stered in. It was absolutely
necessary, if anything were going to be done with Indian aid, to get
the braves away from under the influence of their chiefs, who were
bent upon delay and determent. By the sixteenth he had the warriors
all ready at Humboldt,[305] their bullet-proof medicine taken, their
grand war dance indulged in. By the twenty-first, the final packing
up began,[306] and it was not long thereafter before the Indian
Expedition, after having experienced so many vicissitudes, had
definitely materialized and was on its way south. Accompanying Weer
were the Reverend Evan Jones, entrusted with

[Footnote 301: Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 302: Weer to Doubleday, June 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 303: Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 304: On the twentieth, General Brown requested Salomon to
send Doubleday to southwest Missouri [_Official Records_, vol.
xiii, 440] and Salomon so far complied with the request as to post
some companies of Doubleday's regiment, under Lieutenant-colonel
Ratliff, at Neosho [Ibid., 445, 459].]

[Footnote 305:--Ibid., 434.]

[Footnote 306:--Ibid., 441.]

a confidential message[307] to John Ross, and two special Indian
agents, E.H. Carruth, detailed at the instance of the Indian Office,
and H.W. Martin, sent on Coffin's own responsibility, their particular
task being to look out for the interests and welfare of the Indians
and, when once within the Indian Territory, to take careful stock of
conditions there, both political and economic.[308] The Indians were
in fine spirits and, although looking

[Footnote 307: The message, addressed to "Mutual Friend," was an
assurance of the continued interest of the United States government
in the inhabitants of Indian Territory and of its determination to
protect them [Coffin to Ross, June 16, 1862, Indian Office General
Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1684].]

[Footnote 308: "... You will assure all loyal Indians in the Indian
Territory of the disposition and the ability of the Government of the
United States to protect them in all their rights, and that there is
no disposition on the part of said government to shrink from any of
its Treaty Obligations with all such of the Indian Tribes, who
have been, are now, and remaining loyal to the same. Also that the
government will, at the earliest practicable period, which is
believed not to be distant, restore to all loyal Indians the rights,
privileges, and