"But th' Old Man was mad. He was out t' do somethin' an' he was a-goin' t' do it. An' he says, 'You're all wrong, but we're goin' t' attack, anyhow.'
"An' Charlie he says somethin', an' walks away, an' I seen th' Old Man starin' an' glarin', an' I says t' m'self, 'When we git back t' th' Fort it's a court-martial for Charlie, sure.' An' then it all happened.
"Boots an' saddles, an' we that was so all-in we c'd just stretch out an' groan with tiredness, was up an' on th' move. My hoss, Long Tom,—an' he was as game a animal as ever lived,—just wavered an' swayed when I hit th' saddle. Gee, boys! we was sure an all-in bunch!
"Why did th' Old Man do it? How in thunder do I know? He just done it. I'm supposin' he was sort o' smartin' under them stay-back orders he had, an' such like, an' just nachally cut th' cable; same as Admiral Dewey done at Manila Bay, only Dewey, he won out, an' our Old Man—well, that's th' story.
"But just to digress or switch off, or whatever that big word is, for a minute. I want t' say that our Old Man, whatever his faults was,—an' I guess he had a-plenty,—he was game. He was a fighter. He said, 'Come ahead,' every time: he never said, 'Go ahead,' An' if all th' boys layin' out there on th' prairie in their graves c'd tell, I'm bettin' my six-shooter ag'in' what you all know about th' Rooshian langwidge that they'd say as how th' Old Man died with a sword in one hand an' a gun in th' other, a-lookin' right into th' sun.
"Well, we made a wide circle—a detower—an' come up ag'in 'way behind th' village, an' right there th' Old Man made his great mistake. I ain't blamin' him none, but it sure shows how a big man c'n lose his head just by bein' crazy mad an' wantin' t' fight. Even th' rookies, what had seen a lot o' service, knowed that he was makin' himself liable—an' him a general—t' be called up on a drumhead court-martial.
"There he was, a thousand miles from anywhere, dividin' his force in th' face of a superior enemy. An' that enemy th' greatest fighters that ever th' sun shined on. You know we men that fighted Injuns knows what they was made of. All this talk 'bout Injuns not bein' fighters, an' not bein' game, an' one white man bein' as good as ten Injuns, makes me feel like th' organ-grinder Dago what said, 'It makes me sick, an' makes th' monkey sick, too!'
"Well, to git back. Gee, you fellers'll think I'm a Williams J. Bryant runnin' f'r President. Notice I said runnin'! No, I ain't tryin' t' be funny. I just wish I could be. It'd sort o' take th' weight off th' awfulness of what I remember as what happened, an' what I can't tell right 'cause I ain't got eddication an' brains enough.
"Th' Old Man, he split us up, him takin' companies C, E, F, I, and L, givin' Benteen four companies an' Reno three companies. He ordered Reno t' go t' th' left an' cross th' Little Big Horn an' attack, th' Injuns from th' rear. Benteen he told t' go straight ahead, an' he himself took th' right. I was with Reno, an' I saw personal what he was up ag'inst. We crossed th' Little Big Horn an' went right into what seemed a million warriors.