Chapter 2

After five miles had been turned off on a walk, Custer ordered a trot, and then, where the ground was level, a canter.

On they went.

They pitched camp at four o'clock, having covered forty miles. The horses were unsaddled and fed, and supper cooked and eaten.

But sleep was not to be--these men shall sleep no more!

The bugles sounded "Boots and Saddles." Before sunset they were again on their way.

By three o'clock on the morning of the Twenty-sixth, they had covered more than seventy miles.

They halted for coffee.

The night, waiting for the dawn, was doubly dark.

Fast-riding scouts had gone on ahead, and now reported the Indians camped just over the ridge, four miles away.

Custer divided his force into two parts. The Indians were camped along the river for three miles. There were about two thousand of them, and the women and children were with them.

Reno with two hundred fifty men was ordered to swing around and attack the village from the South. Custer with one hundred ninety-three men would watch the charge, and when the valiant Reno had started the panic and the Indians were in confusion, his force would then sweep around and charge them from the other end of the village.

This was Terry's plan of battle, only Custer was going to make the capture without Terry's help.

When Terry came up the following day, he would find the work all done and neatly, too. Results are the only things that count, and victory justifies itself.

The battle would go down on the records as Custer's triumph!

Reno took a two-mile detour, and just at peep of day, ere the sun had gilded the tops of the cottonwoods, charged, with yells and rapid firing, into the Indian village. Custer stood on the ridge, his men mounted and impatient just below on the other side.

He could distinguish Reno's soldiers as they charged into the underbrush. Their shouts and the sound of firing filled his fighter's heart.

The Indians were in confusion--he could see them by the dim light, stampeding. They were running in brownish masses right around the front of the hill where he stood. He ordered the bugles to blow the charge.

The soldiers greeted the order with a yell--tired muscles, the sleepless night, its seventy-five miles of hard riding, were forgotten. The battle would be fought and won in less time than a man takes to eat his breakfast.

Down the slope swept Custer's men to meet the fleeing foe.

But now the savages had ceased to flee. They lay in the grass and fired.

Several of Custer's horses fell.

Three of his men threw up their hands, and dropped from their saddles, limp like bags of oats, and their horses ran on alone.

The gully below was full of Indians, and these sent a murderous fire at Custer as he came. His horses swerved, but several ran right on and disappeared, horse and rider in the sunken ditch, as did Napoleon's men at Waterloo.

The mad, headlong charge hesitated. The cottonwoods, the water and the teepees were a hundred yards away.

Custer glanced back, and a mile distant saw Reno's soldiers galloping wildly up the steep slope of the hill.

Reno's charge had failed--instead of riding straight down through the length of the village and meeting Custer, he had gotten only fifty rods, and then had been met by a steady fire from Indians who held their ground. He wedged them back, but his horses, already overridden, refused to go on, and the charging troops were simply carried out of the woods into the open, and once there they took to the hills for safety, leaving behind, dead, one-third of their force.

Custer quickly realized the hopelessness of charging alone into a mass of Indians, who were exultant and savage in the thought of victory. Panic was not for them.

They were armed with Springfield rifles, while the soldiers had only short-range carbines.

The bugles now ordered a retreat, and Custer's men rode back to the top of the hill--with intent to join forces with Reno.

Reno was hopelessly cut off. Determined Sioux filled the gully that separated the two little bands of brave men.

Custer, evidently, thought that Reno had simply withdrawn to re-form his troop, and that any moment Reno would ride to his rescue.

Custer decided to hold the hill.

The Indians were shooting at him from long range, occasionally killing a horse.

He told off his fours and ordered the horses sent to the rear.

The fours led their horses back toward where they had left their packmules when they had stopped for coffee at three o'clock.

But the fours had not gone half a mile when they were surrounded by a mob of Indians that just closed in on them. Every man was killed--the horses were galloped off by the women and children.

