁre at headquarters, talking over matters,
when as usual the hunting came up. Then as a.
matter of course, every man began to boast 0 what
he could do, and several of them began to joke their
command officer about his misfortune in shoot-
ing his own orse. Custer could always take a oke
as well as any man, and this time he did not to the
sting of their jokes so much on account of having

killed some buﬂalo since that time.

At last one ofﬁcer, who thought himself a very
ﬁne shot and rider offered to bet a oh no so -
per for the party t at he could take half the oﬂlcers
and kill more buffalo than the other half could do,
with Custer at the head of it.

Very much to his surprise, however, Custer took
him up at once.

“ I'll take that bet, major," said be,
you can pick your men, too. We’ll b
morning."

The major could not back out than, and the bet
was arranged at once. The ofﬁcers 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 do. after. The one that shot the few-
est buﬂalo was ive the sup r and pay for it.
The senior in ‘or o the Seven . who was tea old
and fat to bun an more, was to be the referee and
umpire. The pal es were tohnng in the tonguesof
the buﬂsloes killed. as proof of their slaughter, and
leave them with the referee, who was to kec the
matter secret till both arties had hunted.
the tossed n which par y should go first, and the
lot ell to Cus r.

iy, at daybreak the little

Next morningz scco '
orsos res

 

etly; “ and
to-morrow

part was 11 y for the hunt, orderlies
r y to mild: their re. Then they )proceeded
to count noses. ,out of the ten w 0 should

have been present only seven were'found able to .
0f the rest, one was officer of the day, another 0 -
cer of the guard, and‘a third had a scouting detail?
Theset couldnotbehel ;theywereparto
the luck. other side In t lose men, too.
Without waiting to think ver their troubles. the
little party of seven rode off. A had be ‘rning any

make a. when there’s pin in le.’
Th and where ey hoped to t the “£10
we: $61 miles in the camp, $361: was nieces-1

mytoukeuongsnambuiance to packthc meat,
if an was dprocured. Each omoerhadm o to'
ride him, and each carried a. pair of is,
while several had the old Spencer . til ,
carbine, which they found an excellent 211m
weapon. . ' '
(ﬁgme carbinemen 
o moxpetlencethachsrblbe ulletm
orth marathon three or foul pistol-shots, and bad

w
- determined to try the experime at fairly.

 

    

8

At last they reached the destined point, where the
long mule-grass ceased, and the short buffalo-

ass an. As the «ligped a swell there in the

tance was a small e , which every one at once
pronounced to be buﬁaloes, less than a mile off.

N ow there was hurry and preparation at once as
you may think. Before the party lay a little hol ow
which would shelter them from si ht, and into it
they plunged. ambulance and all, ha ting in the bot-
tom. There the ambulance was stopped while the
hunters dismounted and looked carefully to their
horses. The saddle-girths were loosened, saddle-
cloths set straight, curb-chains looked to. Then an
extra turn was given to every girth-strap, and the
horses were irthed in tight and snug, ﬁt to run for
their lives. very ofﬁcer looked to his own mount;
it would not do to trust to orderlies now, when a
failure in any 1part of the harness might cost a life.
Each man loo ed to his revolvers and carbine, and
all were ready. Custer gave the signal, and the lit-
tle y rode out.

ow we shall see a real buffalo-hunt, no chance
runsasheretofore. There are seven in the party.
and two of them are «young officers who have never
yet shot a buffalo. iey are full of wild excitement,
trembling with eagerness, and it is plain that they
Will be the failures, if there are any. The other ﬁve
are old stachs, including Custer—that is, they have
been at it before.

They keep behind the swell, which slants away to

leeward of the place where they saw the herd. At
the end of the 'ttle valley Custer rides up the side
of the slope, and halts so as to hide everything but
his head. Then he takes out his ﬂeldglass to look
at the herd.
. “Just seven, gentlemen," he says, quietly. “Now
if any one of us lets his animal get away, it may cost
us the supper. We are seven, too. Do you think we
can account for one apiece i"

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

Custer smiled.

“I‘ve been there before, youn gentleman. Look
out you don't kill your horse, as did, instead of the
buffalo. Are you all ready?"

“All ready, general."

‘ Then over the hill goes the little party, and ﬁnds
itself onl about a quarter of a mile from the herd,
dead to coward.

They take a slow trot and ride straight at the
herd. See! a movement amo the animals, which
soothe hunters. Next momeu awa go the buffa-
loes, right into the Wind‘s eye, in a umberlng gal-
lop, like so many cows.

Awa go the hunters, also at full gallop, spreading
mto a ong line sgurrlnitheir horses like mad.

“Each man ta ‘e his east. Begin on the left!"
shouts Custer, as th begin to come up with the
buffaloes. Be ondt em is a long hill, and the ani-
mals are labor ng dreadfully, while the horses gain
on them every stride.

plot ﬁve minutes have passed, but the hunters are
Within ﬁfty yards, when crackl cracklgo the pistols,
beginning with the foun tors. Nothing hurt, but

the homes seem fair to .
y cllvide them, and the hill

Now only thirt yards
grows steeper. wenty yards, ten, now only as
many feet. and the herd scatters in terror and goes
away in all directions, hunters after them. Such a
scene of confusion you never saw fora. few minutes.
The pistolsare ﬂashing, and the loud bang! hang!
of the carbines is heard every now and then.
there's an old bull down on his knees, the
blood from his mouth. Don’t waste pow-
der. o's gone, sure enough. There‘s another—a
cow. She's stopped; another sure sign.
it at the youngsters—they’re both crazy. Not
a round left in either pistol, and haven't ﬁnished a
buﬂalo yet. There goes Custer on his big horse, the.
new one, a great, coarse beast that runs well for a
s urt. but all covered with sweat already. He's
aster th kin? hull ,of the herd, and rides on the
right side. p goes the old Spencer carbine in a
momen .

England the old bull stumbles and pitches on

its head, the blood pouring out 0! its mouth. The

blgbull led it. Now another hunter has
pod a bu and ﬁve buffaloes are down out of

the seven, wh ethe other two have slipped off, and

can be seen a little we off, going down a steep ra-

vine, foremost, w are few horsrs would dare to
ow. ’

So the hunters come slowly back, and the order-

nes cutout the tongues of the slain animals. Five
tongueﬂ are not sue a bad beginning.
Presently up rumbled the ambulance where the
ton es and hump- of the animals were phwed, while
the unters allowed their horses to rest and recover
their bmath. 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 wa .

From t e omst of a. neighboring Kill a second herd

was soon descrl and a second chose an.
was a muc longer chase than the rat. The
were tired, the herd fresh. Cu‘stcr‘s big
beast gave out-and tumbled down a ravine, after
the hhﬂalo, suﬂering a severe sprain of the lotus,
w ch disabled it, so that the general had to abs 8
:n male With his orderly, and tide back to his pa ,

- ad. .
As returned, he met two bulls close to him, and
vs  This time, also he used his Spencer
no. and two shots ﬁnished his game. When
the party was reunited, six more tongues had been
to the ﬁrst ﬁve, and aggboddy was tired.
halted for lunch,f an watered,
horses, and started on their returnpr at 
tingtoﬁnd morebuflalocsas he- .-

 

 

 

, trus
m enough. as they topped the ﬁrst swa . theta"

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

 

 

 

was another herd to leeward, and as the animals I After a march of three hundred miles and more,

smelt them, they all started right up the wind. pass-
ing close to the party.

Ruﬁ'aloes always run up wind, no matter whatis
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. ere were seven hun—
ters at one bull, but he seemed to mind the pistol-
shots no more than ﬂies. He kept charging all the
time, chasing ﬁrst one and then the other, till at
last a carbine-bullet brought him down, and the
thirteenth tongue was added to their store.

Now the arty 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 eluted with the party’s
success. Custer had killed two buffaloes himself,
and onl One of the party had failed to do the same.
It rema nod to be seen what their rivals would-do
next day.

Arrived in camp, of murse the curiosity was very
rent to know what luck the hunters had met with.
he other side could not ask the referee. who had

the ton lies; that would have been unfair. The
referee ooked wise and said nothing, but the mem-
beis of the party pretended to feel disappointed,
and somehow the rumor spread in camp that Cus—
ter's arty had only nine tongues. The orderlies
kept t ieir part of the secret. very well, and when
the major's artly rode out next morning, the mem-
bers; were al £111 of the notion that they had only
ten tongues to get to win the supper.

The second ’Farty had nine hunters, and started
full of hogc. hey had extra horses and were deter-
lniued to eat nine ton ues. The Custer party kept
in camp, and the secon party be an to struggle back
in the course of the day, two or hree at a time, 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 party only smiled. The tongues would
decide the question.

Every one ﬂocked to the senior ma 'or‘s tent, and
{he leader of the party could conta n himself no
anger.

“ 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 spare, old fellow.
rtler on your supper."

tlaughs-r smiled quietly, and his party kept’quite
s 1 .

" What does the referee say?“ asked Custer.

The referee, a stout, Joli old ofﬁcer, tinned.
"Orderly," he said, ‘ hr ng in the has ets."

Two great baskets were brou ht in. The ﬁrst was
that of the major‘s party. E even fresh tongues
were counted out. .

“ Well, isn‘t that a : uare bent?” asked the major.
“Not quite,” said no referee, quietly. “There

are t/tlween in the other basket. Count them, if you
please.”

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 111:, general. It’s a square beat,” he said.

And that's how Custerlesdparty won asup er. The
defeated nine telegraph to St. Louis 3. ong the
railroad, and ordered on the supplies, which reached
own the day General Hancock arrived. That
eyen f they had a aolly time, you may be sure.
Next ay the Sevent Cavalry received orders to
march on a scout.

CHAPTER x.
AN INDXAN aroma—run CAMP sunrmsnn—A BATTLE
on uoasnmox.

Warn General Hancock arrived at the .cam in
A ril, 1867, he ordered Custer to march from on

nys north to Fort McPherso Nebraska, which
was on the Union Paciﬁc Rai road. m
which runs parallel to the Kansas Paciﬁc road, on
which Custer had been operating, was ﬁnished much
further out.

From Fort McPherson the cavalry was to move
south-west in a circuit, coming back to the railroad
at Fort S ’ gwick, and thence stral ht south to Fort
Wallace on the Smoky Hill road, w ence the column
was to go back to Fort Hays again.

If you look on the common maps very likely you
will not be able to find all these forts, but ii you
take an old or new Ap leton’s Railway Guide you
can ﬁnd them, some w th the fort before the name.
some without, as railway stations. There on will
see that Custer was to describe a great circ e to the
north-west of Fort Hays. and it was pretty certain,
at; General Hancock thought, that he would strike
t e Cheye’nneo somewhere or other. -

This was only a few years ago, and what a change!
Hardly an Indian there now, on railways and
farms. The nlon Paciﬁc to runs th
Nebraska, the Kansas Pacific alohg the Smoky ill
valley, and the two have driven away buffalo and
Indian alike.

In 1867, when Custer marched it was v dif-
ferent. All the way to Fort McPherson not a g
being was seen, except a few buﬂnlo and mustangs,
and one distant Indian war-party, that scoured away
out of ht. When the scouts came to examine the
trail of is party they found the large feet of shod
America horses. very different from the tracks of
the little redacted ponies generally used by the
Indians. It was lain that the Indians were riding
stolen to on from the company, ﬁne,
powerful animals, worth two hundred and ﬁfty

 

dollars apiece.

 

Custer reached Fort McPherson on the railroad, and
learned that General Sherman was out at Juliet, the
terminus of the Union Paciﬁc. General Sherman
was the chief of all the army under Grant, in those
days, as he is now, and therefore entitled to com-
mand General Hancock. As soon as he heard of
()uster’s arrival, Sherman telegra lied him to wait
till he came to him, so the Seven h Cavalry waited
nearly a week, resting their horses and getting
read for the next march.

w W iile they were there, one day, a. number of In-
dians were seen out on the plains near the station,
and .one of them bore a white ﬂag. This man was
commg to the fort.

As soon as Custer heard of it, he sent out a party
to meet the Indians; and, very soon, in rode some
ten or twelve icturesquc warriors, headed by a
ﬁne, powerful ndian chief, whose war-bonnet was
one of the handsomest ever seen on the plains and
whose leggings were fringed with the scalp-locks of
several warriors.

Custer knew his face. It was the Sioux chief,
Pawnee-Killer, a great friend of the Cheyennes.
Custer had met him in the ﬁrst Hancock council.
Of course he was curious to know what Pawnee-
Killcr 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 soldiers were coming to kill all his chlldren,
so he had ﬂed; but now he wanted to make. f1 lends.
He was quite rcadv to bring in all his tribe and set~
tie down. His vi ge was only a little way off.
Could 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 ry. The
soldiers had frightened away the buffs 0. Could
the Big Yellow chief give his menu bullock? He
was out of blankets; wanted some. Could not the
BigélChief give him some ammunition, just to hunt
bu alo?

