tion--the people followed him
on Pennsylvania Avenue whenever he appeared.

General Terry was chosen to head the expedition against the hostile
Sioux, and Custer was to go as second in command.

Terry was older than Custer, but Custer had seen more service on the
plains. Custer demurred--threatened to resign--and wrote a note to the
President asking for a personal interview and requesting a review of
the situation.

President Grant refused to see Custer, and reminded him that the first
duty of a soldier was obedience.

Custer left Washington, glum and sullen--grieved. But he was a soldier,
and so he reported at Fort Lincoln, as ordered, to serve under a man
who knew less about Indian fighting than did he.

The force of a thousand men embarked on six boats at Bismarck. There a
banquet was given in honor of Terry and Custer. "You will hear from us
by courier before July Fourth," said Custer.

He was still moody and depressed, but declared his willingness to do
his duty.

Terry did not like his attitude and told him so. Poor Custer was stung
by the reprimand.

He was only a boy, thirty-seven years old, to be sure, but with the
whimsical, daring, ambitious and jealous quality of the center-rush.
Custer at times had his eye on the White House--why not! Had not Grant
been a soldier?

Women worshiped Custer, and men who knew him, never doubted his
earnestness and honesty. He lacked humor.

He was both sincere and serious.

The expedition moved on up the tortuous Missouri, tying up at night to
avoid the treacherous sandbars that lay in wait.

They had reached the Yellowstone River, and were getting into the
Indian Country.

To lighten the boats, Terry divided his force into two parts. Custer
disembarked on the morning of the Twenty-fifth of June, with four
hundred forty-three men, besides a dozen who looked after the
pack-train.

Scouts reported that the hostile Sioux were camped on the Little Big
Horn, seventy-five miles across the country.

Terry gave Custer orders to march the seventy-five miles in
forty-eight hours, and attack the Indians at the head of their camp at
daylight on the morning of the Twenty-seventh. There was to be no
parley--panic was the thing desired, and when Custer had started the
savages on the run, Terry would attack them at the other end of their
village, and the two fleeing mobs of savages would be driven on each
other, and then they would cast down their arms and the trick would