field and the fallen. Who will forget McIntosh, striving to rally the
rearmost, dragged from the saddle and hacked to death upon the sward?
Who will forget Benny Hodgson's brave young face,--the pet, the pride of
the whole regiment? Even the daring and devotion of his men could not
save him from the hissing lead of those savage marksmen. Then the
strained suspense, the half-hour's listening to the fierce, the awful
volleying to the north that told of a fearful struggle. The flutter of
hope that it might be the stronger battalion fighting its way through to
the relief of theirs, the weak one; the blank faces that gazed one into
another with awe-stricken inquiry as trumpet blare and rallying shout
and rattling volley receded, not approached; died away, not thundered
anew in coming triumph; the pall of certainty that fell on every man
when silence so soon reigned in the distance, and pandemonium broke out
afresh around them. Back from their bloody work, drunk with blood and
victory, came by thousands the savage warriors to swell the forces that
had driven the white soldiers to cover. Up, thank God! not an instant
too soon, came the comrades from the distant left, and Benteen and
MacDougall riding in with four full companies and the needed ammunition
gave them strength to hold out. Through the hours of fierce battle that
followed, through that dread "running the gauntlet" for water that the
wounded craved, through the stern suspense and strain of the day and
night that intervened before the rescuing forces of Terry came
cautiously up the valley, and the Sioux melted away before them, ah! how
many a time was the question asked, "What can have become of Custer?"

Far, far to the east this still Sabbath afternoon, seeking shelter from
the glare of the same blazing sun, seeking sympathy from each other's
words, seeking hope and comfort from Him who alone can aid, a little
group of women gather at the frontier fort on the banks of the Missouri.
They are the wives of the officers who that morning ride "into the
Valley of Death" with their soldier leader. Fair young matrons and
mothers, whose thoughts have little room for the glad jubilee in the
still more distant East, whose world is with that charging column. Only
a few days since there came to them the evil news that the Indians had
forced back the soldiers of the southern Department,--that meant harder
work, fiercer fighting for their own. And this dread anxiety it is that
cl