a needless interference on the part of the United States. Moreover, it was a matter constantly open to the observation, of all friendly Indians that the hostiles, who were continually plundering and attacking emigrant trains, made, on the whole, more profit out of war than they made out of peace. On the North Platte road during this year the Pawnees alone had stolen several thousands of dollars' worth of goods; and, in addition to this, there was the pressure of public sentiment—a thing which is as powerful among Indians as among whites. It was popular to be on the war-path: the whites were invaders; it was brave and creditable to slay them. Taking all these things into account, it was only to be wondered at that these Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Sioux kept to the provisions of their treaty at all. Nevertheless, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and some bands of the Sioux continued peaceable and friendly; and in 1855 they begged to be supplied with a farmer to teach them how to farm; also with a blacksmith. Their agent strongly recommends that this be done, saying that there is not "in the whole Indian country a more favorable location for a farm for grazing stock and game than the South Platte. In a very short period of time the Arapahoes and Cheyennes would become fixed and settled, and a part of each tribe—the old women and men-would become agriculturists; rude, it is true, yet sufficiently skilful to raise corn, potatoes, and beans, and dwell in cabins or fixed habitations."

In the summer of 1856 the Cheyennes were, by a disastrous accident, forced into the position of hostiles. A small warband went out to attack the Pawnees; they were in camp near the North Platte road: as the mail-wagon was passing, two of the Cheyennes ran toward it to beg tobacco. The mail-carrier, terrified, fired on them, and the Indians fired back, wounding him; the chiefs rushed out, stopped the firing, explained the matter, and then severely flogged the Indians who had returned the mail-carrier's fire. But the mischief had been done.

The mail-carrier reported his having been fired at by a Chey enne Indian, and the next day troops from Fort Kearny at tacked the Indians and killed six of the war-party. The rest refused to fight, and ran away, leaving their camp and all it contained. The war-party, thoroughly exasperated, attacked an emigrant train, killed two men and a child, and took one woman captive. The next day they killed her, because she could not ride on horseback and keep up with them. Within

a short time two more small war-parties had left the band, attacked trains, and killed two men, two women, and a child. The chiefs at first could not restrain them, but in September they sent a delegation to the agency to ask their agent's assistance and advice. They said that the war-party was now completely under their control, and they wished to know what they could do. They implored the Great Father not to be angry with them, "for they could not control the war-party when they saw their friends killed by soldiers after they had thrown down their bows and arrows and begged for life."

In October the agent reported that the Cheyennes were "perfectly quiet and peaceable, and entirely within control, and obedient to authority." The chiefs had organized a sort of police, whose duty was to kill any war - parties that might attempt to leave the camp.

Through the winter the Cheyennes remained in the south and south-eastern parts of the agency, and strictly observed the conditions which their agent had imposed upon them. In the following August, however, a military force under General Sumner was sent out "to demand from the tribe the perpetrators of their late outrages on the whites, and ample security for their good conduct." The Cheyennes were reported by General Sumner as showing no disposition to yield to these demands; he therefore attacked them, burnt their village to the ground, and destroyed their winter supplies-some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds of buffalo meat.

Of how they lived, and where, during the winter following this fight, there is little record. In the next year's reports the Chey. ennes are said to be very anxious for a new treaty, which will assign to them a country in which they can dwell safely. "They said they had learned a lesson last summer in their fight with General Sumner-that it was useless to contend with the white man, who would soon with his villages occupy the whole prairie. They wanted peace; and as the buffalo-their principal dependence for food and clothing (which even now they were compelled to seek many miles from home, where their natural enemies, the Pawnee and Osage, roamed), would soon disappear entirely, they hoped their Great Father, the white chief at Washington, would listen to them, and give them a home where they might be provided for and protected against the encroachments of their white brothers, until at least they had been taught to cultivate the soil and other arts of civilized life. They have often desired ploughs and hoes, and to be taught their use."

The next year's records show the Government itself aware that some measures must be taken to provide for these troublesome wild tribes of the prairie: almost more perplexing in time of peace than in time of war is the problem of the disposition to be made of them. Agents and superintendents alike are pressing on the Government's attention the facts and the bearing of the rapid settling of the Indian lands by the whites; the precariousness of peaceful relations; the dangers of Indian wars. The Indians themselves are deeply anxious

and disturbed.

"They have heard that all of the Indian tribes to the eastward of them have ceded their lands to the United States, except small reservations; and hence, by an Indian's reasoning, in a few years these tribes will emigrate farther west, and, as a matter of necessity, occupy the hunting-grounds of the wild tribes."

When the agent of the Upper Platte Agency tried to reason on this subject with one of the Sioux chiefs, the chief said: "When I was a young man, and I am not yet fifty, I travelied with my people through the country of the Sac and Fox tribe, to the great water Minne Toukah (Mississippi), where I saw corn growing, but no white people; continuing eastward, we came to the Rock River valley, and saw the Winnebagoes, but no white people. We then came to the Fox River valley, and thence to the Great Lake (Lake Michigan), where we found a few white people in the Pottawattomie country. Thence we returned to the Sioux country at the Great Falls of Irara (St. Anthony), and had a feast of green corn with our relations, who resided there. Afterward we visited the pipe-clay quarry in the country of the Yankton Sioux, and made a feast to the 'Great Medicine,' and danced the 'sun dance,' and then returned to our hunting-grounds on the prairie. And now our Father tells us the white man will never settle on our lands, and kill our game; but see! the whites cover all of those lands I have just described, and also the lands of the Poncas, Omahas, and Pawnees. On the South Platte the white people are finding gold, and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes have no longer any hunting-grounds. Our country has become very small, and before our children are grown up we shall have no game."

In the autumn of this year (1859) an agent was sent to hold a council with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and tell them of the wish of the Government that they should assume a fixed residence, and occupy themselves in agriculture. This they at once received with favor, and declared with great unanimity to be acceptable to them. They expected and asked that the Department shall supply them with what is necessary to establish themselves permanently. *** Both these tribes had scrupulously maintained peaceful relations with the whites, and with other Indian tribes, notwithstanding the many causes of irritation growing out of the occupation of the gold region, and the

emigration to it through their hunting-grounds, which are no longer reliable as a certain source of food to them."

It was estimated that during the summer of 1859 over sixty thousand emigrants crossed these plains in their central belt. The trains of vehicles and cattle were frequent and valuable in proportion; and post lines and private expresses were in constant motion.

In 1860 a commissioner was sent out to hold a council with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes at Bent's Fort, on the Upper Arkansas, and make a treaty with them. The Arapahoes were fully represented; but there were present only two prominent chiefs of the Cheyennes-Black Kettle and White Antelope. (White Antelope was one of the chiefs brutally murdered five years later in the Chivington massacre in Colorado.) As it was impossible for the rest of the Cheyennes to reach the Fort in less than twenty days, and the commissioner could not wait so long, Black Kettle and White Antelope wished it to be distinctly understood that they pledged only themselves and their own bands.

The commissioner says: "I informed them as to the object of my visit, and gave them to understand that their Great Father had heard with delight of their peaceful disposition, although they were almost in the midst of the hostile tribes. They expressed great pleasure on learning that their Great Father had heard of their good conduct, and requested me to say, in return, that they intended in every respect to conform to the wishes of the Government. I then presented to them a diagram of the country assigned them, by their treaty of 1851, as their hunting-grounds, which they seemed to understand perfectly, and were enabled without difficulty to give each initial point. In fact, they exhibited a degree of intelligence seldom to be found among tribes where no effort has been made to civilize them. I stated to them that it was the intention of their Great Father to reduce the area of their present reserva