So the chief went on, begging and promising, all
the time watching Custer‘s cam , to ﬁnd how many
men there were. The end of R was. that be quite
deceived Custer, as Satanta did cock, and pro-
cured all the food he wanted. Then he rode away.
swearing eternal ﬁdelity to the white man and as
soon as he was out of un- hot had agood laugh at
the way he had fooled lg Chief.

He was hardly out of sight before the whistle of a
locomotive was heard, and General Sherman arrived
at the station to see *Custer. Of course (.‘usterreA

rtcd Pawnee-Killer‘s visit, and the ﬁrst question

herman asked was:

i‘ Did you arrest him? Where is he?”

“Wh no, eneral. My orders were not to hurt
the lnd us f they were cable: and this chief
has romised to bring in h s tribe to-morrow."

“ ou’ll never see him." said the general. cnrtly.
“ The Scamp came to beg. He got what he wanted,
and now he 8 off. His lodges may possibly be near
here, and if so, you may catch him. Saddle. up, and
follow his trail, at once. If you come on his band,
you must do one of two things: bring it in, or dew

t-ro it. ’

Oyf course there was nothing for Custer to do but
obey orders. General Sherman was a very different
man from Hancock, 8. s are. nervous, excitable fel-
low, alwa '3 hard at wot and very keen. Hancock
was muc older, and being fond of good living, was
more inclined to laziness and good-naturalhercfore
not half so ﬁt to 00 with these wilv Indian chiefs.

In less than an our after Gene Sherman‘s ar-
rival the Seventh Cavalry, three hundred and ﬁfty
strong, was winding over the plain in column of
fours, receded by a strong bog? of scouts, and fol-
lowed ytwenty wagons, hea y loaded with pro-
v'mions 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, oward the head-

‘ waters of the Rgpublican river. The trail was that
of a. war- rty some thirty men, and more than
half rode urge American horses, stolen from the
stage companies. Not a trace was to be seen, how-

ever, of lodge-poles, and, unless these were found, ‘

every one knew it was hopeless to try and follow
Pawnee—Killer. if the Indian wished to campe.

That do. the column made its camp by the Re-
publican ver, and not an Indian had been seen. The
wu were oomlcd in a square, the men pitched
the :- tents in regular Itreetﬁoand the horses were
turned out to graze in 5.110 w close to the camp
under a guard, while a strong chain of mounted
pickets was thrown out all round the camp.

At this lace the niver was small, shallow and.
easil fo bio, and low swells surrounded the hol~
low 21 which the camp was itchod. No Indian
sign had been seen by t e soon and it was the ex-

~tation of every one that Pawnee-Killer was ﬂeev
%he mountains, far away.
was the su liseof every one inthemorn‘
ing, to hear. Just be are sunrise, the furioun rattle
of carbine-shots, followed by] the yells of attacking
dians and the tramp of ondreds of frightened
horses. Out of the tents d the men in their
shirts, catching up carbines a belts as they ran,

“31:35:: mam-lbw ' do olthe o
u eecam,ne y.wnr, mm
ing, came a strongrparty of $3.211de as hard
as th could tour. yelling at the of their voices,
ﬁring n alldh'ections, sh redb ketsandbe
and swooping down on the cket-llne and herd 0

recs. .
Had the animals“ the  nt been all in one
herd, loose, there is little oubt that the Indians

wouldhavostam the wholebod ,soungavern-
able do horses ecome when tor in a. large

mass.
Very luckily, however, only a few baggage mules

-

 

 

ﬂ-

9

 

‘The Dashing Dragoon.

 

hadbeen left in the herd, the rest of the animals

Then awav they go, all round the camp, in their

having been brought in to the picket-rope late at . favorite method of attack, abandoning the charge,
night, within ﬁfty feet of the men. This IS the rule 1‘

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 to his orse, which
is tied to the picket-rope by the halter. This fact
saved Custer‘s horses. The presence of so many
menwhom the hoxses knew, and the opening of a
smart ﬁre of carbines on the Indians. calmed the
horses, and drove off the Indians. so that almost
before one could say there had been an attack, the
stampeding party had hauled off, ﬁnding the 'sur-
prise balked iy the soldieis. ,

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

As the light grew stronger all the tops of the
swells were to be seen cove-rod with mounted war-

riors, riding to and fro. and evidently planning an ‘

attack

As you may imagine, they did not blow stable-
call or breakfast-call that morning in the Seventh.
It- was all hurry and bustle. Saddle up and lead out
was the word, and it is surprising how fast a. man
learns to get ready if there are Indians near him.

Inside of ten minutes the whole regiment was ,

i

 

mounted, and the different squadrons were deplcy- »

. WA“,
in \'\\\

HE WAVED HIS HAND CHEEBILY, AND CALLED OUT, “ COME ON, BOYS! DON’T BE AFRAID! WE CAN BEAT THOSE FELLOWS!”

iﬁ put on the plain around the camp to repel the
.. They were none to soon. As ,soon as it
Wes fairly light the whole country seemed to swarm
With warriors, and the scouts afterward declared
that there must have been at least- a thousand
Indians, nearly three to one of the soldiers.

The Indians had evidently made up their minds to
try what the Big Yellow Chief was made of, and
made a. glil-snd charge on the camp. It was the ﬁrst
itndian c urge Custer had seen, and he never forgot
l .

. From all quarters of the compass, streaming on in
irregular clouds. down came the warriors, crouched
over the necks of their swift little war-ponies gain
at a perfectly fmntlcgullo . The dust rose Lem“
them inugrent clou , an through that cloud one
might see the feathers tossing, scarlet streamers
waving, arms ﬂashing. Oh they came like birds
ﬂying over the ground.

.Crack! crack! crack! see the ﬂashes of their
riﬂes, and hear the bullets. pic»! piou.’ piou.’ thump /

Nearer they come, howling like a k of wolves.
Bi!!! Yip! yip ,’ .' yipf.’ .’ yip.’ .’ I. HIYAEIH

How the come! It looks as if they would ride
over every hing. Now they’re within range of the
thin skirmish line of horsemen that stretches round
the cam , and see! Out flames a long line of spit-
ting es, and the rattle of carbines becomes in-
cessant. The thin blue smoke curls up in pnﬂs, and
through the rail one may see the Indians turning.

 

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 beventb. Every warrior
is cutting up all sorts of pranks to show his horse-
mnnship. Some are hanging over behind their
horses, sheltered from bullets, while they ﬁre under
the pony's neck or over the saddle. Here o'fellow
stands 11 like acircus-rider, yelling and shaking his
gun, whi e another stands on his head.

All of them keep going as hard as the can tear,
round and round, firing all the time. he soldiers
cannot hit the warriors, try their best. Now and
then a. pony goes over, but his rider is up before the
goldielrs can get at him, and jumps up behind a.

men .

The ﬁringids incessant, but very few folks are
hurt. This rid of ﬁghting is full of excitement and
rapid motion, but it does not mean real business.
Presently Custer determined to break it up.

He drew in a whole squadron and so contracted
his skirmish line that the Indians thought he was
gettin fri htened. Much encouraged, they con-

troctet the r own circle galloped closer and closer,
and shot more rapidly than ever. All of nsudden,

 

u _

Cpster formed his squadron and charged the ring,
pistol in hand.

“ Hey! what a charge! Now one may see the
weak point of Indian ﬁghting. 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 discipline. The In-
dians, man for man, are better riders. shots {and
fighters than the soldiers, but see how the soldiers
drive them! No sooner through the circle than the
stfiindron wheels to one side, and sweeps up the long
ti o of wamors, throwing them into confused masses
and driving them like shoe .

This new maneuver uzzles them. There is a loud
yelling of some sign , and the next_ moment away
goes the whole gang, full speed, defying pursuit.

The attack had been foiled. _

Custer drew off his men to camp; the Indians
clustered on the neighboring hills. After a httle
out came a white 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.
INDIAN muses—runes:RY—monsvm—ousm
ARRESTED—BUBPENDED—REINSTATED.
WHAT did Pawnee-Killer want with Custer? It
soon came out that he asked for another talk with
the Big Chief, and came to propose a. meeting in

 

 

sight of the two forces by the river-bank, to which
each person should be entitled to bring only six
companions. Custer at once consented, but, sus-
pecting treachery, ordered a whole squadron to be
ready, mounted, just outside of the camp, awaiting
the signal of the bugle to charge, full speed.

Then, with ﬁve ofﬁcers and a bug er, he went
down to the bank to meet’Paw-nee-Kiiler. Every
man of the art had his revolver stuck loosely in
his belt, an h his hand on it allthrough the inter-
view, a. precaution soon found to be very necessary.

Pawnee-Killer came swaggering in, with Boron
chiefs, instead of six, and opened the conversation
b shaking hands, with a sonorous “How!” Then
all the chiefs went through the same operation, and
the talk commenced through an interpreter.

Pawnee-Killer wanted to know how long the sol-
diers were going to stay, and whether he couldn't
get some more coffee and sugar out of the Big Chief,
that was all.

As soon as Custer could command his face, for he
could not help laughing at the outrageous coole
of the Indian, he angrily retorted by asking how
the chief- dared to try and steal his horses that
morning?

Pawnee -K.iller took matters very coolly. He
thought it was hardly worth disputing about. He

   

wanted to know how long the soldiers would stay
there, as they disturbed the buﬂalo. Any 00339
and sugar to spare? Pawnee-Killer very great chief.
Chiefs7 ' e sugar, love white brothers. Got any to
5 re.

pauster returned a decided negative. Wanted to
know when Pawnee~Killer would come into the tort,
as he had promised.

Pawnee-Killer couldn’t say. Some time, by-and-
by. Wasn't sure he could go at 111, unless he got
some coﬂee and sugar. _

The other bank was lined with Indians, loaﬂng
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 follow, nnd.Custer realized that treachery
was intend ‘ .

He turned to Pawnee-Killer, and pointed to the

b ler.

quust order your men back, chief," he said, in
English, “or my man will blow his trumpet, and
bring down all 111 soldiers."

As he 5 he t e bu ler, an intell nt fellow
raised his gle to soun and Pawnee— ller looked
disturbed. It was clear the chief understood Eng-

lish. Without waiting for the interpreter, he
ordered his men back, and began to withdraw

sulk‘ié'y. . .
" bite chief, b tool!" was his parting green
as he waded into t e river, and Custer mounted

10

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

 

horse and rode back. The young general had
learned his second lesson in Indian warfare. After
that he never indulged in talks with hostile chiefs
unless he felt sure that he had the whip-hand of
them. Pawnee—Killer had given him his lost instruc-
tions in treachery. and he never trusted \an Indian

sin.

ﬁgl‘he whole of the Seventh Cavalry was therefore

- mounted, and started to attack Pawnee-Killer and
his band. As soon as the chief saw Custer was in
earnest he tied with all his men, though the were
more than half as numerous again as a reg ment;
and before half an hour was over not an Indian was
to be seen. The re idity With which they vanished
was surprisi to ter at the time, but in after
years he to the secret to be very simple.

Every Indian, going to war, takes two poniesr at
least, one to travel With one to ﬂghtfrom. On these
he carries nothin . The soldiers have only one
horse apiece on w ich to follow, and each horse is
loaded down with clothes and forage and pro-
visions. Every few miles the Indians can change
horses: so there is no wonder that he goes t e
fastest. Boingin their own country too, the Indians
can scatter and hide, which the whites cannot do
without getting into trouble. v

Of this last maneuver they had a notable instance
that very afternoon. Custer returned to camp after
a fruitless chase, and very soon more Indians came
in sight on the opposite side to that on which they
were spied in the morning. There were only about
twenty and Custer sent out a troop of ﬁfty men to
chase them off. The Indians moved slowly off, and
the troodp followed, and scattered, as the Indians
scatters .

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

The ofﬁcer in command at once dismounted three
out of eve four men, had the horses led in a little
column in t e middle, deployed his dismounted men
in a circle of skirmishers, and so fought his way
back to cam .

Had the ndians been white tree 5, the would
have charge l and ridden right over he litt e band;
but, being Indians, they had their peculiar weak-
ness, which is this: they cannot stand a close fight
where they must lose men. They always try to kill
their enemies without losing any of their own war-
riors, and that makes them coward! in some things,
while they are brave in others. 80 t e ' kept cincling
round the little troop at full speed, s ooting away
and hardly ever hitting anything, while the. soldiers,
ﬂﬁmlow , fro the ground, managed to kill twu
lndlans an woun two others,,bef0ro they reached.
camp. The other party was not attacked.

