ch followed, made it plain that a
general outbreak was upon us. The only remedy, therefore, was to
subjugate the savages immediately engaged in the forays by forcing
the several tribes to settle down on the reservations set apart by
the treaty of Medicine Lodge. The principal mischief-makers were the
Cheyennes. Next in deviltry were the Kiowas, and then the Arapahoes
and Comanches. Some few of these last two tribes continued friendly,
or at least took no active part in the raiding, but nearly all the
young men of both were the constant allies of the Cheyennes and
Kiowas. All four tribes together could put on the war-path a
formidable force of about 6,000 warriors. The subjugation of this
number of savages would be no easy task, so to give the matter my
undivided attention I transferred my headquarters from Leavenworth to
Fort Hays, a military post near which the prosperous town of Hays
City now stands.

Fort Hays was just beyond the line of the most advanced settlements,
and was then the terminus of the Kansas-Pacific railroad. For this
reason it could be made a depot of supplies, and was a good point
from which to supervise matters in the section of country to be
operated in, which district is a part of the Great American Plains,
extending south from the Platte River in Nebraska to the Red River in
the Indian Territory, and westward from the line of frontier
settlements to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a vast region
embracing an area of about 150,000 square miles. With the exception
of a half-dozen military posts and a few stations on the two overland
emigrant routes--the Smoky Hill to Denver, and the Arkansas to New
Mexico--this country was an unsettled waste known only to the Indians
and a few trappers. There were neither roads nor well-marked trails,
and the only timber to be found--which generally grew only along the
streams--was so scraggy and worthless as hardly to deserve the name.
Nor was water by any means plentiful, even though the section is
traversed by important streams, the Republican, the Smoky Hill, the
Arkansas, the Cimarron, and the Canadian all flowing eastwardly, as
do also their tributaries in the main. These feeders are sometimes
long and crooked, but as a general thing the volume of water is
insignificant except after rain-falls. Then, because of unimpeded
drainage, the little streams fill up rapidly with torrents of water,
which quickly flows off or sinks into the sand, leavi