“From their village?”
“No, sir; on the march.”
“Who were the chiefs?”
“The Sioux chief was Pawnee Killer, and the Cheyenne chief was Cut Nose. I ran away from Pawnee Killer. My sister’s out with old Cut Nose’s Cheyennes, I think.”
“Where do you want to go, my boy?”
“Anywhere, so that I find my sister.”
“All right.” Colonel Custer had finished cutting out the tongue. Now he wiped his knife on the buffalo’s wool, and stood. “We’ll take you back to Riley, first. That’s where I live—Fort Riley. It isn’t far; a day’s ride. We’re out on a little scout. There comes my orderly, now. The lazy fellow! Eh, Phil?” and the handsome bay horse, thus addressed, pricked his ears. “First we leave the orderly, then we leave the dogs, and we kill a buffalo and pick up a boy! That will be something to tell the old lady when we get back.”
About this handsome, energetic army officer was an air so happy-go-lucky and boyish that Ned, another boy, found himself already loving him.
Now the orderly galloped up. He wore fatigue cap and blouse and trousers, of the regulation service blue; and by yellow braid and chevrons and the brass horn hanging from his shoulder he was a bugler.