Again a cavalry trumpeter, Ned was assigned to B Troop, Lieutenant Tom’s. Of course, Ned could not expect to be the general’s favorite orderly, again; at least, not right away. He was a man, and must serve his turn, like the other men. But being one of the dashing, light-hearted Tom Custer’s trumpeters was next thing to being the general’s.
Lieutenant Calhoun had married Miss Margaret Custer, the general’s sister. She and Mrs. Custer rode with the general and his staff, at the head of the column. Down in Kentucky the general had collected many more dogs; and had bought a thoroughbred horse named Vic to be companion to faithful Dandy. Eliza the black cook had not come, this time; but there was another negress cook, named Mary, and a negro coachman, named Ham, for the traveling carriage to which Mrs. Custer and Mrs. Calhoun sometimes changed.
In long, long column of twos followed by the white-topped army wagons the Seventh Cavalry threaded its way northward across the sagey Dakota plains, the willows and cottonwoods of the muddy Missouri ever in sight.
[XIX]
SCOUTING AMONG THE SIOUX
Fort Rice was located ten miles above the mouth of the Cannon-Ball River and twenty miles below the new town of Bismarck. Around-about the slate-colored frame buildings stretched the sagey Dakota plains, seemingly vaster and barer even than the rolling buffalo plains of Kansas. Butte and coulée or dry wash broke them; the only trees were along the water courses. The winds were fresh and strong, the short summers hot, the long winters cold. It was a country that bred strong, hardy, robust men and women, and such were the Sioux—the proud Dakota nation.
The Northern Pacific Railroad from St. Paul had reached Bismarck, and was determined to push on across Dakota and Montana, as the Union Pacific had pushed on across Nebraska and Wyoming. Scarcely had the Seventh Cavalry been welcomed at Fort Rice, when they prepared to take the long trail again, as escort to protect the engineers surveying a route westward for the railroad.
So when the Northern Pacific Railroad engineers started upon their survey westward still, their escort numbered almost 2000 soldiers: of the Seventh Cavalry, of infantry, of artillery, and of Indian scouts, all under Major-General D. S. Stanley, with General Custer the “Long Hair” in command of the ten companies of the Seventh.
It was to be a march clear across western Dakota to the Yellowstone River of Montana. Few white men had seen this country.