ck Hills. Once there, we found provisions
and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in
such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his
brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in
September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved,
worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses,--ah, well, only half of
them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line
of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe
and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We
straggled in towards the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us:
they had long since grown too weak to carry a rider.

Then came a leisurely saunter through the Hills. Crook bought up all the
provisions to be had in Deadwood and other little mining towns, turned
over the command to General Merritt, and hastened to the forts to
organize a new force, leaving to his successor instructions to come in
slowly, giving horses and men time to build up. Men began "building up"
fast enough; we did nothing but eat, sleep, and hunt grass for our
horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,--ah, that was
different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving
for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we
went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was
scant and wiry,--not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch grass of the
open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military
duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had
to be bustling around a good deal; and so it happened that one day the
colonel said to me, "Well, here's Van. He can't carry my weight any
longer. Suppose you take him and see if he won't pick up." And that
beautiful October day found the racer of the regiment, though the ghost
of his former self, transferred to my keeping.

All through the campaign we had been getting better acquainted, Van and
I. The colonel seldom rode him, but had him led along with the
head-quarters party in the endeavor to save his strength. A big,
raw-boned colt, whom he had named "Chunka Witko," in honor of the Sioux
"Crazy Horse," the hero of the summer, had the honor of transporting the
colonel over most of those weary miles, and Van spent the long days on
the muddy trail in wondering when and where the next race was to come
off, and whe