y in the command, there is hardly a vestige of uniform;
but look here, look here at the brilliance of the Seventh. Bright
guidons flutter at the head of every troop; bright chevrons, stripes,
and buttons gleam on the dress of many an officer and man; the steeds,
though worn and jaded with an almost ceaseless trot of thirty-six hours,
are spirited and beautiful; some are gayly decked. Foremost rides their
tried leader, clad from head to foot in beaded buckskin. "The Long Hair"
the Sioux still call him, though now the long hair waves not on the
breeze, and an auburn beard conceals the handsome outline of the face
all troopers know so well. Near him rides his adjutant, dressed like
himself in their favorite buckskin, so too are others among the
officers, though many wear the jaunty fatigue uniform of the cavalry,
and the rank and file are all, or nearly all, in blue. But a short way
back they have come upon the scaffolding sepulchre of Indian warriors
lately slain in battle; but a few miles ahead they see a broad valley
from which, far from south to north, a vast dust-cloud is rising, and
for this there can be but one explanation,--thousands of Indian ponies
in excited motion. Ay, scouts in advance already sight indications of
the near presence of a great Indian community, and the column resolves
itself into three, trotting in parallel lines across the treeless upland
a mile or so apart. With the northernmost, the largest, rides now the
leader of all, while between them gallop couriers carrying rapid orders.
Every face sets eagerly westward. Every heart beats high with the thrill
of coming battle. Some there are who note the immensity of the
dust-cloud, who reason silently that for miles and miles the valley
before them is covered by the scurrying herds; ten thousand ponies at
least must there be to stir up such a volume; then, how many warriors
are there to meet these seven hundred? No matter what one thinks, not a
man falters.

Far to the south the snow peaks glisten over the pine-crested range of
the Big Horn. Nearer at hand deep, dark canons burrow in towards the
bowels of the mountains. Then from their bases leap the rolling
foot-hills, brown and bare but for the dense growth of the sun-cured
buffalo-grass. Westward, open and undulating sweeps the broad expanse of
almost level valley beyond the bluffs, close under which is curling the
fatal stream,--the "Greasy Grass" of the Dakotas. Far to the north in
the same endle