Custer now realized that he was caught in a trap. The ridge where his men lay face down was half a mile long, and not more than twenty feet across at the top. The Indians were everywhere--in the gullies, in the grass, in little scooped-out holes. The bullets whizzed above the heads of Custer's men as they lay there, flattening their bodies in the dust.

The morning sun came out, dazzling and hot.

It was only nine o'clock.

The men were without food and without water. The Little Big Horn danced over its rocky bed and shimmered in the golden light, only half a mile away, and there in the cool, limpid stream they had been confident they would now swim and fish, the battle over, while they proudly held the disarmed Indians against General Terry's coming.

But the fight had not been won, and death lay between them and water. The only thing to do was to await Reno or Terry. Reno might come at any time, and Terry would arrive without fail at tomorrow's dawn--he had said so, and his word was the word of a soldier.

Custer had blundered.

The fight was lost.

Now it was just a question of endurance. Noon came, and the buzzards began to gather in the azure.

The sun was blistering hot--there was not a tree, nor a bush, nor a green blade of grass within reach.

The men had ceased to joke and banter. The situation was serious. Some tried to smoke, but their parching thirst was thus only aggravated--they threw their pipes away.

The Indians now kept up an occasional shooting.

They were playing with the soldiers as a cat plays with a mouse.

The Indian is a cautious fighter--he makes no sacrifices in order to win. Now he had his prey secure.

Soon the soldiers would run out of ammunition, and then one more day, or two at least, and thirst and fatigue would reduce brave men into old women, and the squaws could rush in and pound them on the head with clubs.

The afternoon dragged along its awful length. Time dwindled and dawdled.

At last the sun sank, a ball of fire in the West.

The moon came out.

Now and then a Sioux would creep up into shadowy view, but a shot from a soldier would send him back into hiding. Down in the cottonwoods the squaws made campfires and were holding a dance, singing their songs of victory.

Custer warned his men that sleep was death. This was their second sleepless night, and the men were feverish with fatigue. Some babbled in strange tongues, and talked with sisters and sweethearts and people who were not there--reason was tottering.

With Custer was an Indian boy, sixteen years old, "Curley the Crow." Custer now at about midnight told Curley to strip himself and crawl out among the Indians, and if possible, get out through the lines and tell Terry of their position. Several of Custer's men had tried to reach water, but none came back.

Curley got through the lines--his boldness in mixing with the Indians and his red skin saving him. He took a long way round and ran to tell Terry the seriousness of the situation.

Terry was advancing, but was hampered and harassed by Indians for twenty miles. They fired at him from gullies, ridges, rocks, prairie-dog mounds, and then retreated. He had to move with caution. Instead of arriving at daylight as he expected, Terry was three hours behind. The Indians surrounding Custer saw the dust from the advancing troop.

They hesitated to charge Custer boldly as he lay on the hilltop, entrenched by little ditches dug in the night with knives, tin cups and bleeding fingers.

It was easy to destroy Custer, but it meant a dead Sioux for every white soldier.

The Indians made sham charges to draw Custer's fire, and then withdrew.

They circled closer. The squaws came up with sticks and stones and menaced wildly.

Custer's fire grew less and less. He was running out of ammunition.

Terry was only five miles away.

The Indians closed in like a cloud around Custer and his few survivors.

It was a hand-to-hand fight--one against a hundred.

In five minutes every man was dead, and the squaws were stripping the mangled and bleeding forms.

Already the main body of Indians was trailing across the plains toward the mountains.

Terry arrived, but it was too late.

An hour later Reno limped in, famished, half of his men dead or wounded, sick, undone.

To follow the fleeing Indians was useless--the dead soldiers must be decently buried, and the living succored. Terry himself had suffered sore.

The Indians were five thousand strong, not two. They had gathered up all the other tribes for more than a hundred miles. Now they moved North toward Canada. Terry tried to follow, but they held him off with a rear-guard, like white veterans. The Indians escaped across the border.

Anybody can order, but to serve with grace, tact and effectiveness is a fine art.

SAM

In San Francisco lived a lawyer--age, sixty--rich in money, rich in intellect, a business man with many interests.

