The general had been suspended from rank and pay for one year! The claim was made that he had marched his men too hard from Wallace to Hays, and that he had absented himself from Fort Wallace without leave, to go to Mrs. Custer at Fort Riley. His friends believed that he was innocent of any misdoing; but his jealous enemies triumphed, and the War Department had disciplined him. Nevertheless he had spent the winter at Leavenworth, occupying the quarters of General Sheridan himself. One good thing had happened. In the fall Mr. Kidder, father of the slain Lieutenant Kidder of the Second Cavalry, had appeared at Leavenworth, looking for his son’s body. General Custer spoke of the black-and-white checked collar-band, upon one of the bodies; and the father had instantly said that his son had worn just such a shirt, made for him by his mother, for use on the plains. With an escort, the father had hastened on to the Beaver Creek battle-ground, for the remains of his dear boy. Now General Custer was at his old home of Monroe, Michigan, to spend the rest of his term. The Seventh Cavalry must take the field without him. And much it missed its leader—the dashing Custer of the long yellow hair and the crimson tie and the buckskin coat; it missed his horses and his dogs and his enthusiasm; it missed Mrs. Custer. Ned had been relieved from trumpeter duties, and was taking it more easy as clerk in the quartermaster department. His post was made Fort Hays, and here he was when his regiment arrived to camp just outside. Fort Hays had improved. The log quarters were giving place to story and a half frame houses, painted. The town also had expanded. The coming of the railroad had made it grow greatly, although it was not any handsomer. It was a town without law except the law of rope and of pistol. Wild Bill Hickok with his two ivory-handled revolvers and his steely eyes and his quiet manner was the peace-maker; but in making peace men frequently were killed. This was a scout headquarters. Constantly in and out, riding the trails, was Wild Bill; so was Will Comstock; so was California Joe and so was Pony Bill Cody. But they called him Pony Bill no longer. He was now Buffalo Bill. During the past fall he had been employed in supplying buffaloes to feed the laborers on the Kansas Pacific survey. By the amount of buffalo that he had shot he astonished everybody. In a friendly contest with Will Comstock he had killed sixty-nine to Comstock’s forty-six—and Comstock was one of the crack hunters of the plains. There were several new scouts, too: Sharpe Grover and Jack Corbin and Dick Parr and Jack Stillwell and Bill Trudell; all good.