Them that'd bin deployed as skirmishers lay as they fell, havin' bin entirely surrounded in an open plain.

The men in th' companies fell in platoons, an', like them on th' skirmish line, lay just as they fell, with their officers behind 'em in th' right places.
"Th' Old Man, General Custer, was in th' middle, an' round him lay th' bodies of Captain Tom Custer an' Boston Custer, his brothers, Colonel Calhoun, his brother-in-law, an' young Reed, his nephew.

An' right near was Mark Kellogg, th' Bismarck Tribune's newspaper man.

He wasn't scalped or touched; just lay as he fell.
"Kellogg savvied Injuns, an' used t' say in his paper, 'Hold on a minute, let's talk this over,' when all th' long-whiskered grangers, what had come in from Illinois, would raise a holler, an' want th' United States soldiers t' kick th' Injuns off th' land what they owned.
An' th' Injuns remembered, even when they was crazy with fightin'.

An' just th' same as they didn't touch th' White Chief, Custer, just th' same they didn't touch th' feller what shoved a lead pencil an' once in a while said, 'Give 'em a chance.' "Did they ever find out how many Injuns was there?
Not def'nite, but near enough.