“An’ for three days we kept goin’—­not runnin’, just standin’ an’ layin’ down there fightin’.  Sure, we stopped firin’ at night, but we didn’t stop work.  We dug all night long, usin’ knives, tin cups, an’ plates instead o’ spades an’ picks, makin’ breast-works; an’ then we started fightin’ all over ag’in in th’ mornin’.

“Say, boys, I ain’t strong f’r prohibition.  It’d take me ten years t’ git up nerve enough t’ put my foot on a brass rail an’ order sody-water in a drug store, but let me tell you somethin’.  On th’ afternoon o’ that second day’s fightin’ there was nothin’ on earth to us like water.  Th’ wounded was beggin’ for it.  Oh, boys, they was beggin’ for it somethin’ pitiful, an’ we that wasn’t wounded, our tongues was all swollen an’ our lips was parched till they cracked open.  So some of th’ boys volunteered t’ go to th’ river, an’ we took canteens an’ camp kettles an’ started.

“One of us never come back, an’ a lot of us got shot up, but we got water.  Not much, but we got water.  I never will forget how I wanted t’ wet my hoss, Long Tom’s, tongue, but a wounded bunkie he needed it.  That night we went ag’in an’ got some for th’ stock, an’ it was just in time, for they sure was dyin’ for it.

“Th’ fightin’ opened ag’in next mornin’, an’ kept goin’ till th’ afternoon.  It was th’ twenty-seventh o’ June, when all at once we seen a panic start among th’ Injuns, an’ they began t’ stampede, leavin’ their dead all over th’ hills.  An’ Terry come into sight, an’ strong men cried on each other’s necks—­an’ I ain’t a bit ashamed t’ say that I was one of ’em.

“When Terry got in, an’ congratulatin’ an’ hand-shakin’ was all over, Lieutenant Bradley he come in, sayin’ he’d found Custer, an’ we all dragged ourselves to th’ spot.

“There they was, all dead, two hunderd an’ sixty-one of ’em.  Not one lived t’ tell th’ tale.  Them that’d bin deployed as skirmishers lay as they fell, havin’ bin entirely surrounded in an open plain.  The men in th’ companies fell in platoons, an’, like them on th’ skirmish line, lay just as they fell, with their officers behind ’em in th’ right places.

“Th’ Old Man, General Custer, was in th’ middle, an’ round him lay th’ bodies of Captain Tom Custer an’ Boston Custer, his brothers, Colonel Calhoun, his brother-in-law, an’ young Reed, his nephew.  An’ right near was Mark Kellogg, th’ Bismarck Tribune’s newspaper man.  He wasn’t scalped or touched; just lay as he fell.

“Kellogg savvied Injuns, an’ used t’ say in his paper, ’Hold on a minute, let’s talk this over,’ when all th’ long-whiskered grangers, what had come in from Illinois, would raise a holler, an’ want th’ United States soldiers t’ kick th’ Injuns off th’ land what they owned.  An’ th’ Injuns remembered, even when they was crazy with fightin’.  An’ just th’ same as they didn’t touch th’ White Chief, Custer, just th’ same they didn’t touch th’ feller what shoved a lead pencil an’ once in a while said, ’Give ’em a chance.’