I started back to overhaul General Terry, and on the third day out I found him at the head of Deer Creek.  He was on his way to Colonel Rice’s camp.  He was headed in the right direction, but bearing too far east.  He asked me to guide his command in the right course, which I did.  On arriving at Glendive I bade good-by to the general and his officers and took passage on the Far West, which was on her way down the Missouri.  At Bismarck I left the steamer, and proceeded by rail to Rochester, New York.

It has been a great pleasure to me to meet and know and serve with such men as Crook and Miles.  I had served long enough on the Plains to know Indian fighters when I saw them, and I cannot close this chapter without a tribute to both of these men.

Miles had come to the West as a young man with a brilliant war record, having risen to a major-general of volunteers at the age, I think, of 26 or 27.

He took naturally to Indian fighting.  He quickly divested himself of all the tactics that were useless in this particular kind of warfare, and learned as much about the Indians as any man ever knew.

Years later, when I was giving my Wild West Show in Madison Square Garden, General Miles visited it as my guest.

The Indians came crowding around him, and followed him wherever he went, although other army officers of high reputation accompanied him on the visit.

This Indian escort at last proved to be almost embarrassing, for the general could not go to any part of the Garden without four or five of the braves silently dogging his footsteps and drinking in his every word.

When this was called to my attention I called one of the old men aside and asked him why he and his brothers followed Miles so eagerly.

“Heap big chief!” was the reply.  “Him lickum Injun chiefs.  Him biggest White Chief.  Heap likum.”  Which was really a very high tribute, as Indians are not given to extravagant praise.

When we have met from time to time General Miles has been kind enough to speak well of me and the work I have done on the Plains.  I am very glad to have this opportunity of returning the compliment.

Crook was a man who lived and fought without any ostentation, but who had high courage and used rare judgment.  The fact that he had command of the forces in the West had much to do with their successes in subduing the hostile red man.  Indeed, had not our army taught the Indians that it was never safe, and usually extremely dangerous, to go on the warpath against the Big White Chief, organizations might have been formed which would have played sad havoc with our growing Western civilization.

I am and always have been a friend of the Indian.  I have always sympathized with him in his struggle to hold the country that was his by right of birth.

But I have always held that in such a country as America the march of civilization was inevitable, and that sooner or later the men who lived in roving tribes, making no real use of the resources of the country, would be compelled to give way before the men who tilled the soil and used the lands as the Creator intended they should be used.