Ned was a very ill boy; but from the hospital at Fort Riley he was able to accompany his regiment to Fort Leavenworth. Here they comfortably spent the winter. Of many finely constructed buildings, in the midst of a one-thousand-acre military reservation overlooking the Missouri River, near to the bustling city of Leavenworth, with its cavalry and infantry and artillery, Fort Leavenworth, headquarters post of the Department of the Missouri, was a decided change from Wallace and Hays and Harker and even Fort Riley.

The fall and winter were quiet, while out on the southwest plains a Government Peace Commission made a new treaty with the tribes. The Cheyennes were still angry because General Hancock had destroyed their village; but all agreed to go upon a reservation in Indian Territory, and to let the railroads, the trails and the settlers alone.

In the spring another treaty was made at Fort Laramie, in the north, with the Sioux. The Government promised to withdraw its soldiers from the Sioux’ hunting grounds of the Powder River Valley east of the Big Horn Mountains in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. To protect these their last hunting grounds, of the famous Black Hills country, Red Cloud the Sioux chief had been fighting long and hard.

Speedily they sent word to their cousins the Cheyennes, Kiowas and all, of Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado, encouraging them also to drive out the white men. Already the Cheyennes and Kiowas and Comanches objected to going upon their reservation; they said they had not understood that they were to give up good land for poor land.

The Kansas Pacific Railroad had reached Hays City, and had halted there as if to rest. The doughty General Hancock had been changed to New Orleans, and as commander of the Department of the Missouri had been succeeded by Major-General Philip H. Sheridan.

Everybody knew Phil Sheridan the fighting Irishman. He visited briefly at Fort Leavenworth in September of 1867, to assume command; and here Ned had a glimpse of him. He was unlike either General Sherman or General Hancock. A little man was Sheridan, of Irish face, close-cropped grizzled hair, keen gray eyes, reddish moustache and small tuft of hair beneath his lower lip. With his slight body, full chest, short neck, large bullet head, and aggressive manner, he resembled a lion. He was the man who had made that famous “Sheridan’s Ride” from Winchester to Cedar Creek, in the Civil War, and saved the day for the Union Army. He had been General Custer’s commander.

In April the Seventh was ordered back to Fort Harker, to be on hand in case of Indian trouble. But it was not the same regiment; for it lacked General Custer.

The general had been suspended from rank and pay for one year! The claim was made that he had marched his men too hard from Wallace to Hays, and that he had absented himself from Fort Wallace without leave, to go to Mrs. Custer at Fort Riley. His friends believed that he was innocent of any misdoing; but his jealous enemies triumphed, and the War Department had disciplined him.

Nevertheless he had spent the winter at Leavenworth, occupying the quarters of General Sheridan himself. One good thing had happened. In the fall Mr. Kidder, father of the slain Lieutenant Kidder of the Second Cavalry, had appeared at Leavenworth, looking for his son’s body. General Custer spoke of the black-and-white checked collar-band, upon one of the bodies; and the father had instantly said that his son had worn just such a shirt, made for him by his mother, for use on the plains. With an escort, the father had hastened on to the Beaver Creek battle-ground, for the remains of his dear boy.

Now General Custer was at his old home of Monroe, Michigan, to spend the rest of his term. The Seventh Cavalry must take the field without him. And much it missed its leader—the dashing Custer of the long yellow hair and the crimson tie and the buckskin coat; it missed his horses and his dogs and his enthusiasm; it missed Mrs. Custer.

Ned had been relieved from trumpeter duties, and was taking it more easy as clerk in the quartermaster department. His post was made Fort Hays, and here he was when his regiment arrived to camp just outside.

Fort Hays had improved. The log quarters were giving place to story and a half frame houses, painted. The town also had expanded. The coming of the railroad had made it grow greatly, although it was not any handsomer. It was a town without law except the law of rope and of pistol. Wild Bill Hickok with his two ivory-handled revolvers and his steely eyes and his quiet manner was the peace-maker; but in making peace men frequently were killed.

This was a scout headquarters. Constantly in and out, riding the trails, was Wild Bill; so was Will Comstock; so was California Joe and so was Pony Bill Cody. But they called him Pony Bill no longer. He was now Buffalo Bill. During the past fall he had been employed in supplying buffaloes to feed the laborers on the Kansas Pacific survey. By the amount of buffalo that he had shot he astonished everybody. In a friendly contest with Will Comstock he had killed sixty-nine to Comstock’s forty-six—and Comstock was one of the crack hunters of the plains.

There were several new scouts, too: Sharpe Grover and Jack Corbin and Dick Parr and Jack Stillwell and Bill Trudell; all good.

During the spring and summer the railroad pushed on westward. To the north the Sioux were quiet and satisfied, but in the south the Kiowas and Comanches and Arapahos and all demanded better terms, and guns and ammunition, ere they went upon their reservation. Scouts Comstock and Grover and Parr were employed especially to visit about among the tribes and explain matters and urge peace. Lieutenant Fred H. Beecher, a nephew of the great preacher Henry Ward Beecher of New York City, directed their movements.

