General Custer did not delay. He never did. Within less than a week, on the last morning of September who should come racing into the post, accompanying the ambulance from the railroad station at Hays City, but Maida and Blucher and Flirt the stag hounds, and Rover the old fox hound, and Fanny the little fox-terrier, and all the other Custer dogs; and who should spring out of the ambulance, before it had stopped at headquarters, but the general himself! There he was, with his yellow hair and his shining eyes and his quick voice and his lithe, trim figure, ready for business again. Behind the ambulance followed, led by an orderly, the horses Phil Sheridan and Custis Lee.
From beyond the headquarters office seeing this, Ned’s heart leaped into his throat.
“Custer’s come! Custer’s come!” seemed to run through the post a glad hum. To Ned it was like a bugle-call; and he instantly resolved that where the general went, he was going too. No more clerkship duties for him; no! Suddenly he felt strong and[174] well, ready for anything. That was how the general made everybody around him feel; he was so full of energy and enthusiasm.
Now was it positively known that General Sheridan planned a winter’s march against the Indians, to catch them in their villages while there was no grass for their ponies and they could not travel at will. Many heads were shaken, over this scheme, as being a fool-hardy one; and clear from St. Louis came out to Hays a tall, lean, leathery-faced, squint-eyed man—“old Jim Bridger” the celebrated trapper and mountaineer—expressly to tell General Sheridan that the whole command would be snowed in and lost.
But five hundred freighting wagons were busy taking supplies from Fort Harker and Fort Leavenworth to the posts south in the Arkansas River country; and with these supplies on hand, for the soldiers and the horses, and with the men well clothed, General Sheridan reasoned that the white men would do better in the winter than the red men.
“The only way to bring those Indians to terms is to give them a good thrashing. I rely on you for this, Custer,” Ned heard him say. “We’ll carry the war into the enemy’s country, when he isn’t expecting it.”
Nothing loth was General Custer; no, not “Old Curly.” He acted as happy as if he were starting out on a buffalo hunt or a ride with Mrs. Custer and the dogs. He stayed only a couple of days at Hays,[175] for instructions and final preparations; and when out he rode, southward bound, eager to resume command of the Seventh, Ned rode with him, as his orderly again.
Fort Hays was well stripped of its scouts whom Ned knew: California Joe, Jack Stillwell, Jack Corbin, Trudell, Romeo—they were south on the Arkansas; Buffalo Bill was out with some of the Fifth Cavalry; Wild Bill was carrying dispatches on the trail: and with them gone, and with the Seventh gone, Ned had been feeling lonesome and neglected. Now all was changed: he was riding again with Custer. Hurrah!
The rendezvous of the Seventh Cavalry was on Bluff Creek, about thirty miles southeast of Fort Dodge. Fort Dodge was up the Arkansas from Fort Larned, and was of stone like Larned and Riley. General Custer paused here only to report to General Sully, commanding the district. The next day he proceeded on; and in the afternoon were sighted the familiar white army tents of the Seventh Cavalry.
What a welcome there was, as the troops turned out to receive him, and the dogs barked, and as soon as they might the officers flocked to shake his hand.
There were some new officers and many new men, for recruits had been rushed to fill the ranks to war strength. However, there were enough old friendly faces to make the camp of the Seventh feel like home to Ned; and he was almost as busy shaking hands as was the general.
[176]
“Back again, are ye?” greeted Odell, heartily.
“Yes,” grinned Ned.
“Wance more orderly, then, I take it.”
“Guess I am, for a while.”
“Well, the gen’ral sticks to those he likes, an’ to those he doesn’t like, the same. He’s got a big heart. What’s the news from Hays? Is Gen’ral Sheridan comin’, too?”
“Yes. He says the Indians are to be found and threshed.”
“B’gorry, with Phil Sheridan an’ ‘Old Curly’ workin’ toget............