Some days after, Custer's wagon-train, which he
had sent to Fort Wallace undera guard of tat-K men,
to get Iprovisitms for a ion or scout, was a , ed by
seven undred Indians, w o fought in net the same
way, clrclin round and round. The c cer in com-
mand sav his men in just the same we as the
first-mentioned had done, b putting his arses in
the middle, between two co umns of wagoggaand
deployiiif his dismounted skirmishers all to the
train. e also beat of! the Indians: so that in this
camps Custer and the Seventh Cavalry found out
a. good eal about how to ﬁght Indians, a lesson of
ﬁnch they mu hufterwuiﬁd stvailed themsellvesé

ey leaned” » a t ey co no successfully g i
moun’ for the Indians could outride the soldiers,
and the ndian ponies never got scared, while their
own horses soon became unmanageable.
they alwalys, after that, fought on foot, round their
horses, w enever the got into a tight place among
Indians, and always ouud the lan war well. -

Soon after these events, e proceeded on his
long scam, and marched out of the Indian country,
nearer the settlements. Here he. got into fresh
troubles, from another source. His men began to
desert, not one or two, but ten or a dozen at a time,
and at last he found out that there was a plot for
more than half the regiment to desert in a body.

One afternoon, after lo match, when the horses
were  a party of ﬁfteen soldiers started out
in broad dylight, before their ofﬁcers' faces.
mounted an armed, and determined to desert.
Only the guard in bad saddled horses, and
these at” once pursued t e deserters, one of whom
was shot dead, another wounded some more being
taken soners. This sudden and severe treatment
co the men, and there were no more assertions,
but the result of the difﬁculty was much trouble for
Custer. as We shall soon hear.

He pursued his march to Fort Wallace, discover-
ing on thewsy the victims of a terrible Indian
massacre. young ofﬁcer named Liehtenant
Kidder who was searchln for Custer himself, with
dispatches from General eman. had caught
by Pawnee-Killer's band, and killed, with eve
member of his party. Custer found their bodies 1
an? , and so hacked to eces by the Indians
the notone could be rec . Such a horrible
Biggi- ls never seen outside of an Indian battle-ﬁeld,
an Custer never forgot it. He little thought that
the day would come when he and the ﬂower of his
03108“ rs and men would be found in the same condi-

on. '

Be tied his march to Fort Wallace, ﬁnding the
Indians gone out of the count ; and then the
ques'don remained what next to o. The or! nal'
orders for the t were to return from rt
1% we to Forte! ytsﬁwhenoe Cutaster ﬁrgtwsmrtetii
horses - s on were muc
xhursted to’

e ‘_ marc$ er, and the cm
gimme at Fort were found to so and
“semen were! sick. So Custer decided

to leave the 

regimenttli re take
the bestmen and e 'Hays

his
.sndmsrchtoFort

 

himself, to see General Hancock, whence he could
send back good provisions for his men.

He made a march of one hundred and fifty miles
in two days and a half, reaching Fort Hays but
found neit er provisions nor Hancock there. ear-
in that General Hancock was at Fort Harker, sixty
mi es off, he determined to push on With one or two
officers and men, leaving his escort behind, for the
road was no longer dangerous. In twelve hours
more he was at Fort Barker and found, to his sur-
prise, that the Kansas Paciﬁc hood had been finished
to that post, which was now a railway station.
There was no Hancock there either however, no
one but Custer‘s own colonel, old General A. J
Smith, who commanded the department.

From him Custer learned that Hancock had given
up the cam ai n and retired to Fort Leavenworth,
too far off 0 0 followed, while active movements
had- been stopped for the your. General Smith gave
Custer mission to send back the wagon-train to
th reg1ment under a junior ofﬁcer, and to go b
rai road himself to Fort Riley, ninety miles 0 ,
where Mrs. Custer and the general’s sister were
living from whom he had now been separated ever
since March. it being then July. 1867.

Custer went there, supposing all was right. How
re‘oiced those at home were to. see him, no one can
to lbut those who have been in similar positions, as
soldiers or sailors. Within a week, however, he was
rudely awakened from his dream of happiness by an
order of arrest, and was soon after tried by court
martial, on some char 5 prepared by a personal
enemy of his, who had etermined to injure him.

He was charged with leaving his men to go on a
journey on m‘vate business, and with excessive
cruelty audi e a1 conduct ill stoppingthe attem ted
dcsertions of h 3 men by shooting a eserter. hat
unlucky journey to Fort Riley was made the retext
foi- the whole trial, and Custer was ﬂnul y con-
demned to be suspended from rank and pay for a
whole year.

Of course this was a heav blow for the cor fe—i
low, after trying so hard to 0 his duty;'bu be ad
to submit and go back to Monroe, leaving‘the Sev th
(legally-to go out without him, and light the Indians
ne year. -

As it happened however, this very unjust sen-
tence, passed on Custer, was the means in the end
of giving him the greatest triumph of his life. He
went away, and the war languished all the summer
of 1868. Nobody seemed to have any success. The
Indians did more mischief than they had done for
gears. General Hancock was removed, and General

herldan put in his place, but even then thin s did
not come right. The troops had the worst, t no In-
dians the best, all the summer.

Finally, as nothing else could be done, they had to
send for Custer before his year was ,out, and he re-

“ceived a wleﬁam from Sheridan, stating that Sher-

man and all e officers of,the Seventh had united
with him to ask the President to send Custer back to
the plains, to show the officers how to ﬂéyht Indians.

The same day the order arrived from 
and Custer started for the West, arrivingat
H39 the last day of September, 1868, to eat Gen-
er Sheridan. ‘

He found everythin in the department in a bustle,
for Sheridan had dc ermincd on something never
known on the plains before his time. This was a
winter campaign against the Indians, and it was to
lead this campaign that he wanted Custer. ’

It was now the Custer egos-cached v the grandest
and most successnt time all his Indian career.
Sheridan‘s reasons for a. winter campaign ‘were
founded on common sense. In the summer, the sol~
ﬂiers could not catch the Indians, who had plenty“ of
ponies, fat with We, and as much ame as they
pould sl'looltt.i In winter, it wins :1th Th;

roopscou carry onw noads on an
feed their horses, wﬁs 5w Egan ponies could only
be kept alive down in the hollows of streams, where
there were enough cottonwood trees for the animus
toXeeld on th‘eﬁlgsrlt; . ' .
s was, poor orsemres were use“, thin,
and uite unable to march m. so mung: tribe
was ound, it was probable thesoldlers minnow]:
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 UAXPLIGN—Blﬂr
WT RESULTS.

h was some lime before Custer considered him-
self quite ready for the Indians. He found his regi~
ment full of green recruits fresh from the towns of
the East, men who hard imew how to ride a horse
to water, leave alone ulght on him. They were
miserable shots, and co d, some of them, scarcely
hit a barn door lrom the barn-yard fence. He
found them encamped amon the Indians, and so
scared that they hardly dared cave camp. Be very
soon changed that, however, bysendlmz out
scouting parties at night, to frl hten the Indians.
Finally, he left the camp where e found the regi-
ment. moved in, close to Fort Dodge, on the Arksno
sas River, out of reach of Indian annoyances, and
m r130”: ma dmslhmtgn ii ems? '1?) had 3:8

are an 00 o . very e r r-
ammed ago out of all the cgmpanles he
sol the very best shots, which be organised into

d the “Sharpshooters.” To

these he promised to give certain special privileges.
such as exemption from picket duty. and the privi-
llohge of always being at the head of the column.
s consequence of this promise was, that all the
soldiers were eager to be sharpshooters, and shot
their very best, the whole reghnent improving .
While 0 was drilling. of course the Indians were

 

doing what they pleased all Over the countr , but
Custer did not mind that. It was just as 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. At last, after a
long mare , with a stro column, through the In-
dian Territory, down to t e borders of Texas, at the
place where Camp Supply now stun the first
snow came, in a tremen ous blinding 5 mo, and
the Seventh Cavalry, with a numerous wagon train,
started on its journey to ﬁnd the Indians, ovember

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 round, with the thermome-
ter down about zero. his was a real winter cam-

aign and no mistake. Man men would have

alted for the storm, for even t e Indian guides lost
their way, and could not tell where Wolf Creek was,
the place where the regiment was to encamp the
ﬁrst night.

Custer 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, an excelling the guides. Of
these uides he had plenty on this expedition.
First, t are were twenty Osages, fn'endl Indians,
from a small tribe on a reservation in In fan Terri-
tory. Their chiefs were Little Beaver and Hard
Rope. Then he had several white and half‘breed
scouts, about some of whom novels have been writ,
ten. Especially there was California Joe, who was
afterward one of the most useful scouts Custer ever

had.

California Joe was a tall, broad-shouldered fol—
low, with a tremendous brown beard, and a shock of
curls that looked as if the had never seen a comb
for ears. His eat pecu iarity wasashort brier-
woo pipe, whic 1116 never stopped smoking, da or
night, except when asleep3 eating, or on an In inn
trail. He would talk you lind for hours, and had
the usintest expressions in his speech you ever
hear . He had great contempt for the powers of
a regular officer to ﬁght or catch Indian but he
soon conceived a rest liking for Custer,ﬂn him
so different from he rest, and they worked together
harmoniously all the time they Were comrades
together.

Then there was Romeo, a half-breed Indian, who
acted as interpreter a short,.squat, jolly httie fel~
low, who looked as if he thought of nothin but eat-
ing, but who could “lift a trail ” better t an most
men. There were several others not so well known,
gut gﬁorrﬂa Joe and Romeo were always Custer‘s

avo .

The column proceeded south in the direction of
Texas, bearing west toward the head-waters of the
Washita River, in which country the Indians were
expected to be found wintering, anywhere within a
hundred miles. The soldiers had not traveled three
days, before they found new wise Custer had been
to wait  snow, mhe banks of the Cane.»
dinn River, theyfoun‘ a (1 fresh trail, evidently
that of the last war-pm of the season, going home.
on the greenest recru t could have followed it In
an a snow.

' Their troubles were over, as for as finding the In—
dians was concerned, for it was clear that the trail
was made b men quite unsuspicious that the
would be fol owed, and therefore careless of the r
marks. It was found, quite by surprise, w lie Cus—
ter was crossing his wagon train over River
Canadian, an o ration, which took several hours,
and d whic of course the ant could not
move: 0 utilize the time, v, r sent out two

uadrons under Major, 1: down the
file: and soc’whsttbs socialise. £3218th
found  about ten miles below Cus-
ter’l f ' to the south-west. Major Elli-

" ott Wale very brave and sagacious oﬂicer, and he

that there was no time to be lost, so he set
08 on the trail av. once, sending back a scout named
Jack Corbett, to tell Custer of his discovery.

Corbett found Custer at the crossing, , ving just
as the last wagon was drawn slowly lathe steep
bank, with three teams in front of it. 8 mode of
following the Indians was now very 3001} settled.
The Seventh cavalry had tWeive companies in all
divided into six “s uadliégis." Major Eléioftt lib
two usdrons: One or one asagua or e
WEROslgl, and with the other three squadrons, six
companies, determined to strike on to the south-
east in the directionm which Corbett pronounced
the trail to be lending. The wagons were to follow
his trail as fast as they could come with the guard.
Of course the-re was a danger that Indians might

unee on them, but Custer decided to risk that.
EL was satisﬁed, from thesnow, and from the total
absence of tracks outside of the war-trail, that the
Indians were hugging their lodges. When he and
Elliott united they would have ten cow or
about seven hundred men, and he jud it hestrto
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. The snow was
not near so esp as it was further ncrt where they
had come from and-it had thawed and 11 into a.
hard crust, so that regress was easy.

They took the merch about noon, and Just as
the sun set ey came on Elli ’smlbwberebe
was following the Indiana ow scent was.
min; not. That night was full moon, and the

was so broad and heavy that th? could follow
it snot-sunset. Of course they di southwa—
denoe. antalkingwnsstopedintheoolumn,
which swept on at a long. ng walk, such as
cavalry horses soon acqun'e, and which is always

-1,”

The Dashing Dragoon.

11'

 

 

most ra d at night, when the animals think they
are neargxig cam . ‘

At nine o’cloe ’ the come u to ‘or Elliott's
party, which had hal and t e whoe regiment
was dismounted.

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

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, after a
long march.

Supper was cooked. the horses received a double
share of cats, and afteran hour‘s halt the pursuit
was resumed. Now, however, it was necessag to
take extra precautions. Little Beaver and ard
Rope renounced the trail to have been made that
ver a . and that the Indians had probably passed
jus be ore sunset.

It was almost certain that the camp would be
found in the valley of the same river which thely had
just reached, and probably not very far off. _t was
therefore necessary not to alarm the Indians till the
regiment was prepared to dash on them, and the
mom: of the frozen snow under the horses’ feet
could be heard a quarter of a mile oﬂ. .

The wa' the new march was arran ed “as this:
in front 0 all went little Beaver and _rd Rape, on
foot, gliding over the snow-crust in their soft moc-
casins like silent spirits Custer riding a. little behind
them, at a slow ace. The other Indian scouts were
thrown out inal directions also on foot, to watch
for lurkin foes, while the white scouts rode iii a lit-
tle body, hree or four hundred yards back. The
re iment in column of fours, was at least half a
mi e beh ndé only ust in si ht.

