n to his own post--Fort Larned
--with more despatches. After resting twelve hours at Larned, he was
again in the saddle with tidings for me at Fort Hays, General Hazen
sending him, this time, with word that the villages had fled to the
south of the Arkansas. Thus, in all, Cody rode about 350 miles in less
than sixty hours, and such an exhibition of endurance and courage was
more than enough to convince me that his services would be extremely
valuable in the campaign, so I retained him at Fort Hays till the
battalion of the Fifth Cavalry arrived, and then made him chief of
scouts for that regiment.

The information brought me by Cody on his second trip from Larned
indicated where the villages would be found in the winter, and I
decided to move on them about the 1st of November. Only the women
and children and the decrepit old men were with the villages, however
enough, presumably, to look after the plunder most of the warriors
remaining north of the Arkansas to continue their marauding. Many
severe fights occurred between our troops and these marauders, and in
these affairs, before November 1 over a hundred Indians were killed,
yet from the ease with which the escaping savages would disappear
only to fall upon remote settlements with pillage and murder, the
results were by no means satisfactory. One of the most noteworthy of
these preliminary affairs was the gallant fight made on the
Republican River the 17th of September by my Aide, Colonel George A.
Forsyth, and party, against about seven hundred Cheyennes and Sioux.
Forsyth, with Lieutenant Beecher, and Doctor J. H. Mooers as surgeon,
was in charge of a company of citizen scouts, mostly expert
rifle-shots, but embracing also a few Indian fighters, among these
Grover and Parr. The company was organized the latter part of August
for immediate work in defense of the settlements, and also for future
use in the Indian Territory when the campaign should open there. About
the time the company had reached its complement--it was limited to
forty-seven men and three officers--a small band of hostiles began
depredations near Sheridan City, one of the towns that grew up
over-night on the Kansas-Pacific railway. Forsyth pursued this party,
but failing to overtake it, made his way into Fort Wallace for rations,
intending to return from there to Fort Hays. Before he started back,
however, another band of Indians appeared near the post and stole some
horses from the stage c