tidings had come, and was already starting to leave the
carriage.

"Oh! what can it be?" almost wailed Mrs. Turner. "Do you know, orderly?"

"It's been a big battle, ma'am, and they say General Custer and lots of
officers is killed."

Truscott swung his wife from the wagon, and almost lifted her to the
piazza. Miss Sanford, white and silent, sprang out unaided and ran to
her side. Mrs. Stannard, with an awful dread in her kind blue eyes, took
Truscott's hand as he returned and assisted her to alight.

"Will you stay with Grace?" he whispered. "I will go at once to the
office. Come, Mrs. Turner."

But Mrs. Turner hung back irresolute. "Perhaps it isn't true at all,
captain, and this may be the only time we can have the ambulance for a
week."

For answer he silently took her at the waist in his powerful hands, set
her speechless with astonishment on the sidewalk, sprang in, and spoke
sharply to the driver,--

"Whirl round. Get there to the office quick as you can."

And the lashed mules went at a gallop.

Entering the office with the customary knock at the open door, Truscott
stood first in the presence of the post commander and his adjutant.

"For God's sake read that!" said the colonel, holding up to him some
three or four sheets of telegraphic despatch paper. The other officers
came hurrying in.

"Read it aloud, Truscott."

And so to the group of speechless officers and to the knot of soldiers
who had gathered in the hall the dread news of the battle of the Little
Horn was told at Russell. Custer and his five pet companies completely
"wiped out," said the staff-officer, who sent the news flashing around
to the military posts in the department. Three hundred and twenty-five
soldiers swept out of existence only an easy day's gallop in front of
the Gray Fox's pickets, and it had taken all this time--ten days--to get
the news into civilization. There was no sign of a smile the rest of
that long day at Russell. The gloom of death had settled down on the
post. The ladies were seen no more. The doctor was sent for in more than
one instance. Mrs. Truscott was reported very ill.

But if garrison after garrison was thrown into dismay all over the
frontier by the sudden news, who can picture the scene at Lincoln, when
at dawn of that dreadful day a sergeant came over from the boat at
Bismarck to arouse the people at the hospital and to break the blow to
the widows and orphans? Reveille had not sounded when the com