On went he co umn on ts new march for about
an hour more when Hard Rope stoppe( progress.
Ha smelt ﬁre, he said. A little further, after a cane
tious advance and they discovered the dim embers
of a deserted fire. The Indian scouts crept u to it,
and found no one alive, but plenty of pony racks.
It was pronounced to be a fire ma e by some Indian
no '5, in charge of the pony herd be onging to the
V)! age. The herd had g e, but could not be far
off—the villa e nnfst be ve near. You may fancy
how cautious the scouts stole on now. the r i-
inent halting some way off. At the very nein 1,
Hard Rope waved bac Custer, stole upto the top,
pceped over, and instantly fell ﬂat on his face, then
crept slowly back to Custer, laid his hand on the
generul's bridle and whispered:

"131;; Map Mimi down flare.”

" How. do on know ?" whis red back Custer.

" life Mar: dog bark," said ard Rope, quietly.

Custer dismounted, crept to the crest of the hill,
pooped over, and there, in the midst of the timber,
were the white lodges of an Indian village, sleeping
in the moonshine. There was no’ mistake.

He went back to his horse, and sent a scout to call
upihe omcers of the Seventh, telling them to come
quietly, leavin their sabers behind. He led them
to the top of he hi showln them, for the ﬁrst
nine in their lives. an ndian Village full of enemies,
which the white man had caught at last. There was
no Lissa? iisdto the Eaatchingithe only one was,
won i u lane 8 ca t2 sins
esBap_eﬁCust€i' slog; prov  :8 Ag t their

m rig is ment to our divisions~ .
dercd three of these to make circuits, about 28mg;
from the camp, so as to come in on all sides just
  .

18 9 6n . commanded b himself wit
the sharpshooters and the band, {emained ‘wherleli
they were, while the others started; and the rest of
that cold moonlight night was passed in dead
silence, waiting till the pregarations were complete.
It Was a. long weary wait ut the success at last at-
tained paid or all. The lndians were sound soles
and suspected nothing till dayliﬁht, when all the 
tachinents simultaneously burs on them, the band
phi 'ing “Garryowen,” the men cheering, carbines
an pistols crackii’ﬁi gallolping horses teal-in
throu h the camp. e resu was a complete an
overw aiming defeat for the whole band, which
proved to be the village of Black Kettle,aChey-
enue chief. Overahundred warriors were killed,
and some seventy women and children were taken
prisoners while nine hundred nies and all the
stuff of the v was cap . About ﬂft war-
riors {got away by a bol dash in the ﬁrst confusion,
but the restwere comp etely defeated.

b N onsooner was the battle over than fresh troubles

ego. . . ,

It turned out that there were four other ban
encumped within a few miles of Black, Kettle’s 35'-
lage, and the warriors from these mad
attack on Custer, to rescue the herd of ponies. Gus.
ter soon found that be had nearly two thousand
fresh Indians to ﬁght. Many men in such a. 5mm
would have lost their heads and re ; not so
Custer. He was bound to give those fellows “9..
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 keeﬁ’oﬂ the Indians awhile,.then detailed a ﬁring-
pai'ty destroy the village and shoot the ponies,
only keeping enough of these to mount his prison-
ers. The I maddened at the sight, attacked
the cavalry ﬂerceLv 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,
as if he meant to repeat the operation.

- several oﬂicers of the

 

That settled the business. The Indians waited no
lon er. 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 Coma’uches Arapahoes in
plenty and another small band of éheyennes, but
they a i fled in haste, though twice as numerous as
the soldiers.

It was about ﬁve miles to the nearest camp, but
before the column arrived there not an Indian could
be seen, while the lodges were found ding, full
of stud’, and, II deserted. Not even a lodge—pole

' had been taken

By the time Custer reached the camp it was dark,
and the moon had not risen. He halted awhile
sent; out scouts who found no Indians, then tu
and marched oif straight across country to his wag-
ons which he found safe in camp. Not an Indian
ha been near them. He concluded that he had
done eno h for one trip, sohe dispatched California
Joe and . ack Corbett across country to carry the
news to General Sheridan, and followed them, the

next day himself.
Camp upply was reached in safety, and General
Sheridan reviewed the regiment, complimen it

highly on its successful expedition. From that ay
forth there was no more trouble with the Indians of
the South-west. Custer had cowed them completeb'.
Satanta and the Kiowas came in that winter, after
some trouble, and ceased hostilities. Before Mulch,
1869, the Arapahoes had followed their example;
and earl in the spring Custer had com leted his
triumph y chasin down the last band 0 the Che ~
ennes under Medic ne-Arrow, who surrendered wit i-
out a ﬁght,

Such was the ﬁrst and grandest of all the Indian
campaigns of General Custer, the greatest Indian-
ﬁgh er of the American army. 1

CHAPTER XIII.
PEACE—VISITORS—THE ENGLISH wanes GRAND BUF-
FALO HUNT.

Tun ﬁnal paciﬂcation of the Indians of the South-
west by the efforts of General Custer occurred in
1869, and raised his mputation as an Indianvtlghter
far above that of any omcer of the arm . A brief
recapitulation of what he had done wi show the
reason for this teenage He was recalled from west
in Sepltreeigber. 1868. fore that time he had only
had t months‘ experien ce on the Plains. In six
months from September 1868 the. is in March
1869 Custer and the Seventh had destroyed one band
of éheyennes, compo the tribe 0 Kiowas to
come into their reservation, persuaded the whole
tribe of the Arapahoes to follow their example, and
finally captured the last of the remai Cheyenncs,
and brought them to peace. No one o e had ever
gone lial so much, except with an army behind
nu. .
Peace now reigned on the lains for several years,
and Custer among the rest an op rtunity of
enjoying the reward of his labors. he Seventh
was scattered among the frontier posts, and Custer
himself, with a few companies, took command at
Fort Hays, where he s 1; some of the halpipiest
years of his life, till '71, when he was 0 ered
away to the States. '

The ﬁrst summer he was overrun with visitors
from the East and Europe, who wanted to see the
famous Custer and e oy a buffalo-hunt. First came
a younghEnglish lo , who had been making the
tour of eworld. He was a great rider, 9. crack
shot, very fond of hunti . .He had shot t' ers in
India, andcameto Amer atoseeif theYrgkshad
anything in the way of game worth kill-mg. This
yon lord came to Newport soon after his arrival,
and a l the riclill’idpeople in society potted him.

The young ies. however—women are contrary
creatures, {on know—didn’t much like the patron-
izing way i: is young lord talked about the plains. It
seems that he once said:

“ It’s nothing tokill a buﬂalo, mydear Miss Blank.
You see, when a fellow’s killed t are and elephants,
all the rest seems yery tame. ou‘ve nothing very
dangerous On the lalns. Buﬂalol why all you have
to do is to ride f enough to catch them, and shoot
straighti You see, thesefellows on the plains brag
a .

hen the beautiful Miss Blank was nettled for
she had a brother on the plains, and she had been
doing akﬁood deal of boosting about the buffaloes
he had led. ' .

So she ﬂeshed out:

“Very much obliged, my lord, for your opinion,
but ﬁerhaps you wouldn‘t say so i you‘d seen a
limos". n, . en,

‘ we ou know that’s all ve w u
know, but—“y ’ w ’0

“And asfor killing one I’ll bet you a dozen r

of gloves you cant kill a buffalo on your rst

bun . .

This battled the young lord in turn, and when Mics
Dash and Miss So-and-so and all the rest joined in to
tease him about the bumalo, he ﬁnally declared that
he’d start for the West, next week, have one hunt,
and bringirbackf ft long: onshblggalo tall, or lose a

02611 O K OVB‘S em .

So down to Fort he cameyby railroad, with a
letter from General S erldan to Custer, and A party
was at once 0 ed.

This hunt was a very splendid one, for there was
a crowd of hunters. Besides the English lord
and 6 friend who traveled with him, there were
Seventh and aedparty of
excursionists from St. Louis who arriv just as
the hunt was startin out. The band of the regi-
ment was alongand re was ulte a train of am-
bulitnces and wagons. besides e horsemen of the
Dar Y- r '

 

They started from the camp of the regiment early
in the d , and marched away about twenu miles
before t ey went into camp themselves. rs
summer post was at Big Creek, about ﬁfteen miles
from Fort Hays, but the soldiers had scared away
all the game long before, so that it was necessary to
get outside of their circle before hopingi to ﬁnd
buﬂ'alo. The huntin party camped by a. ttle run»
n' brook, and the ndian scouts were sent out in
all irections to ﬁnd buffalo signs, while mpper was
being cooked.

About an hour after sunset they returned, with
the news that buffalo were grang or lying down in
several large herds, not two miles from camp.

This encour every one and pistols were
clean riﬂes ooked to, sad .es overhauled that
night. t was arranged that in the morning the
hunteis should start out after breakfast, and then
the night was devoted to sleep. 4 _

The was very large now. The English and
the 0 rs of the Seventy were nearly thirty stron ,
and the St. Louis people had more than a undies,
among whom were some fort ladies. _ one of these
ladi the beautiful Miss .,'of Cincinnati, had
act expressed a determination to ride out with
the hunt, and as she was known to be a splendid
rider there was much curiosity ex resend as to
whether she would kill a buffalo, for s is camedgtwo
revolvers.

At last the dawn began to streak the east, and
long before sunrise the whole cam was alive,
breakfast dispatched and horses sadd ed. Just as-
the sun showed his ’face. the hunters rode Out of
camp, and no sooner had they topped the next swell
than, sure enou h; there was a. and herd of nearly
a thousand b alohdead to w ndward, peacefully
feeding on the prairie grass.

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

In the center was Custer, lilies . next to him, the
two Emglish lords on either Side. It was understood
that they should keep abreast till the herd started,
after which it was to be every one for himself.

hIt we;  work to ihold in tdhghhorseskfoif‘
te ‘ t somanycompanons,an escen o
the 85mm: buffalo blowing down on the fresh
morning meme, excited them greatl . The buffalo
were h , and, as usual, feeding ends up Wind,
so that e line was within a quarter of a mde
before they took the Then arose a great

mbling bellow and the'mass of huge black
started ck at a trot, breaking into a
lumbering

op after a few steps.
Now the of hunters started, full and
went racing away for the herd. Custer, on his-
tbomugléhred, the English lords, and Miss'l‘u were
ahead, ing better mounted than an one else, and
they soon found themselves nearin t e herd. Now
they were close to them in the due v, and the buifalo
be an to scatter. The beasts could not run so fast
as the spring. for the summer es had fatten-
ed them and s lied their win , while the horses
were in splendi cbndition. As the game scattered,
the horsemen dashed into the main herd. and the
crackin of pistols began. The En lish lord was
determined to win his bet, and be due ed in, singled
out his buffalo and ﬁnished him in short order,
with three shots. Little Miss 'r. badshrunk from
the center of the herd. but she was away after a
single buﬂ'alo, closely followed b two orderliea, de~
tailed by Custer to take care 0
Western girl tired away at her buffalo, and
of hard rl in and perseverance brought him to buy
after three etc. Then she m' ht have had a hard
311118, but for the orderlies who ashed in, ﬁring and

‘stracting the buﬂalo’s attention, so that presently
he stopped, the blood ﬂowing from his mouth, tot-
tered, and sunk down dead. You may fancy how
delighted was Miss 'l‘., but she was far from satisﬁed.
No sooner hedone of the orderlies cut off the tail of
the bull to ‘ve to her as a trophy, than she

needs be '0 again after another buffalo, that was
comin in her direction. Wonderful to relate, she
ended killing this fellow, too, but not till she
empti the twelve barrels of her revolvers, an

been chased round and round by the buffalo.
Luckily she was so light, and her home sedgood, that
the brute never got near her, and the o erlles '
no excuse for interferln
the tail of the second bu alo. .
In the mean time, the rest of thepartybad not
been idle. There gals enough 1:80:35 1;}? énbalkuedone
imaginearegular ewasgo on, n cos
and hunters alike were scattered all over the
Prairie in a cloud of dust, is very few minutes’ gal-
optaking them miles away. At last they began
to return, slowly, with tired box-seal every man
talking at the top of his voice. and asti’ ng of
their succeﬁhi they had killed an . We
have said u ingof Custer. but he made a.
splendid score for all that. He was now an old,

ed tour

,snee attbe rles.
- a. no Slime l. ‘i’tt‘mm

t
me as viciouslyu a We
cl . It‘sro sport." I
twas thee est ord’s opinion, and his that!
ﬁrm it. He narrowly escaped death
born grazed ﬁrms
his saddled on, and math
feet of hm‘ghm'er “8 Sea
e .
That day's dinner was a jolly one.‘ Eighty-two
buffalo been killed, and the wagons were all
loadedwirli meatto some tuneup. Thecham-

ber. The 
y .

tiilitwastimetocutj V “

  

12

 

e ﬂowed, and Miss T.‘s health was drank again

again, as the Diana of the Prairies. Next day
the hunters and excursionists went back to Fort
Ba 5, and the party broke up;

s hunt was but one of many such pleasant ex-
cursions, which made the summers of 1809 and 1870
the most delightful of Custer‘s life. His little wife
was with him, and his sister Map: e, now ust grown
up to be a youn lady; the o cers of is battal-
ion were devote to him, and made with their
families a pleasant circle of society. in the winter,
when visitors came no more, the regiment was can-
toued at Fort Hays, the men in comfortable bor-
racks, the horses in open stables, the ofﬁcers in cot-
tages. Then they used to get up private theatricals,
the omcers and ladies taking part, the audience
being composed of the soldiers and civilians em-
ployed at the post nearlya thousand people in all.
As the show was rce, you may be sure that the
theater was full every evening, and that the actors
had plenty of applause.

