be
done.

Next, to throw a cordon of soldiers around the camp and hold it would
be easy.

-------------------------------------

Custer and his men rode away at about eight o'clock on the morning of
the Twenty-fifth. They were in high spirits, for the cramped quarters
on the transports made freedom doubly grateful.

They disappeared across the mesa and through the gray-brown hills, and
soon only a cloud of dust marked their passage.

After five miles had been turned off on a walk, Custer ordered a trot,
and then, where the ground was level, a canter.

On they went.

They pitched camp at four o'clock, having covered forty miles. The
horses were unsaddled and fed, and supper cooked and eaten.

But sleep was not to be--these men shall sleep no more!

The bugles sounded "Boots and Saddles." Before sunset they were again
on their way.

-------------------------------------

By three o'clock on the morning of the Twenty-sixth, they had covered
more than seventy miles.

They halted for coffee.

The night, waiting for the dawn, was doubly dark.

Fast-riding scouts had gone on ahead, and now reported the Indians
camped just over the ridge, four miles away.

Custer divided his force into two parts. The Indians were camped along
the river for three miles. There were about two thousand of them, and
the women and children were with them.

Reno with two hundred fifty men was ordered to swing around and attack
the village from the South. Custer with one hundred ninety-three men
would watch the charge, and when the valiant Reno had started the
panic and the Indians were in confusion, his force would then sweep
around and charge them from the other end of the village.

This was Terry's plan of battle, only Custer was going to make the
capture without Terry's help.

When Terry came up the following day, he would find the work all done
and neatly, too. Results are the only things that count, and victory
justifies itself.

The battle would go down on the records as Custer's triumph!

Reno took a two-mile detour, and just at peep of day, ere the sun had
gilded the tops of the cottonwoods, charged, with yells and rapid
firing, into the Indian village. Custer stood on the ridge, his men
mounted and impatient just below on the other side.

He could distinguish Reno's soldiers as they charged into the
underbrush. Their shouts and the sound of firing filled his fighter's
heart.

The Indi