Now, this lawyer was a bachelor, and lived in apartments with his Chinese servant "Sam."

Sam and his master had been together for fifteen years.

The servant knew the wants of his employer as though he were his other self. No orders were necessary.

If there was to be a company--one guest or a hundred--Sam was told the number, that was all, and everything was provided.

This servant was cook, valet, watchman, friend.

No stray, unwished-for visitor ever got to the master to rob him of his rest when he was at home.

If extra help was wanted, Sam secured it; he bought what was needed; and when the lawyer awakened in the morning, it was to the singing of a tiny music-box with a clock attachment set for seven o'clock.

The bath was ready; a clean shirt was there on the dresser, with studs and buttons in place; collar and scarf were near; the suit of clothes desired hung over a chair; the right pair of shoes, polished like a mirror, was at hand, and on the mantel was a half-blown rose, with the dew still upon it, for a boutonniere.

Downstairs, the breakfast, hot and savory, waited.

When the good man was ready to go to the office, silent as a shadow stood Sam in the hallway, with overcoat, hat and cane in hand.

When the weather was threatening, an umbrella was substituted for the cane. The door was opened, and the master departed.

When he returned at nightfall, on his approach the door swung wide.

Sam never took a vacation; he seemed not to either eat or sleep.

He was always near when needed; he disappeared when he should.

He knew nothing and he knew everything.

For weeks scarcely a word might pass between these men, they understood each other so well.

The lawyer grew to have a great affection for his servant.

He paid him a hundred dollars a month, and tried to devise other ways to show his gratitude; but Sam wanted nothing, not even thanks.

All he desired was the privilege to serve.

But one morning as Sam poured his master's coffee, he said quietly, without a shade of emotion on his yellow face, "Next week I leave you."

The lawyer smiled.

"Next week I leave you," repeated the Chinese; "I hire for you better man."

The lawyer set down his cup of coffee. He looked at the white-robed servant. He felt the man was in earnest.

"So you are going to leave me--I do not pay you enough, eh? That Doctor Sanders who was here--he knows what a treasure you are. Don't be a fool, Sam; I'll make it a hundred and fifty a month--say no more."

"Next week I leave you--I go to China," said the servant impassively.

"Oh, I see! You are going back for a wife? All right, bring her here--you will return in two months? I do not object; bring your wife here--there is work for two to keep this place in order. The place is lonely, anyway. I'll see the Collector of the Port, myself, and arrange your passage-papers."

"I go to China next week: I need no papers--I never come back," said the man with exasperating calmness and persistence.

"By God, you shall not go!" said the lawyer.

"By God, I will!" answered the heathen.

It was the first time in their experience together that the servant had used such language, or such a tone, toward his master.

The lawyer pushed his chair back, and after an instant said, quietly, "Sam, you must forgive me; I spoke quickly. I do not own you--but tell me, what have I done--why do you leave me this way, you know I need you!"

"I will not tell you why I go--you laugh."

"No, I shall not laugh."

"You will."

"I say, I will not."

"Very well, I go to China to die!"

"Nonsense! You can die here. Haven't I agreed to send your body back if you die before I do?"

"I die in four weeks, two days!"

"What!"

"My brother, he in prison. He twenty-six, I fifty. He have wife and baby. In China they accept any man same family to die. I go to China, give my money to my brother--he live, I die!"

The next day a new Chinaman appeared as servant in the lawyer's household. In a week this servant knew everything, and nothing, just like Sam.

And Sam disappeared, without saying good-by.

He went to China and was beheaded, four weeks and two days from the day he broke the news of his intent to go.

His brother was set free.

And the lawyer's household goes along about as usual, save when the master calls for "Sam," when he should say, "Charlie."

At such times there comes a kind of clutch at his heart, but he says nothing.

When power and beauty meet, the world would do well to take to its cyclone-cellar.

CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR

The sole surviving daughter of the great King Ptolemy of Egypt, Cleopatra was seventeen years old when her father died.

