_Times_, asked permission to go, also.

He had not heard about the proposed trip until that morning, July 6;
but he did not wish to miss any excitement, and therefore he applied at
once to General Crook. The general hesitated a minute. He well knew
that it was likely to be a dangerous scout, and that the Sioux were no
joke. At last he said shortly:

"All right, sir. But I warn you that you're liable to get into more
trouble than you bargain for."

That did not daunt the alert John Finerty. He already had fought side
by side with the troopers, and was looked upon as a soldier although
not in uniform. No man in the column was more popular. He hastened to
tell Lieutenant Sibley, his friend. Lieutenant Sibley was glad. Other
officers asked him what kind of an obituary they should write for him.
Captain E. E. Wells, of Troop E--the Sibley troop--only remarked,
without a smile:

"Orderly, bring Mr. Finerty a hundred rounds of Troop E ammunition."

This sounded like business, to Reporter Finerty.

They all rode out at noon; made thirteen miles and camped to rest the
horses for a night march. Scout Gruard thought that they would not
have to go far to find Indians. Two or three nights before he and Big
Bat had reconnoitered forward twenty miles and had seen several parties
of Sioux, only that distance from the main camp. Evidently General
Crook was being watched.

At sunset the little detachment started on. In the dusk Big Bat
imagined that he caught sight of a mounted Indian spy surveying them
from a shallow ravine. Frank Gruard dashed for the place; but the
object disappeared and he discovered nothing.

"Might have been an Indian, but we think maybe only an elk," he said.

Anyway, the mystery was not very comforting. The column were forbidden
to talk; they rode on, northward, through the long grass of the rich
bottoms; the two scouts led, Scout Gruard every now and again halting,
to scan about from the high points.

The full moon rose at eight o'clock, and the lonely land of sage and
grass and willows and pines and rocks stretched silvery; on the west
the snowy tips of the Big Horn Mountains glistened.

Nothing happened. About two o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Sibley
ordered camp. They were forty miles from General Crook, and near
ahead, over the next divide, lay the upper end of the Valley of the
Little Big Horn in the Rosebud country.

"We will find the Sioux villages in there, all right,"