The post headquarters, where lived the general and family, was the best of the double two-story stone houses about the parade-ground. It frequently echoed with song and laughter and merry cries, and the general’s hunting-horn. The household was composed of the general and Mrs. Custer, Lizzie the faithful black cook, who had been with the general in the South through the War, and a little negro boy who wanted to be a jockey. Then of course there were the dogs. In the other half of the house lived Major Alfred Gibbs and family. Major Gibbs was a portly, carefully-dressed man, who had been a soldier since 1846. He ranked next to General Custer. In his house the general was the same rollicking, active spirit that he was when ahorse; on duty at the post or afield, and mingling with the soldiers, he acted the strict officer. He might joke with the other officers, but all the men understood that he was the chief, and that he would brook no intrusion upon his military dignity. Thus, although they called him (out of his hearing) the “old man,” and “old Jack” (because of the initials G. A. C., for George Armstrong Custer, on his baggage), they saluted promptly, and obeyed instantly, and tried no jokes on _him_! Through the long winter officers, recruits and horses were arriving almost daily at Fort Riley, to bring up the Seventh Cavalry roll. Ned grew to know them all. The yellow-haired, boyish General Custer remained in command; for although he ranked as lieutenant-colonel, his superior officer of the regiment, Colonel Andrew Jackson Smith, a major-general and a veteran, who dated back to 1838, was kept on duty elsewhere. Therefore “old Jack” held the reins at the post—and the soldiers were speedily brought to know it. Of the younger officers Ned liked especially his Captain, Louis M. Hamilton—who was also a lieutenant-colonel; First Lieutenant Tom Custer, the general’s light-hearted younger brother, a lieutenant-colonel who had enlisted in the war at sixteen and wore two medals for enemy’s flags captured; Captain Myles Keogh, who had served the Pope as well as in the Army of the Potomac; Lieutenant Myles Moylan the adjutant; and the young second lieutenants who were called “shave-tails” and “tad-poles” and “plebes.” Wild Bill, the frontiersman scout, was at the post frequently, passing up and down, by horse or stage, along the trail west. He was as particular in his dress as was old Major Gibbs; everything that he wore was of the finest material, from the ruffle-pleated soft white shirt and broad-cloth in Junction City to the blue flannel shirt and riding-breeches on the trail. No matter how dressed, he was always the same quiet, courteous personage—but he never was seen without the two ivory-handled revolvers ready at his hips. Report said that he could shoot to the centre without sighting; and could shoot backward over his shoulder or under his arm, with an equal deadliness.