sobeyed orders, an' he just kept pilin'
right in till he got his.

"Reno done th' only thing he could do. He retreated back across th'
river, an' got up ag'in a bluff 'bout three hunderd feet high. Reno
Hill, they call it now. An' there we fought for five or six hours, when
Benteen, who'd bin fightin' in th' center, heard heavy firin' over on
his right where Custer was. An' Benteen, he bein' a honest-t'-God Injun
fighter, he knowed that Custer was gone, so he fought his way through to
us, knowin' that we had th' hill behind us.

"An' for three days we kept goin'--not runnin', just standin' an' layin'
down there fightin'. Sure, we stopped firin' at night, but we didn't
stop work. We dug all night long, usin' knives, tin cups, an' plates
instead o' spades an' picks, makin' breast-works; an' then we started
fightin' all over ag'in in th' mornin'.

"Say, boys, I ain't strong f'r prohibition. It'd take me ten years t'
git up nerve enough t' put my foot on a brass rail an' order sody-water
in a drug store, but let me tell you somethin'. On th' afternoon o' that
second day's fightin' there was nothin' on earth to us like water. Th'
wounded was beggin' for it. Oh, boys, they was beggin' for it somethin'
pitiful, an' we that wasn't wounded, our tongues was all swollen an' our
lips was parched till they cracked open. So some of th' boys volunteered
t' go to th' river, an' we took canteens an' camp kettles an' started.

"One of us never come back, an' a lot of us got shot up, but we got
water. Not much, but we got water. I never will forget how I wanted t'
wet my hoss, Long Tom's, tongue, but a wounded bunkie he needed it. That
night we went ag'in an' got some for th' stock, an' it was just in time,
for they sure was dyin' for it.

"Th' fightin' opened ag'in next mornin', an' kept goin' till th'
afternoon. It was th' twenty-seventh o' June, when all at once we seen a
panic start among th' Injuns, an' they began t' stampede, leavin' their
dead all over th' hills. An' Terry come into sight, an' strong men cried
on each other's necks--an' I ain't a bit ashamed t' say that I was one
of 'em.

"When Terry got in, an' congratulatin' an' hand-shakin' was all over,
Lieutenant Bradley he come in, sayin' he'd found Custer, an' we all
dragged ourselves to th' spot.

"There they was, all dead, two hunderd an' sixty-one of 'em. Not one
lived t' tell th' tale. Them that'd bin deployed as skirmishers lay as
they fell, havin' bin entirely