This seemed like a very good scheme. For——

“In my opinion, gentlemen,” said in Ned’s hearing Wild Bill, “it’s worth a lot o’ trouble, and the Government can afford to give in on a few points, to keep those settlers from being murdered, who are out here with their families, trying hard to build up the country. If we can only hold those Injuns off till fall, after the buffalo season, and get ’em on their reservation for the winter, we can then watch ’em.”

From Fort Hays the Seventh Cavalry marched south, in early summer, to join with some of the Tenth Cavalry and the Third Infantry, along the Arkansas River near Fort Larned and Fort Dodge. The Indian villages were still in this vicinity, and the young men were restless and full of threats. General Alfred Sully, who had fought the Sioux in Dakota in 1863, was in command down here, over the District of the Arkansas.

Ned was retained on his quartermaster department detail; but he was growing eager to take the field with his comrades.

Affairs seemed to be shaping all right, until in July arrived at Fort Hays, by courier from Fort Larned, word that the warriors were leaving the villages, and trailing northward. Quickly following came the news that a party of Cheyennes had raided the friendly Kaws, or Kansas Indians, near Council Grove south of Riley, and had robbed settlers.

This must not be permitted, for the United States was bound to protect its Indian friends.

The Cheyennes and Arapahos and all had not been given the guns and ammunition promised them by the treaty. Now it was time for the annual distribution of gifts. When the Comanches and the Kiowas gathered at Fort Larned to receive them, the agent announced that they could have no rifles or pistols or powder and lead until the Kaws and the settlers had been paid for the damage done to them.

This made the Indians angry. They refused all gifts, and returned to their camp, the young men began to war-dance.

General Sully appeared at Fort Larned, and prepared for action. But Little Rock, Cheyenne chief, claimed that only some bad young men, on an expedition against the Pawnees, had robbed the Kaws and the settlers. All the chiefs promised that if guns and ammunition were issued, so that their people might hunt the buffalo, everything would be quiet.

“No more trips will be made by my people into the settlements,” assured Little Raven, the fat old Arapaho chief, who had always been friendly toward the whites. “Their hearts are good, and they wish to be at peace forever.”

So even General Sully was convinced, and ordered the guns and ammunition to be issued.

“The gen’ral ought to’ve known better, gentle-men,” declared Scout Will Comstock, speaking of the matter at Fort Hays, where he had arrived on an errand. “Those Injuns talked ’round him. One hundred pistols, eighty rifles, twelve kegs powder, half a keg o’ lead, fifteen thousand caps, to the ’Rapahos: forty pistols, twenty rifles, three kegs powder, half a keg o’ lead, five thousand caps to the ’Paches; Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas—they’re bein’ treated the same; that’s the case to-day. And, gentle-men,” he added, impressively, “you mark my words. We’ll hear from those weepons in a way we won’t like. I know Injuns. Little Raven an’ Black Kettle may mean all right, when speakin’, but they can’t control their bucks. We’ll all be fightin’ those same guns before the buff’ler turn south.”

Now August had set in; and on the seventh who should arrive at the post of Fort Hays but a large band of the Indians from the Arkansas. They had come up from the Pawnee Fork west of Fort Larned, and said they were on their way to fight the Pawnees. There were four or five Arapahos, and twenty Sioux visitors from the north, and 200 Cheyennes. Old Black Kettle the Cheyenne chief was leader; other chiefs were Tall Wolf and Red Nose and Porcupine Bear and Bear That Goes Ahead (Cheyennes), and even a son of Little Raven the Arapaho chief.

That night they held a big powwow. Black Kettle shook hands with all the soldiers within reach. From beside the council camp-fire he made a speech, to say, as translated by Wilson the post trader:

“The white soldiers ought to be glad all the time, because their ponies are so big and so strong, and because they have so many guns and so much to eat. All other Indians may take the war path, but Black Kettle will forever keep peace with his white brothers. He loves his white brothers, and his heart feels glad when he meets them and shakes their hands in friendship.”

This sounded very good, for the whites; but everybody knew that the Black Kettle band had no business going out to fight the Pawnees or anybody else. If they didn’t find the Pawnees, then they might try to fight whomever they met.

Away they rode, in their war-paint; and next, dreadful tidings came back. First, into Fort Harker were brought by their husbands two white women; almost crazed the men related that a party of Cheyennes had entered their ranch house, on the Saline River north of Harker, and after being kindly treated to hot coffee and sugar, had thrown the coffee in the women’s faces, knocked the men down, and abused all terribly. Two other white men had been killed in the fields with clubs; a woman had been killed, and two children had been carried away.

This was the news, to Hays from Fort Harker. From Fort Wallace, in the other direction, came word as shocking. Boyish Scout Will Comstock had been murdered by friendly Chief Turkey Leg’s Cheyennes; Sharpe Grover, his companion, had been desperately wounded.

