Terry gave Custer orders to march the seventy-five miles in forty-eight hours, and attack the Indians at the head of their camp at daylight on the morning of the Twenty-seventh.  There was to be no parley—­panic was the thing desired, and when Custer had started the savages on the run, Terry would attack them at the other end of their village, and the two fleeing mobs of savages would be driven on each other, and then they would cast down their arms and the trick would 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.