indexes

hello stull fuzzy on index retrieval and the order of the indexed fields.... if i have a table with these columns indexed (col1, col3, col4) and the sql says col1, col4, col3 does the index still get used or does it stop at col1 because of the order? i assume always using the exact order of fields in the sql to match the indexes is the way to be correct but am unsure about different orders or if the sql has two out of four included but they are either in the same order or ordered differently. thanks in advance! tom