So passed awa the time, pleasant and peaceful,
till the summer 0 1871, when Custer received orders
to proceed to Louisville, Kentucky, while the whole
of the Seventh Cavalry was taken from the plains,
and divided, 8. company here and a company there,
throughout the Son hem States.

Custer, with only two companies. was stationed
at Elizabethtown, a small lace about fort miles
from Louisville, and there 0 remained, wl h little
or nothing to do, till 1873.

His brother, Tom Custer, who was now a captain
in the Seventh, was ordered to South Carolina. but
his sister Maggie was married to Lieutenant Cal-
houn just about this time, and as Calhoun was
appointed post-ad utant to Custer the were
naturally retty cose together, so that t e little
family circ e was not broken up entirely

To occupy his leisure, about this ime, Custer
began to write sketches of his life on the plains,
and even commenced a memoir of his services
during the war, but these latter were never ﬁnished,
and he on] wrote at intervals and by fits and starts,
to occupy 's mind and cure his uneasy restlessness.
Custer was a culiar man in this respect that he.
always wants to be up and doing womething, and
never could long enjoy leisure. The two years he
passed in Kentuc  were uneasy and restless years,
and he was very a
was summoned
beloved plains.

This time, however, it was not for Indian service,
but only for another grand buffalo-hunt, 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 poo 1e. Not ver long before the Em-
peror 0 Russia ad liberatct all the serfs of his
empire, a 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 soid‘us the whole of Alaska for a 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

gen.

And Alexis wanted to see a buffalo-hunt. so Gen-
and Sheridan thought he would send for Custer to
show him one.

He could not have sent for a better man.

CHAPTER .XIV.

 

TOUR OFT)!!! STATEPBACK TO THE PLAINSVFIGET ,

WIT ii SITTING BULL.

when Sheridan telegraphed Custer to come to Fort
Riley. The young rince had been in New York a
few weeks oet'ore, t once to Niagara Falls, then all
the way to San Francisco on the Paciﬁc Railroad.
which was now 0 en from end to end. The run-
ning of that road ad cleared the plains of the In-
dians, and there was no more do. er in those places
where Custer had followed after t e Cheyennes only
three years before. Buffalo were much scarecr,
however, which was a disadvantage for sport, as
muchasthe absence of Indians was an advantage
for safety. '

Custer gotinto thetrain and was whirled awn to
the West, urrivingin due time at Fort Riley, w tore
the Grand Duke ad already made his a pearance.
The famous scout, Cody, was also there— uffalo Bill
himself in person—and a splendid hunting-party was
a dily 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
gains, markinﬁldown herds of buffalo and driving

em_toward e fort, so as to make game seem
Eganth it was all very well for common folks to
one was de-

ve trouble in ﬁnding game, but ever ,
remained that the Gran Duke should nd pie'nty.
The appointed morning came. and Alexis rode out
with Cutler to the huntinﬁ-grounds. The Grand
Duke was and is a splendid- ooldng fellow, six feet
aft), broad and stron . with a. gleaSant face. always
endéy; He wore a ticket an trowsexs of stro
gray th, high boots and a fur cap, and carric
one handsome revolver. His horse was of course a
splendid animal the best money could b or hire;
ter wow his well-known frontier recs, with
its fringed cape and sleeves, while his ion curls
ﬂared down over his shoulders. e carried 6 new
ld carbin just then introduced in the
army and his piece been altered into a sporting
riﬂe “gummlth, making it a very handsome
ream immigrate “wring
a oroug re , no on
thought but if all the America

n nerals w re like
«luster. they were a 86 e

dsome Set. of fellows.

As they got near the hunting-ground down came

The Dashing Dragoon.

Buffalo Bill ,full speed, to meet them. Cody was
splendidly (ressed in' the same ga 'ly-omumented
buckskin suit that c afterward use in the “Scouts
of the Prairie," on the stage. Of course it was not
his working~dress, but Alexis never knew the diﬂ'er-
ence, and he was delighted with these handsome
costumes all round him. Then the Indian scouts.
who had been driving buffalo, came up in new blan-
kets, and all gay wit feathers. They reported buf—
falo over the next hill. _

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

The Grand Duke turned out to be :3. 00d rider and
shot, and killed his buffalo like a goo fellow. Cus-
. ter shot two. and Buffalo Bill, with his peculiar
l knack, finished five in as many shots. Lon prac-
tice had shown him just where to aim to kil every

ime. -

The Grand Duke spent several days buﬂalo~hunt-
ing and accumulated quite a little store of trophies,
an be was so much delighted with Custer‘s frank
courtesy of manner, that when the hunt was over he
invited the general to come with him on the rest of
his trip through the United States, ﬁrst oin back
with him to Louisville, where they met - rs. ister,
whose quiet, ladylike demeanor pleased the rince
as well as the gallant look of the general. ‘uster
received permission from bead-quarters to accept
the invitation, and Mrs. Custer joined the art ',
which made quite an extended tour of all the ‘ ut -
ern States, ending at New Orleans, where a Russian
fri ate waited for Alexis.

0 there was our poor farmer's boy, the son of the

1 Village blacksmith at New Rumley, traveling about
3 the United States on terms of equality with the heir
l of the greatest empire in the world, his little wife
i holdino her own among the prince and nobles, as if
it was a sight pecu-

 

‘lshe ha( been born to a throne.
liar to America, and hardly possible anywhere else.

The Alexis trip over. Custer returned to Louisville
and wore through thc'next year of idleness as Well as
he could. In tho earl spring of 1873, to his great

' zoy, the Seventh Cnva ry was once more ordered to

he plains, and himself with it.
The occasion was this: it had been determined,
since the Paciﬁc Railroad had succeeded so well,

, having paciﬁed all the Indians to its south. that an-
din the middle of 1872 when he ;
y telegraph once more to his ‘

other road, throth the more northerly territories.
should be run. This determination proved, in the

3 end, very disastrous, inasmuch as the new line ran
' through the lill‘l‘iiOI'leH of the Sioux, and the Sioux

were the only Indians that had so far almost always
had the best of the government in bottle.

However, it was settled that the road should be
surve cd. 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 sui'vcyor‘s party.

Custer concentrated his regiment at Memphis, the
companies coming in from all round the States
where they had been scattered, all very glad to get
there. The took boat up the Mississipplund Mis-
souri to St. aul where they landed, marching then
overland up the Missouri tothe villa of Bismark,
in anotah. Op osite to Bismark, w ere the North-
ern Pacific road t on terminated, was Fort Abraham
Lincoln where the cxpedifion was to concentrate in
May. twas now the beginning of A ril, but the
winter was not yet over in those high alitudes, for
the column was overtaken at Ynnktou A one ' by a
tremendous snow-storm, which nearly roze them
all and left a yard of snow on the round. Several

when
she was allowed. and these ladies had a bar time in
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 mound.

Here, to their great disa pointment, the ladies
found that all their ride h been in vain, for the
baggage was ordered back, and the regiment re—
ce ved directions for speedly service in the field with
the Stanley Expedition tot e Yellowstone River.

The ladies, very reluctantly, had to take the. cars
at Bismark. and Mrs. Custer returned to Monroe.
Custer and the Seventh soon started with the Stan-
ley column. Here a strange meeting occurred be-
tween Custer and an old friend and enemy of his,
General Rosser. late of the Southern army. fter
the surrender of Lee, poor Rosser, like many an-
other bravo fellow who fought on the losi side in
the Civil War, found himself cut adrift Wit no way
to make a living exec t by beginning life afresh.
Having been through est Point in the same class
with Custer 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 up to be
chief engineer. Now, therefore, it. hapﬁcned that he
and Custer, who had not met each 0t er since the
surrender at Appomattox, came together two thou-
sand miles away, and eight years later, as friends
and comrades. '

As on can fan , they had many a pleasant talk
over heir old batt es. cxpiainin movements to each
other. Those eight years. and is own success had
taken away all the bitterness of past defeats from
Rosser and he and Custer became very close friends
over after.

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

up; smooth till they came to the line of the Lit-
tle Missouri, beyond which the “bad lauds" com-
menced. These bad lands are horrible places scam~
ed with broad deep ﬁssures, almost impassable for

 

wagons, and frequently delayed them so that the

la ies were with the column incluc lug Mus. Custom.
. I who always marched at the head of the troo
Tm: Grand Duke Alexis was on his way out West ‘

 

 

train would only make five miles a day. The dis-
tance from the Little Missouri to the ellowstone
was less than two hundred miles. but the wa s
were so difficult that it was not till July that t e
great river was reached. Then Custer Eroposed to
General Stanley that he, Custer, shoul go ahead
every day with two or three companies of cavalry,
pick out a good road, and leave a broad trail for
he wagons to follow. General Stanley was only too
lad to assent to this arrangement, which soon
rou ht Custer into quite a handsome light,

In be early party of the ourney no Indians had
been seen, and even on the ellowstone 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 by no loss a person
than the now celebrated chief, Sitting Bull.

Sitting Bull was the most daring, obstinate and
implacable of all the Indians of the North-west.
When the whole Sioux nation made once with the
whites, when Red Cloud and Spottc Tail, willi all
their braves, had come in and settled on the agen-
cies, Sitting Bull alone held out. With a little band
sometimes of less than a hundred warriors, be H"
maincd out in the deserts round the Yellowsn ne.
proud of his independence, and secure, as he
thought, from the power of the government. As
long as the Yellowstone country was not wanted.
Sitting Bull was left alone in his glory, but the com-
ing of the Slanle column showed him that he must
ﬂghtiffe ho e to drive out the whites. All the
summe , whi e Stanley’s great train of we ons was
slowly creeping alongthe plains, Indians or] been
seen passing to and fro between Sitting Bull‘s little
band and the different tribes on the agencies of thr
Missouri river. Here the Indians usin to gel. gun:
and cartridges, ostensibly to hunt while they slip.

eclllofl’, one or two at a time, really to join Sitting,

u .

Therefore, there was very little to wonder at
when Custer. one line morning. while reposing his
little squadron of about ninety men. some ten miles
ahead of the main column, was suddenly attacked
by Sitting Bull, with at least three hundred warriors.
who drove the soldiers to the bank of the river, and
besieged them there for several hours.

They could not blidge Custer and the Seventh,
however.

As usual, the soldiers fought on foot, sending their
horses into shelter, and, unusual, the Indians wasted
their time “circling.” throwing away ammunilion,
when their ﬁrst charge had been repulse.

How long Custer might have held out, as he was
situated, is uncertain, but the timely arrival of two
s undrons of the Seventh exfricaled him from his
di emmn. The wn these came to be sent up was in
consequence of Int inn carelessness.

It seemed that, beside the main [party attacking
Cus er, there were small hands of Indians roaming
about. one of them led by a smooth-faced, smiling
dare-devil of a Sioux, named Ruin-in-tbe-Face. This
scamp happened to come on two peaceable quiet
old men, who belonged to “the main column, but
who had fallen into the habit of roaming away to
collect curiosities, of which the Yellowstone country
is full. Rain-in-tbe-Face came on these two old
men, Dr. Houzinger and Mr. Baleran, and killed
them both, leaving their bodies so that the advance
of the column found them. 'He also killed a stray
gler of the Seventh, named Ball, at a spring.

The finding of these bodies of course made General
Stanley very anxious about Custer's detachment,
and lie at once sent off the rest of the Seventh to
hcl their leader. The new force had not arrived
wit ill] three miles when the we Indians led it.
and began to draw oﬂ'. Custer, w th the quic deci-
sion natural to him, divined the presence of his
Months. and determined to give his enemies a les-

son.

Not waiting for the reinforcement be mounted his
men, charged Sitting Bull, and drove him heifer-
i-kelter for nearly ten miles before he stopped, then
came slowly back to camp, with the loss of only two
men wounded.

This was his first Indian-fight since 1869, and ended
in ntriumpli won against tremendous odds. only
a few days afterward down came Sitting Bull Rfflllli,
this time on the main expedition. with a much
larger force. It was computed at the time that
there were at least ﬁfteen hundred Indians in sight,
so many allies had joined Sitting Bull.

