n, where the only chance they had to stretch
their limbs had been afforded by the few minutes wait at stations. Now
they enjoyed to the full the sense of release that came to them in their
new surroundings. The West, as seen from a car window, was a vastly
different thing when viewed from the seat of a buckboard going at a
spanking gait over the limitless plains.

For that they were limitless was the impression conveyed by the unbroken
skyline that seemed to be a thousand miles away. Only in the northwest
did mountains loom. They had never before had such an impression of the
immensity of space. It seemed as though the whole expanse had been
created for them, and them alone. For many miles they saw no human figure
except that of a solitary cowboy, who passed them at a gallop on his way
to the town. The country was slightly rolling and richly grassed,
affording pasturage for thousands of cattle that roamed over it at will,
almost as free as though in a wild state, except at the time of the
round-up. They crossed numerous small rivers, none so deep that they
could not be forded, although in one case the water flowed over the body
of the wagon.

"That's the Little Big Horn River," said Melton as they drew out on the
other side. "Perhaps you fellows remember something that happened here a
good many years ago."

"What," cried Bert. "You don't mean the Custer Massacre?"

"That's what," returned Melton. "Right over there where the river bends
was the place where Sitting Bull was encamped when Custer led the charge
on that June morning. I've got to breathe the horses for twenty minutes
or so, and, if you like, we'll look over the field."

If they would like! The boys thrilled at the thought. They had read again
and again of that gallant and hopeless fight, where a thousand American
cavalrymen led by Custer, the idol of the army, had attacked nine
thousand Indians, and fighting against these fearful odds had been wiped
out to the last man. In all the nation's history no one, except perhaps
Phil Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson, had so appealed to the imagination
of the country's youth as Custer, the reckless, yellow-haired leader in
a hundred fights, the hero of Cedar Creek and Waynesboro and Five Forks,
the Chevalier Bayard of modern times, "without fear and without
reproach," who met his death at last as he would have wished to meet it,
in that mad glorious dash that has made his name immortal, going down as
he had lived wi