excitement. The Elder had gone about his work; Mrs. Conklin seemed as
helplessly indifferent as usual; Loo was complacently careless; but
Bancroft, having had time for reflection, felt sure that all this was
Western presumption; General Custer could not accept defeat so easily.
At the "corner" he found a couple of hundred youths and men assembled.
They were all armed, but the general opinion was that Custer would do
nothing. One old farmer summed up the situation in the phrase, "Thar
ain't nothin' for him to do, but set still."

About eight o'clock, however, Richards raced up, with his horse in a
lather, and announced that Custer, with three hundred men, had started
from Wichita before six.

"He'll be hyar in half an hour," he concluded.

Hurried counsel was taken; fifty men sought cover behind the stooks of
corn, the rest lined the skirting woods. When all was in order, Bancroft
was deputed to go and fetch the Elder, whom he eventually discovered at
the wood pile, sawing and splitting logs for firewood.

"Make haste, Elder," he cried, "Morris has sent me for you, and there's
no time to be lost. Custer, with three hundred men, left Wichita at six
o'clock this morning, and they'll be here very soon."

The Elder paused unwillingly, and resting on his axe asked: "Is Morris
alone?"

"No!" replied Bancroft, amazed to think the Elder could have forgotten
the arrangements he had heard described the evening before. "There are
two hundred men down there in the corner and in the woods," and he