This time however, the chief did not get off so
easily. He ad nor calculated on the presence (f a
battery of small riﬂe-cannon which was in the train,
carefully hidden. ‘

Custer was given the main management of this
ﬁght, and encouraged the Indians to come on by
throwing out a small force at first. No sooner “To
the Indians fairly in sight, clustered in crowds out
of carbine-shot than the smile? itched a fvw
shells into them. and sent them y ng, compleﬁ‘ly
demoralized.

After that the expedition had no more trouble
from Sittin Bull, except small annoyances. At
the and of t 6 summer it broke up, having returned
to Fort Lincoln.

Custer was ordered to take post till further direc-
tions at Fort Rice, Dakota, twenty miles in Lin-
coin.

 

CHAPTER XV.
rim max HILLS EXPEDITIONWE or nus-m-

TEE-FACE.
Tim close of the Yellowstone tion left Custer

'in a quiet. pleasant post. and one led him to en ioy

a leave of absence. which he spent. with his litth-
wife, in a trip to the East. Every fall. or nearly so.
Custcr used to receive these leaves, and they created
a. good deal of {gammy among other ofﬁcers, who
grumbled at Cus r for being a “ pet" of the Gov—

 

 

crnment. The real reason he received them was
that he did his work so well that the G0vernment
thought he deserved extra favor when the work was
over.

The leave over, he returned to Fort Rice for the
long, dreary winter of Dakota, and, as usual, man-
aged to enjoy himself in spite of evcrg‘discomfort.
In the spring of 1874.he was ordered to ort Lincoln,
and very soon after the famous Black Hills Expedi-
tion was organized and put under his command.

It was this expedition thatbrought Custer most,
prominently before the people in his later years. The
whole of the circumstances surrounding it were so
romantic that the whole United States was interested
in it. In the first place, the Black Hills was a pecu-
liar region, peculiar in this, that it was the only part
of the‘ United States territory that had never been
thoroughly explored by white men.

The Indians considered it with superstitious awe,
as a country surrounded with enchantment. No
white man, with the exception of one or two hunters,
had ever been through it, and it was generall be-
lieved that even those hunters who claimed to ave
been there were inventing stories. Two United
States officers, Captain Reynolds and Lieutenant
Warren, both afterward major-generals of volun-
teers, had taken parties around it in 1855 and 1859.
Cd )tain Reynolds went up the Yellowstone by boat,
on Lieutenant Warren’s party went by land from
Fort Laramie. but neither succeeded in ex loring
the Black Hills. Reynolds did not tr , and arren
was stopped by the Sioux and compe led to return.
In 1874, as in 1859, there stood the Black Hills, as
they are marked on the mag). a little cluster of hills,
rising in the midst of the arren lains of the Ycl-
lowstone, silent, mysterious, clot ed from base to
summit with dark pine forests, ﬁtly named.

What was in those dark recesses no one knew,
They covered a space about as large as the State of
Connecticut, within a hundred miles of Fort Lara-
mie, yet totally unknown. I .

The overland route to California ran near them,
but no venturesome traveler had ever penetrated
iheir recesses. _ ,

The Indians at the agencies. quostioned about the
Black Hills, could or would tell nothing about them,
except that they were medicine—that is, enchanted.

At last, one day, two Indians out on a spree, and
pretty drunk, came into a. fort and exhibited some
goid~dust, which the wanted to exchange for
whisky. Of course this set the traders to question.
ing them, and by dint of plying them with liquor,
they managed to extract from them that the gold
came from the Black Hills. Then of course the ex-
citement began, and every frontiersman was anxious
io go to the Black Hills. But every frontiersmun
also knew that his chances of 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 old.

To add 0 the difﬁculties surrounding the Black
Hills was the fact that the Government, by solemn
treat ' with the Indians, in 1858, had Dl‘l)ll‘llS‘ld never
ta ta c the hills away from the Indians, nor to allow
settlers to go there. In the same treaty, however,
there was a sti iilation that the Government itself
might, if it wis icd, send exploring parties through
ihe country. No sooner did the gold story spread
than the Government ordered an ex edition to start
from Fort Laramie, consisting of t e whole of the
Seventh Cavalry, two companies of infantry, a bat-
tery of Gatling guns, a train of six hundred wagons,
and a number of Indian scouts. This expedition,
nearly as strong as the Stanley column of 1873, was
put under the command of Custer alone, and, as
nsun where he was uncontrolled by others, it was
comp etely successful

Custer started from the fort in June, and marched
to the Black Hills, which he reached in July, enter-
ing from the north, and passing right throu h the
heart of the mysterious country. e foun it all
andm c than had been reported b the hunters in
old times. The ﬁrst valley where 16: halted was a
perfect garden of wild ﬂowers, so brilliant and vari-
ous that the ofﬁcers at breakfast were able to gather
no less than Sew-meat different kinds_ of blossom
without rising from their seats, but Just reaching
down round the table. The botanist of the column
counted over two hundred different spccies in the
first morning and the soldiers, as they rode along,
gathered arlands for their horseshheads, hardl’
stoopin mm the saddle. By unanimous consent
they ca ed this‘placc Floral Valley. ‘

Then, as they advanced through the hills. they
came on forests of oak, beech, maple and ash, heav
pine wood, open patches of rich prairie, ever ' vari-
any of farming land. The hills were full of brooks,
some With sweet water, some with a strong alkaline
ﬂavor. . In the beds of these rivulets there were
strong inihcations of gold, and at ever halt some of
their people washed out several dol rs’ worth of
dust. For a long time no human beings were met
but game was so plentiful and tame that it seemed
a shame to shoot it. . I

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,
dozen warriors, was foun , but no one else came
near them. It seemed, asthe reports had said that
the Indians had a superstition as to the Black Hills,
which kept them out of it. The probable reasoﬂ
was their fear that if the lpresence of gold was once
thoroughly known, the W

 

":3 men would pour in;
andso it subse uently prove .

When Cuswg’s expedition returned and the gen-
eral's re ort was published, the Black Hills gold
fever so? in at once. There was a tremendous ex-
citement. Miners began to rush in before the winter
began. and some forty or fifty started a little fort
all by ihcmsclvcs, which they named (‘usier City.

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

They found plenty of gold and a mild winter, but
out in the States a perfect storm was raging about
Custer‘s report. One professor began to write lct~
Leis to the papers, declarin that Custer was a
fraud, that there was no gold in the hills, that it was
a shame to let men go there, and so on. All the
same, miners. continued to ﬂock in, and the facts,
every day being developed, conﬁrmed Custer and
made out the learned professor to be an ignoramus.
Custer had said there was gold, and old there was,
first a little, then a ood deal. Final y a second ex-
pedition, under an o d hard-headed infantry ofﬁcer,
called Colonel Dodge, was sent out in the spring of
1875, to see whether Custer‘s report was so much
exaggerated as the professor said. The result of this
expei ition completely vindicated Custert _ Even
hard-headed old Dodge, with overly dis )Oslthll to
find fault, had to own up that the B ack Iilis was a
lovely country, and the, presence of gold was made
certain by a great rush of miners, who established a
second city and then a third.

Then the Government began to interfere to stop
minin , and General Crook was sent with a strong
force 0 take the miners away. He found that the
miners were twice as numerous as his soldiers and
better armed, but by dint of ersuasion he induced
them to leave. No sooner hm be escorted them to
the settlements, however, than they slip ed off
again, and took twice as many more with t em, so
that Crook was obliged to give it u as a bad Job.
One of the most troublesome o the whole lot
proved to be Old California Joe, who turned up
quite unexpectedly. He used to travel off With the
soldiers, when they found him in the hills, quite
peaceably, till they got to the settlements, and then
just as coolly bid them good-by. When next they
heard of him, it was back in the hills, playing seven-
up with the miners.

All this summer, however, Custer was idle. up] at
Fort Lincoln. The only event that occurred to i
was the ca ture of Rain-in-the—Face, the Indian who
had killed r. Houzin er and Mr. Baleran, two years
before. All that had een known of them was that
their bodies had been found, but who did it, except
Indians in general, no one knew. That summer,
however, one of Custer’s white scouts, down at
Standin Rock Agency, heard a diunken Indian
called 1 ain-in-the Face bragging, at a great war-
dance, how he had killed two white men.

RainAin-the-Face never dreamed that Charley
Reynolds understood his language. The Indians are
very fond of these dances, whenever there is an is-
sue of supplies at the agencies, and they will stay up
all iii ht, dancing and howling, telling about the
men t ey have killed and what very great warriors
they are. They are excellent pantomiinists, and not
their stories Wl!h great spirit. Rain~in~the»Face was
so proud of his two white men that lie sung his
song over and over again till the scout was cer—
tain from the description that it was these two old
men he had killed. Then he rode to Fort Lincoln
and told Custer.

Custer at once sent a squadron of cavalry, under
Captain Yates and Ca lain 'l‘om Custer, who suc-
ceeded, after some tron la, in capturing Rain-in-thc-
Face. It was a very risky thing to do, for the sol-
diers were only sixty strong, and there were at least
six hundred armed Indians at the agency, but they
caught the murderer unawares, and then promised
the Indians, who gathered menacingly romid, that
if they stirred a ﬂu rer to rescue him he should be
shot at once. It was om Custer who arrested Rain-
in-theface, and the two officers ﬁnally succeeded in
getting him on? from the agcnc ‘ into the fort.

Then Rain-in‘the-Face was ept 'in the guard-
house for several months, Custer trying his best to
make him confess to the murder. This, however,
was useless. Never was there a uieter and sweeter
faced Indian than Rain. He loo ed as if he would
not harm a ﬂy. He protested that he knew nothng
about the murder, loved the white men and all the
rest but Custer cornered him at last. ltvcry day he
use to have him alone in his room and question the
scamp, till at last he extortcd a confession from
him, which Rain directly afterward denied. His
friends and relatives came to visit him and beg for
his life, but Custer held on to him and was deterv
mined to send him to the States to be tried.

While he was in the guard-house, Rain<iii~thc-Face
had his picture taken and a quiet, smooth-looking
fellow he is, very much like a woman, with a sweet
smile, but a strange, treacherous look in his eyes.

After all, however, it was not destined that Custer
should send Rain-in~the—Face to his trial. After the
Indian had been some months in the guard-house,
he made his escape by cutting a hole in the rear, one
stormy night, out went off to the hostiles under Sit-
ting Bull, in safety. From thence he sent Custer an
insolent message, the next summer to say that he
had sworn to kill him and especial y he sent word
to Tom Custer that he would cut his heart out,
%nd be revenged for that time he was arrested by

om.

The brothers laughed at the threat. They had
heard such things before. They little dreamed that
the day was coming, less than a. year from that time,
when Rain-in-the- Face would keep his oath.

The summer of 1875 went on, and the Winter came.
As usual Custer got his leave to visit New York, and
this time he stayed several months, havmg received
several extensions. In the mean time, howeyer, the
entrance of the miners to the Black Hills had
created great trouble in the North-west, and news
came in rom all quarters that 1876 would probably
seen tremendous Indian war, for the who e Sioux
nation was preparing to go on the war-path.

It was therefore determined by General Sheridan,
as he had determined in 1868, to attack the Indians,
If smble, before they got ready to attack him,

an to start all the men available after Sitting Bull,

 

13

as soon as the weather got clear enough to move
troops.

Accordingly orders were issued that three columns
should start after Sitting Bull, who was known to be
somewhere 'in the country to the south of 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 Ellis, Montana, at the sources of.
3 the Yellowstone, and to move east.

A second was
to start from Fort Laramie, under General ironk,
about 1,500 strong, to move north to the same point.
The last came from Fort Lincoln, and was denomi-
nated the “ Custer Column,” having the Seventh
Cavalry, some infantry, and a battery of Gatling
guns under Custer himself.

CHAPTER XVI.

DELAYS—THE BELXNAP TRUE—(70503121! SUI’ERSEDED—
CROOK SURPRISED BY Sm’lNG BULL.

Tun project for conquering Sitting Bull looked
rer nice on paper, and appeared, to many people.
ce ain of success. It was supposed that the Sioux
chief had, at the utmost, about eight hundred war:
riors, and the different columns were to aggregate.
about two thousand eight hundred men, a coming
at him at the same time. General Gibbon’s force
was quite small, and all cavalry, about four hun-
dred men: Crook had twelve hundred, and the Cus-
ter column was to be the same stren h.

It was late in March before the sol iers were able
to move, and then, at last, Crook started from Fort
Laramie. This post was so far south of Fort Lin»
colii that the snow had melted, and every one-
thought 5 ring had come when the column had
started. hey were undeceived before three days
had passed, by the coming of a tremendous snow-
storm, followed by the thermometer lageing below
zero, a way it has in the North-west. very expedi—
tion that starts before. May in those latitudes has the
some experience, and almost the same storm to en-
counter.

Custer and Gibbon, being further north, were still
shut in by the deep snow, and unable to move; and
Crook had the ﬁrst cam wish all to himself. Just
as Custer had done at t e Washita, seven years be—
fore, 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 Custer.

