The commander stood, field-glasses in hand, pointing down into the valley, and the despatch bearer, reining in his horse, his lips white but resolute, trotted straight up the slope toward him.

Custer wheeled, annoyed at the interruption, and Hampton swung down from the saddle, his rein flung across his arm, took a single step forward, lifting his hand in salute, and held forth the sealed packet.
"Despatches, sir," he said, simply, standing motionless as a statue.
The commander, barely glancing toward him, instantly tore open the long official envelope and ran his eyes over the despatch amid a hush in the conversation.
"Gentlemen," he commented to the little group gathered about him, yet without glancing up from the paper in his hand, "Crook was defeated over on the Rosebud the seventeenth, and forced to retire.

That will account for the unexpected number of hostiles fronting us up here, Cook; but the greater the task, the greater the glory.

Ah, I thought as much.

I am advised by the Department to keep in close touch with Terry and Gibbons, and to hold off from making a direct attack until infantry can arrive in support.