The Mintage | Page 8

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