This village was that of a great friend and ally of
Sitting-Bull, aSioux chief called Crazy Horse. He
had about ahundred and ﬁfty lodges, or some six
hundred warriors. These were struck by General
Re holds, who commanded Crook‘s cavalry, and the
vil age was taken and burned, While the herd of
ponies was on tured. Owing, however, to the lazi—
iiess or misbe avior of some of the commanders of
the detachments surrounding the viii e the Indian
warriors got off with very small loss, ‘iiled several
soldiers, recaptured their ponies and left General
Reynolds with the barren honor 0 an em ty victory
which 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 a strange train
of circumstances set in, which ended disastrously
for the nation. It so happened that the then Secre—
tary of War, Mr. Belkna , wnsbcing tried in Wash-
ington for bribery in se ing a posi-ti‘adi-rship, and
some meddling eople took it into their heads that
General Custer ew something about the matter.
Accordingly, he was summoned post~liiiste to Wash-
ington, by a subpoena to testify before a committee
of Congress. The rea fact was that he knew noth—
ing of importance on the subject, and tried hard to
be excused from going. .He telegra bed to the com»
mittee, telling: them how he was etailed to com-
mand an expedition in the ﬁeld, and begging to be
examined at 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
nearly 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. Belknap‘s side in the trial. '

When, at last, Custer was let off, he started at
once for the West, to get back to his station, and
was stopped at Chicago by a ielegi-iim from General
Sherman, who. by order of the President, directed
General Sheridan to detain Custer and send off the
ex edition without him.

'3 of couise was a terrible blow for Custer. A
great many men in his position would have left the
army, disgusted with such treatment, publicly hu-
miliated without proper cause. Custer, however,
was remarkably patient of injury and quite deter-
mined to live down the slight. He‘felt convinced
that the President misunderstood him, and would
do him ‘ustice 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 e whole column. -

Custer was quite content to do as he was ordered.
General Terry was a very fine ofﬁcer, and a. gener-
ous-hearted man, and be trusted Custer implicitly.
He himself had won all his ex ei'ience in t e civil
war never having been in the eld nst Indians,
and e was quite content to take Cus r‘s advice in
all matters connected with the expedition.

So, at last, in the middle of May, 1876 the Terry
Column, that should have been the Custer Column,
started from fort Lincoln on the same route. taken
by the Yellowstone ex dition of 1873, and marched
in search of Sitting Bull.

We will not detain ourselves over the incidents
of the early part of this march. It was begun toc

 

   

1
v

   
  
 
 
   

' $3!th Bull, Si

The Dashing Dragoon.

 

late in the year to surprise the Indians, and Sitting
Bull was gathering in fres forces every day.

It will e remembered but his supxgclied haunt
was somewhere to the south ’of the ellowstone
River, betwoen the Big Horn and Powder Rivers. If
the reader will take a map and look at the count ,
he will ﬁnd that the Missouri River describes near y
a quarter-circle all round this re ion, at a distance
of some three hundred miles. t is rather impor-
tant to remember this fact, for the reason that all
along the Missouri exists a line of la 6 Indian
8 encies, each averaging about ﬁve hun red war-

ors, fed, clothed, and armed by the government,
and that, all through the summer of 1876, the Iii-
dians from these agencies were oing off across the
plains to join Sitting Bull at tie same time that
Crook, Gibbon and Terri}; were hunting for him.

The Indians went on orseback, in small squads,

with two or three ponies a lace, 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 s ring-grass,
While they traveled thirty miles a day. 0 wonder
they outstripped a slow column of soldiers, with
their hundreds of wagons; who could move no fast-
er than the slowest team. .

The result was that when the scouts of Terry and
Gibbon at last met, on J unc 1st, 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-
lay of the Big Horn, no one cxactl knew where,
and la midway between Terry and ‘rook, who was
now is owl advancing from the scuth.

Now at ast the campaign commenced in earnest.
The two army columns were about two hundred
and fifty miles apart, and the country between
them was very litt e known. Captain Reynolds, in
1856 had been up some of the streams, but outside
of these the maps were uite loose and full of con-
jecture. So Crook and crry began to feel for Sit—
ting Bull by scouting over the countr .

Crook had quite a large force, an be was soon
joined b a number of Indians from the Snake and
Grow t es, when he slowly advanced north toward
the Yellowstone, encamping at. the head-waters of
the Ton 6 River about June 15th. The country of
Sitting ull was found to be traversed b the follow-
ing rivers, all running north with tho cllowstonc,
counting from west to cast—the Big Horn, Rosebud,
Tongue, and Powder. .

These streams had others runnin into them,
called the Little Horn. Little Rosebu , Little Pow-
der. The Snake scouts soon bmugnt Crook word
that a big Indian village was pitched in the valle of
the Litt e Rosebud. and Crook started to find] it,
Junc~llitln Now, for the first time, he began to
march in earnest, assing over fort miles, and ar-
riving within abou eight miles of Sitting Bull’s vil-
lage atnight. Had he on! been active enou h to
have marched on all nig t, as Custer did a the
Washita, there is little doubt but Crook might have
siri‘iﬁrised Sitting Bull. As it, was, he allowed his
S es and Grows to go on a. spree that night, and
put his men into camp. ‘

Next morningnt daybreak, instead of surprising

ting Bull su rlsud him, by a. urlous
att th nearly three t ousand warriors, who
charged again and a sin, drove back one of his
wings, and were only riven off at last b the infan-
try. Crook losta good many men an was again
so much crippled at he had to fall back to the
Tongue river and send for reinforcements.

In the mean time, Terry and Gibbon, far away to
the north, knew nothing of all this. The were
huntii about for a tra that would lead t em to
Sitting ull. Small parties of Indians had been an-
noying Gibbon before he met Tengkebut since their
1 on all these fellows had vani d.

It bet-ems necessary to send out a scouting; party.
Terry could not 9 are Custer for this n y; be
needed him too mac at headquarters. It was de-
tax-mine:i therefore, to send out Major Reno, the
next se or oﬁlcer of the Seventh, with six com-
ganies of that regiment, to ride up thoI’owder River

Little Powder, thence round the Tongue or Rose-
bud, and back to cam at the mouth of the Tongue.
it was thought proba is that he might come on a
trail somew ere. Reno reached the Little Powder
in five days, without seeing a. sign of Indians, but as
he reached the To 0 on his way back, he came
across a large, bro lodgf—pole trail leading south-
ward toward the Rose ad, and his scouts pro-
nounced it not much over a week old.

Reno was a. cautious officer, too cautious to follow
such a large trail with only six companies any fur-
ther than to make sure that it did not scatter. As
soon as he had satisﬁed himself on this
made for headquarters, which he reache
evening of the 21st June. There, of course his
now! produced considerable excitement, and Terry
resolved to strike for the Indians at once. -

It must be remembered that every one there was

erfcctl norant of Crook‘s repulse, three days bo-

ore. e test news they had was about the Crazy

Horse fight, where there were less than six hundred
lndians, and all Terry feared was that the new trail
might be that of a. wandering band, which would es-
cape if not followed promptly. Together with Gib-
bon‘s force, the combined. column now numbered
sixteen hundred men, with about twelve hundred
cavalry and a huge train. Terry at once deter-
mined to send mister of: on the hunt with the
Seveagh Cavalry. by the direct trail, while Gibbon
was move up the Yellowstone by the Big Horn
valley, and Te himself would follow Custer with
thelufantry an train. ,

Custer was ordered to follow the trail and use his
own discretion as to what he should do, as Terry, in

oint, he
on the

_ his written lush-actions, said that he had “ too much

 

Conﬁdence in your zeal, energy and ability to wish
to impose upon you precise orders, which mi ht
hamper your action when nearly in contact With
the enemy." This was a 5 ion id compliment to
Custer, nearly as proud as he one he received in
1868, when Sherman and Sheridan asked for him to
end the Indian war. General Terry recommended
him, however, to make a wide detour, and send
through scouts to Gibbon’s column, so as to prevent
the Indians from slip ing out between the two. 'His
whole idea. in the 01 ers seems to have been that
the Indians might slip off.

On the afternoon 0 the 22d June, 1875, a date that
will be remembered for manyu. long year, the Sev-
enth Cavalry, nearly eight hundred men strong,
saddled u , broke cam ) and moved out to pass in
review be ore General crry, one they set out on
that memorable march. Men and horses alike look-
ed splendid, and all felt confident of success. They
were so used to victory that they believed them-
selves to be invincible.

There rode Custer at the head, in his jaunty buck-
skin suit, with a broad, shadowing gra but set on
his short wavy hair. He had shorn longcurls
in 1871, w lie in Kentucky, and dressed, when in the
States, as quietly as any one.

Then there was Adjutant Cooke, the beauty of the
regiment, over six feet high, weighing two hundred,
with a straight Greek face, and the most magniﬁcent
black board you ever saw. All the girls‘were in love
with gallant Cooke, the “Queen‘s Oun," as they
called iiin. '

There was Tom Custer, the genci‘al‘s double. a lit~
tle younﬁster, just as nervous, active and handsome,
one of t e smartest cavalry officers in the service.
Calhoun, just as big as Cooke, and even handsomcr
in his acculiar style, with a soft delicate face of the
some reek type, fair hair and dark eyes. Calhoun
u‘as Custcr‘s rother-in-law. Then there was Magel-
Reno, rather stoutish, with a face something lke
that of Napoleon, but spoiled by a. little mustache.
There was Ca tain Fred. Benteen, with a clean—
sliaven young- coking face, bold and hearty, while
his hair was vor curly and nearly snowvwhite.
These were the pr iicipal ofﬁcers who figured in the
fight that followed, though there were others whose
names will come in later. ,

To judge how the regiment felt about the coming
ﬁght, a word or two will sufﬁce. A lady: once asked
one of the officers of the Seventh if he ad any idea
of how many Indians it would take to whip the Sev-
enth Cavalry all together. He hesitated, oudered
and finally said that he did not believe t e coult
get to at or enough Indians on the whole p aims to
whip e Seventh. And he believed it, as did all.
They had never seen, for at least ten years, more
than two thousand Indians together, and they had
whipped the Indians one to four many a time.

So they rode off on the trail of the Indian band to
find Sitting Bull, as if they were going to a wedding.

CHAPTER XVII.
run ENEMY rounn—cosrnn's LAST nA'rrLE.

Oil the 22d of June, 1876, iii the afternoon, the
Seventh Cavalry left camp at the mouth of the Ross
bud river, where it em ties into the Yellowstone,
and marched up the sebud twelve mile goin
into camp at sunset. It was Custer‘s, and. a 1 oo
cavalry generals’ practice, when beginning a. on
and severe march, to make a short journey the firs
day. Mon and horses, first starting from acamp
where they have long tarried, always need a little
seasoning, and air, apt to become too weary if
marched hard the first day. '

Next day, refreshed b their rest, with muscles

ot into good traininglby heir first day‘s experience,
gbey r sed on muc more rapidly, followln the
bros.th ge—pole trail that told how large a Village
had preceded them. The passed several Indian
cum 8 where the trail lverged, or where other
bun s ad formerly encamitoed but saw no Indians.

When they had made thii' y-tliree miles they a aiu
went into camp. This was the28d of une. ext
day, the 24th, the trail was much fresher, and the
camps more recent. The column made twenty-eight
miles that day, and went into camp at sunset, when
the scouts were sent out in all directions to hunt for
sign. The moon was only four do '5 old, and the
scouts had but a short time to wor '. At half-past
nine they came back, and Custer called his officers
to other and gave them the news.

he scouts reported that beyond adoubt the lib
dian village was in the valley of Little Big Horn,
which was divided from the Rosebud by a rid e of
hills. These hills must be crossed, and it wou d be
impossible to do so in the daytime without being
seen by the Indians. It must be done in the dark,
mid lthey must be prepared to move in an hour and
a ll). . ‘ .

At eleven o’clock, accordin ly, the Seventh moved
silently out of camp, and s arted on their weary
march in the dark, to cross the divide. They moved
on for three hours, when the scouts came in to_ say
that the divide could not be crossed before dayhght,
so that all their trouble was thrown away.

The next best thing to do was to make coffee and
feed and rest the horses, so that they might be resh
for the fight, which was now certain to take place.
The regiment rested from two to five o’clock, and
then resumed its match after sunrise, crossing-the
divide at eight o’clock June 25th, 1876. At that time,
midsummer, the sun rises at about four o‘clock in
those high latitudes, and it begins to be light at half-
past three, so that they really w0uld have gained
nothin by pushingon all nigeht. ‘

At egh o’clock they on red the valley of the
Little am, that vale of death, from which so many
were never to return, and their Indian scouts
detected moving,r figures on the rid es in the neigh-
borhood. These were the scouts o Sitting Bull.

