t great jubilee and that
quadrennial tempest-in-a-teapot, the nomination, who but a few lonely
wives and children have time to think of those three columns far, far
out in the broad Northwest,--those three columns of regulars, cavalry
and infantry, rough-garbed, bronzed and bearded, steadily closing in
towards the wild and beautiful region along the northern water-shed of
the Big Horn Range, where ten thousand hostile Indians are uneasily
watching their coming? On the Atlantic seaboard comrades in full-dress
uniform, with polished arms, are standing guard over government
treasures on exhibition, and thoughtless thousands wonder at the ease
and luxury of the soldier's life. Out on the frontier, in buckskin and
flannel, slouch hats and leggings, and bristling prairie-belts, the
little army is concentrating upon an outnumbering foe, whose
signal-fires light the way by night, whose trail is red with blood by
day. From the northeast, up the Yellowstone, Terry of Fort Fisher fame,
the genial, the warm-hearted general, whose thoughts are ever with his
officers and men, leads his few hundred footmen, while Custer, whose
division has flashed through battery after battery, charge after charge,
in the great Rebellion, now rides at the head of a single regiment. From
the northwest, down the Yellowstone, with but a handful of tried
soldiery, comes Gibbon; he who led a corps at Gettysburg and Appomattox.
From the south, feeling his way along the eastern base of the Big Horn,
with less than two thousand troopers and footmen, marches the "Gray
Fox," the general under whom our friends of the --th so long and so
successfully battled with the Apaches of Arizona. He has met his match
this time. Cheyenne, Ogallalla, Brule, Uncapapa, Minneconjou, Sans Arc,
and Blackfoot, all swarm over the broad and breezy uplands in his front,
or lurk in the deep shade of the lovely valleys. Twice have they sprung
upon him and checked his advance. Once only has he been forced to
hesitate, but now, as the longest days of the year approach and the
glistening dome of Snow Peak is yet warm with the flush of the setting
sun, when "morn, in russet mantle clad," tinges the eastern slopes with
glowing light; now, at last, the long-dreaded leaders of the border
warfare are being hemmed in between the encircling advance. Now may we
look for stirring work along the bluffs and boulders of the Big Horn.

And June, Centennial June, has come to West Point. Examinations are