General Custer has left his own story of his plains days in Kansas and Nebraska. It lies before me. Mrs. Custer, his comrade of garrison and camp and march, has written several books about him. They lie before me. There is a biography by one Captain Whittaker, written at the close of the last battle, near forty years ago. With General Sheridan and General Custer upon their campaign against the Cheyennes and the Kiowas was a newspaper reporter, Randolph Keim, who also wrote a book. Chapters have there been, in other books and in magazines, and pamphlets of time agone; and, as I say, men and women are now alive who knew the general. From all these more information should be sought. No one pen can describe so fine a thing as a Man.

So this book must tell of the Custer whom Ned the boy and youth saw; and of affairs in which he took part during that final struggle when the white race would supplant the red race, on the plains of north and south. In the narrative of these years I have tried to show how the white race felt and how the red race felt; for each had their rights and their wrongs, and each did right and did wrong. Out of the result came general good, that the church and the school-house might rise and people might work and play in peace, where formerly stood only the unproductive hide lodges, and the main thought was war and Plunder.

Edwin L. Sabin.

Coronado, California, June 1, 1913.

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.[A Waif on the Prairie]17
II.[At Old Fort Riley]34
III.[The Seventh Takes the Field]48
IV.[Satanta Makes a Speech]67
V.[In Battle Array]79
VI.[The Abandoned Indian Village]89
VII.[Scouting with Custer]104
VIII.[Pawnee Killer Plays Tricks]114
IX.[Danger on Every Side]129
X.[Sad News for the Army Blue]142
XI.[Grim Days Along the Trail]153
XII.[Phil Sheridan Arrives]160
XIII.[The Yellow Hair Rides Again]173
XIV.[The Winter Warpath]180
XV.[“We Attack at Daylight”]192
XVI.[“Garryowen!” and “Charge!”]204
XVII.[After the Battle]215
XVIII.[To the Land of the Dakotah]227
XIX.[Scouting Among the Sioux]236
XX.[Rain-in-the-Face Vows Vengeance]249
XXI.[Sitting Bull Says: “Come On!”]256
XXII.[Out Against the Sioux]264
XXIII.[Looking for Sitting Bull]274
XXIV.[Sitting Bull at Bay]290