 

 

No sooner did these fellows see the dust of the
cavalry rising over the hills, than they turned, laid
whip to their ponies, and made for the village which
Custer‘s Indian scouts declared the could see,
ﬁfteen miles off. The white men coul see nothing,
even with telesco es; but the Indians were too 0 d
at their trade to e deceived. The had seen the
faint smoke of the village morning res high in the
air, and knew the village must be here.

Clearly it was no nee waiting or hiding; nothing
was left but to push on, and get to the village before
the Sioux scouts, or With them. So away went the
column at a long, slashing walk of ﬁve miles an
hour. It was no use to not, the distance being too

real: to pass at that pace without running the
iorses, and coming in blown. As they pressed
along, Custer called up Major Reno, his second in
command, and Captain Benteen, the senior captain,
and divided his re iment into three battalions on
the march. He in ended to ti the tactics which
had succeeded so well at the nshita, and during
the civil war, by ttacking the enemy in front and
on both ﬂanks att e same time. There were twelve
companies in the Seventh, and one bad to be left as
a guard for the pack train. The other eleven were
thus divided: Custer kept five with himself for the
main attack, gave three to Major Reno, and three to
Captain Benteen. The company With the ,packs
was left with Captain McDougull. I

Then away went the column after the Sioux. The
village was invisible to all but the friendly Indians,
and Custer was so cautious and fearful that they
might be mistaken, that he sent Captain Benteeu
off to the left front, in case lurking bands might be
waiting to harass his ﬂanks and rear. Benteen was
ordered to sweep everything before him, and to
iejoin the main trail as soon as he was sure the
flanks were clear. Reno‘s battalion was at the left
of the main column, where Custer rode with the
scouts, and the Seventh pressed on in three short
columns, Benteen left, Reno center, Custer right.
Benteen very soon went out of sight behind some
bills, but returned to the main trail about twelve
o’clock, at which time Custer and Reno were about
three miles ahead.

At last, about twelve o‘clock. the columns were in
full sight of the end of Sitting Bull’s village where
a great commotion was lainly observable. A cloud
of dust hung over the vi] a e, and the Indianscould be
seen tearing down their odges in the wildest con-
fusion, warriors galloping to and fro, everything in
a turmoil. With Custer, as we. know, to see was to
act, and there was nothing in all his career so strik-
ing as his capacity to break up and destroy a flying
foe. He was descending the valley on the right
bank of the Little Horn, and the village was scarcely
two miles ahead, on the opposite bank, stretchigg
down-stream, and Ipartially hidden by .the bin is
on the river bank. ow was the time to strike.

He beckoned to Reno and hurriedly said:

“Move forward, we 'or, at as rapid a sit as you
think prudent, then c large, and the w ole outfit
will supgort you.’ .

Reno owed obedience, and took of! his column at
a fast trot down to the river, crossing at a ford, then
hailed ten minutes to gather his battalion, formed
line, and alloped down toward the village. By
this time t e cloud of dust that hid the Indians was
thicker than ever, and a. number of braves were
ga110ping toward him.

No sooner did Custer see Reno fairly into the
fight than away he went, at a gallop, down the river,
to find another ford and catch the Indians in flank
and tear, his favorite movement.

About a mile below he was hidden from view by
some tall bluffs, from whence he could see the
whole village and Reno‘s battle-ﬁeld. In that
moment he saw that there were at least twenty-ﬁve
hundred Indians to fight, and probably three
thousand. There he hal ed, and sent back a trum-

eier, with a hasty note to Captain Benteen, whom
be judged to be on the back trail, as he was.

“Bel'ltf’dn, come on, be quick, big village, 721 my
packs, In my pcwka. "

Such was our hero’s last order, and that trumpeter
was the last living white man that ever saw the face
of allant Cavalry Custer.

o sooner was the note gone than awn went
Custer and his ﬁve companies, and were ost to
si ht behind the bluffs. .

ﬁn the mean time Major Reno threw out his three
Companies into line and gallopedat the village,
drivmg back a swarm of Indians With perfect case.
He had one hundred and twenty officers and men
and twent .five scouts and guards, one hundred and
forty.ﬂve n all. He charged right-ahead, for nearly
two miles, at the edge of a great cloud of blinding
dust, till he came to a. ate of wood in the river
bottom, beyond which ay the edge of the villa e.
Not a man had been hurt, so for. Through 9
wood he went, and then he suddenly halted.

Before. him was a tremendous cloud of dust, which
entirely hid the village, and a gloat swarm of Indian
warriors came teariu' down out of‘the cloud full
speed ﬂogging their li tie horses, yellin like wolves,
and firing away a perfect-rain of bu Vets as they
came, bullets that went whistling overhead. cutting
the leaves of! the trees. The crowd was so immense,
and the sounds so horrible, that Major Reno halted
as if struck by lightning. In great haste be dis-
mounted his men, sent his horses into the wood, and
lined its edge with skirmishers, who b ﬂrin .

The Indians could be seen, still co on, a at
half a mile on: shying off from the front of the sol-
diers. and sweepin o the left, as if to drive them
into the river. T ey came tearing on bke devils
incarnate, and Ma. or Reno suddenly changedhis
mind. He called or the horses and ordered the
men to “ prepare to mount." This took them back
into the wood in a great hurry. The Indians, think-

 

 

The Dashing Dragoon.

15

 

ing it a. retreat, gave a tremendous bowl of trium h
and came team on faster than ever, past t e
wood, to get be nd the. soldiers. In a. moment
more the men were mounted, as if to charge, and al-
most as soondlsmounted again.

Reno had almost concluded to hold the wood,
when a patter of bullets him: E through the leaves
told that the exultaut foe h reached the other

Side. . . ~

Then Reno ﬁddde maiden his mind. He saw
himself overwhelm by num s, and determined
ob recreate the mm. A moment later, thewbole
command was mounted, and 3%.]qung toward the
stream in a confused mass, the dune. racing after
them on all sides, ﬁring away at close range with
their Winchester riﬂes. Away they went, halter-
skelter, for the ford, men dropping by the way, to-
be trounced on in a moment by the Indians, scalped
an hacked to pieces. Down at the river the rout
was horrible, as men and horses plunged i crowd-
ing together, the Indians ﬁrln into the uddled
mass of fugitives, without meet g resistance. Up
thewbiuﬂs went the foremost, Reno ahead, his hat
gone, _ pale, his battalion utterly beaten.
Almost as soon as he reached the top of the bill a
aklrimsb lincwas seen com down the trail to-
ward him. It was Bentoen,‘w 0 had received Cus-
ter 5 order, and was slowly advancing. ;

A moment later, far down the river, they heard
shots, and a great commotion set in among the In-
dians behind Reno. Their ﬁre ceased, and away
they all went, full 5 eed, toward the village, leaving
Reno and Benteeii one on the hill, while the ﬁring
down the river increased every moment into volleys
so close and incessant that the Indians afterward
compared it to “ tearing cloth."

Custer was at them!

But Reno was in no condition to enter another
ﬁght. His men were cowed, and he himself seemed
to have lost his head entirely. He waited on the
hill till Beuteen‘s men had all got u , and soon after
Captain .MacDou‘all came hurrying in with the
pack-train. 411 t is time the ﬁring down the river
was heard at intervals, when the wind lulled, sharp
and ﬁerceasever; but, as a fresh gale was blowing,
there were times when it was inaudible. Onl one
oﬁficer of the command seemed to realize that uster
might be in terrible danger. This was the second
captain of the re ment, Captain Weir, a devoted
friend of Custer. e was nearly crazy with anxiety,
imploring Reno d Benteen to advance, telling
them t iat'Custer was being , that Custer
was calling for them. it was useless. Neither would
advance. The believed that Custer was retreatin .
No one could lieve, apparently, that it was p035
bio for him to be defeats .

Poor Weir was nearly frantic, he could do noth-
ing. He could not order out his company, but he
could go himself. In a fit of desperation, he called
his or erly and three old soldiers whom he could
Er‘ustt, and started off, only five men, to try and ﬁnd

S (‘1‘.

He rode rapidly, and the country was deserted.
When he had $01: about a mile off, he to ped a bluff,
and saw the w ole valley below full of Fndians, gal-
lo ingnto and fro. _

0 ng back, he saw his own company, led by
Lieutenant Edgerley cominglaftor him. The brave
fellows could not desert t eir ca lain, and had
started, without orders, to rescue im. Reno and
Benteen, with the rest, remained on the hill behind,

ow e sea t ht of Weir, and came
tearing to meet him.“%issl‘fttle com au ivas soon
Adeplggéed andflghting hard falling Baez on Reno,
In an hour more i: was driven in, and the whole
river side was all covered with Indians, coming for
Reﬁ? and Benteenf h

' e remnant o t e Seventh Caval 380 men
guide alhastynblredastworl; on the ﬁg, lier defended

emse vesw es io re 11 eve ease.
or the. .m .3 p 8 1” “1‘

ey n w on the hill from -
past two till six, but :gw tlzey had it, hot and 1113115“.
ous, till sunset.

Ni ht gave them a spell of rest, but .next da the
bait e raged furiously, all the time it was ligh the
Indians charging right up to the breastworks, the
caving losin heavily. V .

0n ethir day the Indians suddenly decamped,
and the cause of their departure was speedily made
clear by the arrival of General Terry’s column, which
came up in the afternoon.

Then, at last, the Seventh were enabled to go to
the place where they heard those volleys on the 25th,
and earned the terrible truth. There, in the valley
0f the Big H0111. lay Custer and his ﬁve com anies,
.every man dead, and most of them so hac 'ed to
pieces 88 ‘50 be u ble. The trail showed
that Cumrhﬁd gone don the river and charged
toward a ford, where he was met by the Indians
and driven back. His attack must, have taken “me
after Reno’s rout, for all the Indians left Reno 0 go
and fig-lit Custer, as we have already seen

The no of Custer's retreat was marked by dead
bodies, to the top of a little hill where he made his
last stand. To cover the retreat, Lieutenant Cal.
houn’s company had ﬁrst been thrown out, and
every man had fallen in his place on the skirmish
line, with Licutenants Calhoun and Critoenden in
their places, accordi to the tactics, a little in rear
of their men. There t ey lay, where they had been
killed, doin their duty to the last. lacing death like
men. A lit 1e further on lay ca tain Keogh’s com-
pany, similarly disposed, shot or little band of

emes. Then, on the top of the hill, lay a mass of
dead men and be and in their midst, with a.
smile upon his Ii as asleep;3 lay the body of al-
lam/Cavalry , with his v tether-s closetoh m,
brave Captain Toni (luster. Boston Custer a little

' every time by t
. How the presence of that-heroic soul cheered up-

 

way off, with little Antie Reed. Custer‘s nephew.
rs   soreness

ansome out ,, Muse's. _ -
non Smith, Lieutenant Bell and the rest of that de-
voted little band. Not a so ier esca _

But one man, a Crow scout nam “ Curie ," got
out of the ﬁght alive, by disguising himse if in a,
Sioux blanket during the confusion, and so escaping
to the Big 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
ﬂoured out in vast numbers, surrounding Custer,

ow they ch ed am and agam,~driven back

e soldiers, as long as Custer lived.

and inspired ‘tbe men, the position of the bodies
proved: every manhad fallen in his lace. When
‘uster- died, the remnant were massacred,
almost unres1sting. Their heart was broken. I

The grandest testimony of his valor was found,
however, in one wonderful fact. Among all the
mutilated bodies, strl pod and hacked to pieces,
without another excep on Custer lay with a bullet
in his brain, another in his heart, but othermse
totally untouched. So brave was he that even Rain-
in-the-Face, the man who shot him, d his
dead foe too much to offer him an in ty. He
had kept his oath, but he could do no more.

So ended the life of the ﬂower of the American
army, the brave. the gentle the heroic, the people’s
idol, Cavalry (luster. God bless him, and may we
see more like him. 1

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A New Library Expresst Designed for “Our Boys”

WHO
True Stories of Stirring Lives!

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Tales of Actual Peril and Adventure!
Romance of Sport on Field and Flood!
Daring Deeds and Great Achievement.

On the oceans and seas—in the deep, silent forests—0n the boundless plains—in the mountain fuslnesses
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NOW READY AND IN PRESS.

1. Adventures of Buffalo Bill. Prom Boyhood to

Manhood. Deeds of Daring, and Romantic Incidents in the

early life of William F. Cody. By Col. Prentiss lngraham.

The Ocean Hunters: or, The Chase of the Leviathan.

A Romance of Perilous Adventure. By Captain Mayne Reid.

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markable career of J. B. Hikok, (known to the world as

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The Prairie Ranch; or, The Young Cattle Herders.

By Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

Texas Jack. the Mustang King.

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Colonel Prentiss Ingraham.

Cruise of the Plyaway; or, Yankee Boys in Ceylon.

By C. Dunning Clark.

Roving Joe: The History of a Young “Border Rufﬁan.”

Brief Scenes from the Life of Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

By A. H. Post.

8. The Flyaway Aﬂoat; or, Yankee Boys ’Round the World.
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14. Adrift on the Prairie, and Amateur Hunter: on
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2.

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