le was on the Yellowstone River. I rode a roan horse. I
was scouting under General Miles. We found the trail of the Nez Perce
Indians. We fought a battle twenty miles north of where Billings is now
located. The Nez Perce chased the scouts back. Just at this time our
interpreter, Bethune, had quit riding, for his horse had played out and he
went on foot. Then many of the Nez Perce dismounted and began to surround
Bethune and open fire on him. I thought then his life would be lost and I
rode back as fast as I could ride into the midst of the fire, pulled him
on the back of my horse and rode away, saving his life."

In his own words Goes-Ahead tells us how he became a scout in the United
States Army: "I was a single man and I loved to go on the warpath. The
chiefs announced to all the camp asking young men to go to the army
officers and enlist as scouts. As I wanted to scout I obeyed the command
of my chiefs. The army officers took the names of these young men. The
young men whose names were not taken were turned back, but they always
took my name, and that is how I came to be a scout." Goes-Ahead tells for
us a most graphic story of his share in the Custer fight and his
impressions of General Custer in the chapter on "The Indians' Story of the
Custer Fight."

[In Battle Line]

In Battle Line

THE INDIANS' STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT

We are thinking now of the reddest chapter in the Indian wars of the
Western plains. Out amid the dirge of landscape, framed within the valley
of the Little Big Horn, where that historic river winds its tortuous way
through the sagebrush and cactus of Montana, a weather-beaten cross stands
on a lonely hillside, surrounded by a cluster of white marble slabs, and
all marking the final resting-place of the heroes of the Seventh United
States Cavalry, who perished to a man, "in battle formation," with their
intrepid leader, Gen. George A. Custer. "Custer's Last Battle," as
chroniclers of Indian wars have designated that grim tragedy, has been
written about, speculated upon, and discussed more than any other single
engagement between white troops and Indians. Volumes have already been
written and spoken on all sides--the controversy still goes on. The brave
dead sleep on; they are bivouacked on Fame's eternal camping ground.
Civilization has irrigated the valley and swept on to Western frontiers,
but as though