got the best pot-pies we ever tasted. One will say, "I'll tell you where you can get the very nicest pot-pie you ever put in your mouth," and before he can go any further the other two will call out, "At mother's."
I saw the most beautiful red-deer yesterday I ever have seen. It was a new species to me; of the deepest red, as red as the reddest cow you ever saw. I was too far away to get a shot.
All the officers were up at my tent last night at twilight, sitting under the awning in front, all jolly, all good-humored, full of their jokes, and prouder than ever of the 7th, as they modestly compared the regiment with the infantry.
This letter of forty-four closely-written pages would make a Galaxy article so far as its length goes; suppose you send me a check for it as the Galaxy people do for theirs?
You must read a good deal of it to mother, or tell her of its contents, and say that this time this letter must do for the family. I hope your going home will be a comfort to her and improve her health.
Tell D——— if she is going to come into the Custer family she must be prepared to receive little billet-doux something the size of this volume!
Tom says, "Tell Libbie I intended writing, but when I saw the length of this letter I knew that there was nothing left to tell her!"
Yellowstone River, July 19, 1873.
Well, here we are, encamped on the banks of the far-famed and to you far distant Yellowstone! How I have longed to have you see, during our progress, what seems to me almost like another world. Truly can this interesting region be termed the "Wonder-land!"
When the command arrived at what was supposed to be a distance of about fifteen miles from the river, it became necessary and important to ascertain where the steamboat with supplies that had come by river was located. I volunteered to go on a steamboat hunt, as I had hunted almost every other species of game; so taking two troops and leaving our tents and wagons, I started on a search for the Key West. Several of the officers applied to go, and General Rosser, who is always ready for a trip of this kind, accepted my invitation to accompany us.
No artist—not even a Church or a Bierstadt—could fairly repre-
