While driving a stage between Split Rock and Three Crossings, he was set upon by a band of several hundred Sioux.  Lieutenant Flowers, assistant division agent, sat on the box beside Cody, and there were half a dozen passengers well armed inside.  Cody gave the reins to Flowers, applied the whip, and the passengers defended the stage in a running fight.  Arrows fell around and struck the stage like hail, wounding the horses and dealing destruction generally, for two of the passengers were killed and Flowers badly wounded.  Cody seized the whip from the wounded officer, applied it savagely, shouting defiance, and drove on to Three Crossings, thus saving the stage.

The only period when the long route up the Platte Valley enjoyed an immunity from the continuous trouble with the savages, before the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, was when General Albert Sidney Johnston’s army, in 1857, had been mobilized for the impending Mormon war.  More than five thousand regular soldiers, with its large commissary trains and their complement of teamsters, all well armed, together with batteries of artillery, in passing through the country so intimidated the Indians, who had never before seen such an array of their enemies, that they remained at a respectful distance from the trail.

In the spring of 1865 the Indians seemed more determined than ever to wage a relentless war along the line of the Overland Stage.

A regular army officer in his journal says:—­

        During the time when we were guarding Ben Holliday’s
        stage-coaches, and when attacks on them were of frequent
        occurrence, I had an adventure which I think is worth relating.

        I was out at one of the lower ranches, and the Indians were
        very troublesome.  Our guards were nearly all sick or wounded,
        and the coaches had to go out insufficiently protected.

One evening the coach was late, and, as to be behind time was a sure sign that something was wrong, we all felt very uneasy.  The drivers made it a rule to get from one station to another on time, and if they did not arrive, parties were immediately started out to the next ranch, ten miles below, to see what the matter was, the stations being eight, ten, and twelve miles apart.

On the particular evening in question I had got tired of waiting, and gone over to the stable-keeper to see if we had not better take the change horses, go down the road, and try if we could not find the coach.  It was due at the station at eight-thirty in the evening, and it was now ten, so I was confident it had been attacked or broken down.  While we were talking, the sentinel on the outpost, whose business it was to look out for the stage and give notice of its approach, signalled that the coach was coming.  We all ran down the road to meet it, and soon saw it coming slowly along with three horses instead of four, and