By his will the King made her joint heir to the throne with her brother Ptolemy, several years her junior. And according to the custom not unusual among royalty at that time, it was provided that Ptolemy should become the husband of Cleopatra.

She was a woman--her brother a child.

She had intellect, ambition, talent. She knew the history of her own country, and that of Assyria, Greece and Rome; and all the written languages of the world were to her familiar. She had been educated by the philosophers, who had brought from Greece the science of Pythagoras and Plato. Her companions had been men--not women, or nurses, or pious, pedantic priests.

Through the veins of her young body pulsed and leaped life, plus.

She abhorred the thought of an alliance with her weak-chinned brother; and the ministers of State, who suggested another husband as a compromise, were dismissed with a look.

They said she was intractable, contemptuous, unreasonable, and was scheming for the sole possession of the throne.

She was not to be diverted even by ardent courtiers who were sent to her, and who lay in wait ready with amorous sighs--she scorned them all.

Yet she was a woman still, and in her dreams she saw the coming prince.

She was banished from Alexandria.

A few friends followed her, and an army was formed to force from the enemy her rights.

But other things were happening--a Roman army came leisurely drifting in with the tide and disembarked at Alexandria. The Great Caesar himself was in command--a mere holiday, he said. He had intended to join the land forces of Mark Antony and help crush the rebellious Pompey, but Antony had done the trick alone; and only a few days before, word had come that Pompey was dead.

Caesar knew that civil war was on in Alexandria, and being near he sailed slowly in, sending messengers on ahead warning both sides to lay down their arms.

With him was the far-famed invincible Tenth Legion that had ravished Gaul. Caesar wanted to rest his men and, incidentally, to reward them. They took possession of the city without a blow.

Cleopatra's troops laid down their arms, but Ptolemy's refused. They were simply chased beyond the walls, and their punishment for the time being was deferred.

Caesar took possession of the palace of the King, and his soldiers accommodated themselves in the houses, public buildings, and temples as best they could.

Cleopatra asked for a personal interview, in order to present her cause.

Caesar declined to meet her--he understood the trouble--many such cases he had seen. Claimants for thrones were not new to him. Where two parties quarreled, both are right--or wrong--it really mattered little.

It is absurd to quarrel--still more foolish to fight.

Caesar was a man of peace, and to keep the peace he would appoint one of his generals governor, and make Egypt a Roman colony.

In the meantime he would rest a week or two, with the kind permission of the Alexandrians, and write upon his "Commentaries"--no, he would not see either Cleopatra or Ptolemy--any desired information they would get through his trusted emissaries.

In the service of Cleopatra was a Sicilian slave who had been her personal servant since she was a little girl. This man's name was Appolidorus. He was a man of giant stature and imposing mien. Ten years before his tongue had been torn out as a token that as he was to attend a queen he should tell no secrets.

Appolidorus had but one thought in life, and that was to defend his gracious queen. He slept at the door of Cleopatra's tent, a naked sword at his side, held in his clenched and brawny hand.

And now behold at dusk of day the grim and silent Appolidorus, carrying upon his giant shoulders a large and curious rug, rolled up and tied 'round at each end with ropes.

He approaches the palace of the King, and at the guarded gate hands a note to the officer in charge. This note gives information to the effect that a certain patrician citizen of Alexandria, being glad that the gracious Caesar had deigned to visit Egypt, sends him the richest rug that can be woven--done, in fact, by his wife and daughters and held against this day, awaiting Rome's greatest son.

The officer reads the note, and orders a soldier to accept the gift and carry it within--presents were constantly arriving. A sign from the dumb giant makes the soldier stand back--the present is for Caesar and can be delivered only in person. "Lead and I will follow," were the words done in stern pantomime. The officer laughs, sends in the note, and the messenger soon returning, signifies that the present is acceptable and the slave bearing it shall be shown in. Appolidorus shifts his burden to the other shoulder, and follows the soldier through the gate, up the marble steps, along the splendid hallway, lighted by flaring torches and lined with reclining Roman soldiers.

