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Custer, evidently, thought that Reno had simply withdrawn to re-form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.