"When we got to th' mouth o' th' Yellowstone it was June twenty-first. We unloaded. An' General Terry says t' our Old Man—don't forget we just called him that; General Custer was only thirty-eight years old—Terry says, 'You take your Seventh men an' scout ahead an' let Charlie Reynolds go ahead o' you.' 'Cause everybody knowed that Charlie Reynolds savvied Injuns an' Injun ways better'n any white man that ever lived—him that was known as 'Lonesome Charlie.'
"An' Terry he says t' Custer, our Old Man, 'When you get t' th' Little Big Horn country you wait for me, as I'm travelin' heavy. I'll be four days makin' it.'
"An' again says Terry t' our Old Man: 'If you see any Injuns in force, halt an' stay there till I come up, but don't start any fight unless they force it on you, an' if they do force it on you, fight on th' defensive'—which, as you all know, is backin' up. 'Fight on th' defensive till I come up with you, an' then we'll give 'em hell.'
"Our Old Man he said, 'You bet,' an' we left.
"General Custer he was in command, and Colonel Benteen an' Major Reno was his officers. After doin' twenty or thirty miles in th' saddle, we was sure a s'prised bunch o' rookies when we didn't stop. We didn't stop. No, siree! We kep' right on a-goin'. We didn't stop when we hit forty miles, nor sixty miles, nor eighty miles. It was ninety miles from where we left Terry when th' Old Man said, 'Coffee an' biscuits,' an' believe me, we wanted 'em bad.
"We'd bin in th' saddle for twenty-two hours, an' if you don't think that's ridin', try it sometime. The hosses was all in. My hoss—'Long Tom' I called him—he layed down as soon as I off-saddled him, an' stuck his face into his nose-bag an' eat layin' down. First time I ever seen a hoss do that.
"Charlie Reynolds, he was ahead, an' he come back an' had a pow-wow with th' Old Man an' Reno an' Benteen, an' we seen 'em workin' th' field glasses overtime. 'Course, we didn't know what was bein' said, or what was goin' on. All we c'd see was that they was mighty excited like. All except Charlie. He musta had his say an' then stopped—Injun like. 'Cause Charlie, he was just a white Injun.
"I got Lieutenant Hodgson to let me have a peep through his glasses. After a ride like that, in a Injun country, a regular c'n be quite on speakin' terms with his officers, an' when I looked through them glasses what I seed didn't mean much t' me. 'Way off, down by th' river, was some tepees an' stuff layin' 'round, just like it was a Injun camp. That's what it looked like t' me, an' that's what I found out afterwards was what it looked like t' th' Old Man.
"Benteen an' Reno, they wasn't expressin' much opinion, as they was expectin' t' stay right where they was an' wait devel'pments, like Terry said they was t' do, but th' Old Man, he said, 'Attack!' An' right there was where Charlie Reynolds come in.
"He says that th' Injun village was a decoy; that he c'd tell by th' stuff, th' buffalo robes an' all, that was layin' 'round; that there was eight thousand fightin' Injuns in that part of th' country, an' that it was a safe bet that seven thousand nine hundred an' ninety-nine was layin' right in behind them hog-backs—low hills—a-waitin' for us.