At a door they pause an instant, there is a whispered word--they enter.

The room is furnished as becomes the room that is the private library of the King of Egypt. In one corner, seated at the table, pen in hand, sits a man of middle age, pale, clean-shaven, with hair close-cropped. His dress is not that of a soldier--it is the flowing white robe of a Roman Priest. Only one servant attends this man, a secretary, seated near, who rises and explains that the present is acceptable and shall be deposited on the floor.

The pale man at the table looks up, smiles a tired smile and murmurs in a perfunctory way his thanks.

Appolidorus having laid his burden on the floor, kneels to untie the ropes. The secretary explains that he need not trouble, pray bear thanks and again thanks to his master--he need not tarry!

The dumb man on his knees neither hears nor heeds. The rug is unrolled.

From out the roll a woman leaps lightly to her feet--a beautiful young woman of twenty.

She stands there, poised, defiant, gazing at the pale-faced man seated at the table.

He is not surprised--he never was. One might have supposed he received all his visitors in this manner.

"Well?" he says in a quiet way, a half-smile parting his thin lips.

The breast of the woman heaves with tumultuous emotion--just an instant. She speaks, and there is no tremor in her tones. Her voice is low, smooth and scarcely audible: "I am Cleopatra."

The man at the desk lays down his pen, leans back and gently nods his head, as much as to say, indulgently, "Yes, my child, I hear--go on!"

"I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and I would speak with thee, alone."

She pauses; then raising one jeweled arm motions to Appolidorus that he shall withdraw.

With a similar motion, the man at the desk signifies the same to his astonished secretary.

Appolidorus went down the long hallway, down the stone steps and waited at the outer gate amid the throng of soldiers. They questioned him, gibed him, railed at him, but they got no word in reply.

He waited--he waited an hour, two--and then came a messenger with a note written on a slip of parchment. The words ran thus: "Well-beloved 'Dorus: Veni, vidi, vici! Go fetch my maids; also, all of our personal belongings."

As the cities are all only two days from famine, so is man's life constantly but a step from dissolution.

A SPECIAL OCCASION

Once on a day, I spoke at the Athenaeum, New Orleans, for the Young Men's Hebrew Association.

When they had asked my fee I answered, "One Hundred Fifty Dollars." The reply was, "We will pay you Two Hundred--it is to be a special occasion."

A carriage was sent to my hotel for me. The Jews may be close traders, but when it comes to social functions, they know what to do. The Jew is the most generous man in the world, even if he can be at times cent per cent.

As I approached the Athenaeum I thought, "What a beautiful building!" It was stone and brick--solid, subdued, complete and substantial. The lower rooms were used for the Hebrew Club. Upstairs stretched the splendid hall, as I could tell from the brilliantly lighted windows.

Inside, I noticed that the stairways were carpeted with Brussels. Glancing through the wide doorways, I beheld an audience of more than two thousand people. The great chandeliers sent out a dazzling glory from their crystal and gold. At the sides, rich tapestries and hangings of velvet covered the windows.

"A beautiful building," I said to my old-time friend, Maurice J. Pass, the Secretary of the Club.

He smiled in satisfaction and replied, "Well, we seldom let things go by default--you have tonight as fine an audience as ever assembled in New Orleans."

We passed down a side hallway and under the stage, preparatory to going on the platform. In this room below the stage a single electric light shone. The place was dark and dingy, in singular contrast to the beauty, light, cleanliness and order just beyond. In the corner were tables piled high--evidently used for banquets--broken furniture and discarded boxes.

Several smart young men in full dress sat on the tables smoking cigarettes. One young man said in explanation, "We were crowded out--had to give up our seats to ladies--so we are going to sit on the stage."

The soft blue smoke from the cigarettes seemed to hug close about the lonely electric light.

I saw the smoke and thought that beside the odor of tobacco I detected the smell of smoldering pine.

"Isn't it a trifle smoky here?" I said to the young man nearest me.

He laughed at this remark and handed me a cigarette.