And next came the more startling news that on the Arikaree branch of the upper Republican, not far from the Forks where Pawnee Killer had attacked the Seventh Cavalry camp, 700 Cheyenne warriors under Chief Roman Nose had surrounded General Forsyth’s fifty men, and had almost “wiped them out.” After a terrific fight of three days and three nights, the volunteers had been rescued by Colonel Carpenter and his Tenth Cavalry from Fort Wallace. Lieutenant Beecher and Dr. Mooers had been killed; the general thrice wounded; Roman Nose and many of his braves had fallen. Jack Stillwell had brought the first dispatch through to Wallace; Trudell had been his companion.
Yes, war it was. Wouldn’t Custer be needed? At Monroe, Michigan, wouldn’t he be chafing? His term of discipline was almost done. Then, as sudden great news, appeared in the Leavenworth daily paper received at Fort Hays the following telegram, copied:
Headquarters Department of the Missouri,
In the Field, Fort Hays, Kansas, September 24, 1868.
General G. A. Custer, Monroe, Michigan:
Generals Sherman, Sully, and myself, and nearly all the officers of your regiment, have asked for you, and I hope the application will be successful. Can you come at once? Eleven companies of your regiment will move about the 1st of October against the hostile Indians, from Medicine Lodge Creek toward the Wichita Mountains.
P. H. Sheridan, Major-General Commanding.
[XIII]
THE YELLOW HAIR RIDES AGAIN
General Custer did not delay. He never did. Within less than a week, on the last morning of September who should come racing into the post, accompanying the ambulance from the railroad station at Hays City, but Maida and Blucher and Flirt the stag hounds, and Rover the old fox hound, and Fanny the little fox-terrier, and all the other Custer dogs; and who should spring out of the ambulance, before it had stopped at headquarters, but the general himself! There he was, with his yellow hair and his shining eyes and his quick voice and his lithe, trim figure, ready for business again.