Some of the young Cheyennes had tried to trade with Comstock for his prized revolver. But he would not trade. It was the same revolver that he promised to give to General Custer as soon as he had guided the general to a victory. The young Indians then rode with him and Grover to escort them from the village. Presently they dropped behind, did the Indians, shot Will Comstock dead, through the back, and almost killed Grover. But from shelter of his chum’s body, with his long-range rifle Grover fought all day. During the night and the next day he hid in a ravine; and through the ensuing darkness he crawled and staggered clear to Fort Wallace, where he gasped out the tale.

Aye, the buffalo had not turned southward, but already were Fort Hays and the other white stations of the southwest hearing from the guns and pistols issued at Fort Larned. From the Smoky Hill stage route and that of the Santa FÉ, from the Republican, the Saline, the Arkansas and the Cimarron, at last along the telegraph line passed report after report, brought in by settler and scout and courier, telling of onslaught by Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche. The town of Sheridan, at the end of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, only fifteen miles from Fort Wallace, announced that it had been attacked and for two days kept in a state of siege!

Settlers and scouts and other frontiersmen began to pour into Fort Hays and Hays City; and here arrived General Sheridan himself—the small-bodied, large-headed, bristly little Irishman, with fire in his gray eyes.

“This is war,” Ned heard him repeat. “We’ll fight them to a finish. The only way to control them is to destroy them wherever they are to be found, until they all are confined on a reservation.”

Buffalo Bill Cody had been assigned to the quartermaster department with station at Fort Larned. Now one day he came riding posthaste into Hays, his horse matted with sweaty dust, he as dusty and as tired. He bore dispatches, and reported that all his route of seventy miles had been infested with hostile warriors.

He volunteered to return at once over the same route, with dispatches for Fort Dodge, thirty miles further. Back he rode; and in two more days he was at Hays again. He had ridden 350 miles in fifty-five hours. He stayed at Fort Hays, for General Sheridan promoted him to be Chief of Scouts for the Fifth Cavalry.

Buffalo Bill’s last dispatches told that the old men and squaws left in the villages were packing the tipis and were moving south, as if the Indians did not intend to winter on any reservation. Evidently the winter villages were to be set up where the soldiers could not follow.

From General Sheridan went quick orders to General Sully to stop the Indians, and turn them. And as the soldiers were being kept busy, in the south and guarding the Smoky Hill trail, to protect the settlers northward an expedition of volunteers was ordered out.

They all were frontiersmen, who gladly rallied to fight for ranch and town. Thirty enlisted at Fort Harker, seventeen at Fort Hays. General George A. Forsyth, who was called “Sandy” and was colonel on the staff of General Sheridan, was the commanding officer. Lieutenant Beecher was his aide. Dr. John S. Mooers of Kansas City, surgeon in the Civil War, was medical officer; General W. H. H. McCall, of the Civil War, was first sergeant. Sharpe Grover (now well again) was the guide; Stillwell and Trudell and Dick Parr were among the scouts.

Ned burned to go, but he was refused because of his youth.

“You wait,” comforted Jack Stillwell—a jaunty young fellow, with waist like a girl’s and face as smooth as Ned’s own. “There’ll be plenty left for you other people, soldiers and all, to do. Wait till Sheridan gets out after ’em.”

“Wall, there won’t be as many as there are now,” remarked significantly Sharpe Grover, standing near.

In truth so thought Ned when, on the twenty-eighth of August, out from Fort Hays rode against the Dog Soldiers raiding the settlements the little company of half a hundred—few in numbers but every man a skilled shot. They were well armed with Spencer and Henry repeating rifles, and had much ammunition. General “Sandy” Forsyth and Sharpe Grover led.

A few days passed. Ned must continue with his clerkship duties—which, of course, somebody must perform, even in war. Soldiering is not all fighting.

Next, was it learned that south of the Arkansas General Sully, his Seventh Cavalry and his Third Infantry, had almost lost their wagon-train and had been driven back into Fort Dodge! One trooper had been captured by the Indians (poor fellow, Ned knew him well) and carried off to be tortured to death. Captain Hamilton and Captain Smith had charged with their companies in vain, to rescue him.

And next came the more startling news that on the Arikaree branch of the upper Republican, not far from the Forks where Pawnee Killer had attacked the Seventh Cavalry camp, 700 Cheyenne warriors under Chief Roman Nose had surrounded General Forsyth’s fifty men, and had almost “wiped them out.” After a terrific fight of three days and three nights, the volunteers had been rescued by Colonel Carpenter and his Tenth Cavalry from Fort Wallace. Lieutenant Beecher and Dr. Mooers had been killed; the general thrice wounded; Roman Nose and many of his braves had fallen. Jack Stillwell had brought the first dispatch through to Wallace; Trudell had been his companion.

Yes, war it was. Wouldn’t Custer be needed? At Monroe, Michigan, wouldn’t he be chafing? His term of discipline was almost done. Then, as sudden great news, appeared in the Leavenworth daily paper received at Fort Hays the following telegram, copied: