“Soldiers there,” he said.
“Right oblique, trot—march!” ordered Captain Benteen. And for the bluff they made.
The men upon the bluff proved to be Major Reno and his battalion. They were dismounted, and were firing at long range down the slopes. The fighting below had been by the rear guard, in the retreat to the bluff. Major Reno wore a handkerchief tied about his head. Ned thought that he had been wounded, but he had only lost his hat. He had lost his revolver, too. He greeted Major Benteen feverishly.
“Where’s Custer? Have you seen Custer?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. He promised to support me. It was too hot in there for us. We were driven out. Five to one.” The major appeared almost beside himself. “Why, I tell you we’re fighting all the Sioux nation, and all the outlaws and half-breeds east of the Rocky Mountains. Dismount your men, captain, and deploy them as skirmishers along that hill on the south.”
Yes, Major Reno and his 200 men had started in to charge the village, across the river; but it had looked as if they were being drawn on into an ambush; when they had halted, to survey, out had swarmed the Sioux, thicker and thicker. Afoot they came, and ahorse. “Hi-yih hi-yih yip-yip-yip!” had they cried, frightfully. The Rees, on the left flank, had fled pell-mell. The major had dismounted his men in some timber; but no Custer was in sight, the Indians were surrounding, and he had ordered a retreat to the bluff on this side.
That had been a close call. In the retreat Lieutenant Don McIntosh and Lieutenant Benny Hodgson the acting adjutant had been killed, and so had Doctor DeWolf, and “Lonesome” Charley Reynolds, and black Isaiah. Faithful Bloody Knife, too, had fallen; struck down, said somebody, at Major Reno’s side. Twenty-nine other men also were dead. A score were missing. The bodies of most of the killed were down there still.
The battalion might have done better had they stayed in the timber by the village and fought dismounted. But where was Custer? Where was the general?
The bugles shrilled.