“Sitting Bull,” chief of a band of Uncpapa Sioux Indians, was at this time forty-two years old. A great, squatty, hulking, low-browed savage, of forbidding looks and enormous strength, and in height as near as might be to five feet eight inches. He had the reputation among his own followers, as well as the warriors of other bands, of being a Medicine-man of mark, a dealer in omens, a conjurer of demons, a weaver of magic, a foreteller of dire events, and a familiar of departed spirits. Outside of his magic he was known as a coward, but this defect they overlooked in the belief that his soothsayings fully compensated for the deficiency in his personal valour. Their faith in his incantations was unbounded. In the fight of the Little Big Horn, “Sitting Bull” divided his energies between getting as far from the scene of strife as his fat legs would carry him, and performing fanatical rites to the confounding of the White man. The actual leaders in the fight were “Crazy Horse,” “Gall,” and “Crow King”; and in a lesser degree, “Low Dog,” “Big Road,” “Hump,” “Spotted Eagle,” and “Little Horse,” all chiefs of bands and men of ability and unflinching personal courage. These superintended the movements of the “Hostiles,” and by their personal feats of daring encouraged their followers, while “Sitting Bull” looked after the Fates and took the _kudos_ of the game. At noon on June 22nd Custer and his men set out for the wilderness. Warnings and omens do not seem to have been confined to the wigwam of the Red man, for on the fatal march to the Little Big Horn there were many that foretold disaster to the expedition. Captain Godfrey, who marched with the columns, in his written account of the calamitous affair, mentions many incidents which were taken to point to disaster. He tells, for instance, that on the evening of the first day of their march Custer sent for his officers. After a “talk,” Lieutenant Wallace said to Godfrey, as they walked away from the general’s tent, “Godfrey, I believe General Custer is going to be killed.” Asked his reasons for this belief, he simply answered: “I have never heard Custer speak in that way before.” A little later in the evening Captain Godfrey came upon a camp-fire, around which sat “Bloody Knife,” “Half-Yellow-Face,” and the interpreter Bouyer. The half-breed asked the captain if he had ever fought against the Sioux. Answered in the affirmative, the interpreter gazed into the fire for a few moments before saying emphatically, “I can tell you we are going to have a ---- big fight.” Then again an ominous thing happened. The general’s headquarters-flag was blown down and fell to the rear, and in being replanted again fell to the rear.