General Terry was not an Indian fighter and would never have made a success of getting Indians on the plains. The idea is preposterous[121] that a force can march through the open country (a great big country like we had) pass by the Indians fifty or sixty miles south, then turn round and find them in the same place, and crush them between that force and another from the opposite direction. They don’t linger that way. Our march from eleven P.M., June 24th, was in a close country and not exposed—was in a close valley, a branch of the Rosebud. The Indians who discovered us and sent word to the village would have discovered our trail and consequently informed them of our movements. General Custer did not intend to attack until June 26th, the date Terry was to be at the Little Big Horn.[122] Herandeen was the scout that was to take the information through to Terry, but developments made it necessary, in General Custer’s opinion, if we were to strike the Indians at all, that we should do it at once. Even then he expected only a running fight. Their stand and concentration were unexpected, because the chance of “surprise” was gone, and he probably did not send Herandeen, as was intended, to communicate with Terry for the reason that he did not think he could get through. Now, suppose the Indians had been located on the headwaters of the Rosebud or Tongue, or Powder, and not on the Little Big Horn, and we had bumped up behind them on the north, should Custer have backed away, sent a scout through to Terry, made a detour so as to get to the south side? Terry’s instructions had fairly located the Indians, but it was a mere _guess_.[123] On the 17th they had fought Crook to a retreat, then they concentrated upon the Little Big Horn. In my opinion, if our attack had been delayed even a few hours we would not have found the Indians all in the village. When we got to the divide their pony herds were still out grazing; when the attack was made all herds had been driven into the village; they did not have time to strike their tepees and steal away. I don’t believe they had a long warning of our advance. The Indian runners had the same, or a greater, distance to get back than we had to advance. It was their evident purpose to drop out of sight of our scouts who were in position for observation before daylight, and did not see them returning down the valley on the trail. Therefore, they must have made a wide detour.