One of the Indians, who was elaborately decorated with all the ornaments usually worn by a great chief when he engaged in a fight, saw me and sang out: 

“I know you, Pa-ho-has-ka!  Come and fight with me!”

The name he used was one by which I had long been known by the Indians.  It meant Long-Yellow-Hair.

The chief was riding his horse to and fro in front of his men, in order to banter me.  I concluded to accept his challenge.  I turned and galloped toward him for fifty yards, and he rode toward me about the same distance.  Both of us rode at full speed.  When we were only thirty yards apart I raised my rifle and fired.  His horse dropped dead under him, and he rolled over on the ground to clear himself of the carcass.

Almost at the same instant my own horse stepped into a hole and fell heavily.  The fall hurt me but little, and almost instantly I was on my feet.  This was no time to lie down and nurse slight injuries.  The chief and I were now both on our feet, not twenty paces apart.  We fired at each other at the same instant.  My usual luck held.  His bullet whizzed harmlessly past my head, while mine struck him full in the breast.

He reeled and fell, but I took no chances.  He had barely touched the ground, when I was upon him, knife in hand, and to make sure of him drove the steel into his heart.

This whole affair, from beginning to end, occupied but little time.  The Indians, seeing that I was a little distance from my pony, now came charging down upon me from the hill, in the hope of cutting me off.

General Merritt had witnessed the duel, and, realizing the danger I was in, ordered Colonel Mason with Company K to hurry to my rescue.  This order came none too soon.  Had it been given one minute later two hundred Indians would have been upon me, and this present narration would have had to be made by some one else.  As the soldiers came up I swung the war-bonnet high in the air and shouted:  “The first scalp for Custer!”

It was by this time clear to General Merritt that he could not ambush the Indians.  So he ordered a general charge.  For a time they made a stubborn resistance, but no eight hundred Indians, or twice that number, for that matter, could make a successful stand against such veteran and fearless fighters as the Fifth Cavalry.  They soon came to that conclusion themselves and began a running retreat for the Red Cloud Agency.

For thirty-five miles, over the roughest kind of ground, we drove them before us.  Soon they were forced to abandon their spare horses and all the equipment they had brought along.  Despite the imminent risk of encountering thousands of other Indians at the Agency, we drove our late adversaries directly into it.  No one in our command had any assurance that the Indians gathered there had not gone on the warpath, but little difference that made to us.  The Fifth Cavalry, on the warpath itself, would stop at nothing.  It was dark when we entered the reservation.  All about us we could see the huddling forms of Indians—­thousands of them—­enough, in fact, to have consummated another Custer massacre.  But they showed no disposition to fight.