back, the corporal saw that the poor recruit was losing ground
rapidly; his horse was rearing and plunging, making very little headway,
while his rider was jerking and pulling on the bit, a curb of the
severest kind. Perceiving the strait his comrade was in, the corporal
reined up for a moment and called out,--

"Let him go! Let him go! Don't jerk on the bit so!"

The Indians were gaining ground rapidly, and in another moment the
corporal heard the recruit again cry out,--

"Oh! Don't--"

Realizing that it would be fatal to delay, and that he could be of
no assistance to his companion, already killed and scalped, he leaned
forward on his horse, and sinking his spurs deep in the animal's flanks
fairly flew down the valley, with the three hundred savages close in his
wake.

The officers at the camp were sitting in their tents when the sentinel
on post No. 1 fired his piece, upon which all rushed out to learn the
cause of the alarm; for there was no random shooting in those days
allowed around camp or in garrison. Looking up the valley of the Walnut,
they could see the lucky corporal, with his long hair streaming in the
wind, and his heels rapping his horse's sides, as he dashed over the
brown sod of the winter prairie.

The corporal now slackened his pace, rode up to the commanding officer's
tent, reported the affair, and then was allowed to go to his own
quarters for the rest he so much needed.

Captain Conkey immediately ordered a mounted squad, accompanied by an
ambulance, to go up the creek to recover the body of the unfortunate
recruit. The party were absent a little over an hour, and brought back
with them the remains of the dead soldier. He had been shot with
an arrow, the point of which was still sticking out through his
breast-bone. His scalp had been torn completely off, and the lapels of
his coat and the legs of his trousers carried away by the savages.
He was buried the next morning with military honours, in the little
graveyard on the bank of the Walnut, where his body still rests in the
dooryard of the ranch.

CHAPTER XXIII. HANCOCK'S EXPEDITION.

In the spring of 1867, General Hancock, who then commanded the military
division of the Missouri, with headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
organized an expedition against the Indians of the great plains, which
he led in person. With him was General Custer, second ranking officer,
from whom I quote the story of the march and some of the i