First of all, riding some distance ahead of the main body, were two Osage Indian scouts. One of these was Little Beaver, who was chief of a small band of Indian auxiliaries which had volunteered for the campaign. Next to them came other Indians, several famous frontiersmen, California Joe and Scout Corbin, and a hideous half Negro, half Indian interpreter whose name was Romero, but whom the soldiers facetiously dubbed Romeo, because he was so ugly; then General Custer and his staff, and then, some distance in rear, the successive troops of the regiment in a column of fours. About three miles from their camping place Little Beaver came back to Custer in considerable agitation and declared that he smelled fire. Nobody else smelled anything, but at his insistence the command was halted, and he and one of his men went forward with Custer and one or two of the scouts until they had gone a mile from the halting place. Sure enough, after surmounting a little hill, they saw ahead of them and some distance away the embers of a fire. The advance party halted. Little Beaver and the other Indians snaked their course over the ground, taking advantage of every cover to learn what they could. With beating hearts the general and the others watched them. Would they stumble upon the foemen then and there? They waited, concealed beneath the hillock, until Little Beaver returned to tell them that the fire had evidently been kindled by the boys guarding the herds of ponies during the day. At any rate it had almost gone out, no one was there, and the way was safe for the present, although the main camp was probably not far distant. Orders were sent back to the regiment to advance but to keep its present distance behind Custer and the scouts. The command proceeded with the utmost caution, with an excitement in their veins at the stealthy approach with its possible consequences which made them almost insensible to the frightful cold. About half after twelve o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Custer saw the leading Indian suddenly sink down behind a hill and wave his hand quickly backward. The whole party dismounted, and the commanding officer with one of his scouts crawled to the hill where the Indian lay. Whispering a word or two, Little Beaver pointed straight in front of him. Half a mile away a huge black blotch was tremulously moving on the snow in the moonlight. Experienced eyes recognized a herd of ponies. Where the ponies were there were the Indians also. Custer watched the scene for a moment, and upon the still air—the wind had died and the night though bitter cold was intensely quiet—he heard the sound of a bell, evidently tied to the neck of the leader of the herd. Dogs barked, and as they waited they marked the thin, shrill cry of a little child. It was an Indian camp beyond peradventure. Beyond it, among the bare and leafless trees, gleamed in the moonlight the ice-bound shores of a half-frozen river—the Washita.