Truly, seeing this long column stretching two miles, ranks regular, spurs jingling, infantry guns aslant, guidon and flag gaily afloat, there appeared to be no reason why the white “wives and sweethearts” and those Ree squaws should feel so bad. Here were the twelve troops of the fighting Seventh Cavalry, under Custer himself; here were infantry—two companies of the Sixth Regulars and one of the Seventeenth; here were four gatling guns and a platoon of the Twentieth Infantry to serve them; and forty Arikari or Ree scouts under Chief Bloody Knife; and forage Master “Bos” Custer and young “Autie” Reed, who was appointed a herder for the beef cattle, and “Lonesome” Charley Reynolds the white scout, and Isaiah the squaw-man black scout from Fort Rice; and a great supply train of 114 six-mule wagons, 107 other wagons, and eighty-five pack-mules; altogether, 1,000 men. They had rations and forage for thirty days, and each soldier carried one hundred rifle or carbine cartridges, and fifty revolver cartridges. The Seventh had left their sabres behind and they were glad of it, because the sabres were a bother. They could do better work with their Colt’s revolvers and their Remington carbines. Not even the officers wore swords. This was the “Lincoln column.” Up from Wyoming were marching the Crook column—ten companies of the Third Cavalry, and five of the Second, and six companies from the Fourth and the Ninth United States Infantry: 1300 men under General George Crook, the “Gray Fox” who had fought the Apaches in Arizona. In from western Montana were marching the “Montana column”—four companies of the Second Cavalry, and two of the Seventh Infantry: 400 men under General John Gibbon, who had won rank and honor in the Civil War. Twenty-seven hundred soldiers under three famous generals ought to whip Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The Lincoln column made first camp a short distance out from the fort. Early the next morning Mrs. Custer and Mrs. Calhoun said good-by to their husbands and friends and must go back to Lincoln. As long as they were in sight they waved their handkerchiefs; the general and Lieutenant Calhoun from their positions waved back. When this ceased, then did it seem to Ned as though at last the campaign into the enemy’s country had actually begun. XXIII LOOKING FOR SITTING BULL “How many Injuns will there be, do you think?” invited “Autie” Reed, excitedly, of Ned. This was the evening of June 21. The expedition had been out from Fort Lincoln over a month. Now they were in camp at the mouth of the Rosebud River, on the south side of the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana—just beyond the Tongue River where in the summer of 1873 General Custer had first met the Sioux in battle and had almost been cut off, and Doctor Honzinger and Sutler Baliran had been killed by Rain-in-the-Face.