On my return to Springfield I found an expedition in process of fitting out for a scouting trip through New Mexico and into the Arkansas River country, to look after the Indians.  With this party I took part in a number of Indian fights and helped to save a number of immigrant trains from destruction.  On our return to Fort Leavenworth we found General Sanborn and a number of others of the former Union leaders who had come to the border to make peace with the Indians.

The various tribes that roamed the Plains had heard of the great war, and, believing that it had so exhausted the white man that he would fall an easy prey to Indian aggression, had begun to arm themselves and make ready for great conquests.  They had obtained great stores of arms and ammunition.  During the last two years of the war they had been making repeated raids and inflicting vast damage on the settlers.

At the close of the war, when the volunteers were discharged, I was left free to return to my old calling.  The regular army was in course of consolidation.  Men who had been generals were compelled to serve as colonels and majors.  The consolidated army’s chief business was in the West, where the Indians formed a real menace, and to the West came the famous fighting men under whose command I was destined to spend many of the eventful years to come.

CHAPTER III

At the close of the war, General William Tecumseh Sherman was placed at the head of the Peace Commission which had been sent to the border to take counsel with the Indians.  It had become necessary to put an end to the hostility of the red man immediately either by treaty or by force.  His raids on the settlers could be endured no longer.

The purpose of the party which Sherman headed was to confer with the greatest of the hostile chiefs.  Treaties were to be agreed upon if possible.  If negotiations for peace failed, the council would at least act as a stay of hostilities.  The army was rapidly reorganizing, and it would soon be possible to mobilize enough troops to put down the Indians in case they refused to come to terms peaceably.

The camp of the Kiowas and Comanches—­the first Indians with whom Sherman meant to deal—­was about three hundred miles southwest of Leavenworth, in the great buffalo range, and in the midst of the trackless Plains.

By ambulance and on horseback, with wagons to carry the supplies, the party set out for its first objective—­Council Springs on the Arkansas River, about sixty miles beyond old Fort Zarrah.

I was chosen as one of the scouts or dispatch carriers to accompany the party.  The guide was Dick Curtis, a plainsman of wide experience among the Indians.

When we arrived at Fort Zarrah we found that no road lay beyond, and learned that there was no water on the way.  It was determined, therefore, to make a start at two o’clock in the morning.  Curtis said this would enable us to reach our destination, sixty-five miles further on, by two o’clock the next afternoon.