h to enable us to obtain easily
information of all that was going on.

It took but a few days at Dodge to discover that great discontent
existed about the Medicine Lodge concessions, to see that the young
men were chafing and turbulent, and that it would require much tact
and good management on the part of the Indian Bureau to persuade the
four tribes to go quietly to their reservations, under an agreement
which, when entered into, many of them protested had not been fully
understood.

A few hours after my arrival a delegation of prominent chiefs called
on me and proposed a council, where they might discuss their
grievances, and thus bring to the notice of the Government the
alleged wrongs done them; but this I refused, because Congress had
delegated to the Peace Commission the whole matter of treating with
them, and a council might lead only to additional complications. My
refusal left them without hope of securing better terms, or of even
delaying matters longer; so henceforth they were more than ever
reckless and defiant. Denunciations of the treaty became outspoken,
and as the young braves grew more and more insolent every day, it
amounted to conviction that, unless by some means the irritation was
allayed, hostilities would surely be upon us when the buffalo
returned to their summer feeding-grounds between the Arkansas and the
Platte.

The principal sufferers in this event would be the settlers in middle
and western Kansas, who, entirely ignorant of the dangers hanging
over them, were laboring to build up homes in a new country. Hence
the maintenance of peace was much to be desired, if it could be
secured without too great concessions, and although I would not meet
the different tribes in a formal council, yet, to ward off from
settlers as much as possible the horrors of savage warfare, I showed,
by resorting to persuasive methods, my willingness to temporize a
good deal. An abundant supply of rations is usually effective to
keep matters quiet in such cases, so I fed them pretty freely, and
also endeavored to control them through certain men who, I found,
because of former associations, had their confidence. These men,
employed as scouts, or interpreters, were Mr. William Comstock, Mr.
Abner S. Grover, and Mr. Richard Parr. They had lived on the Plains
for many years with different tribes of Indians, had trapped and
hunted with them, and knew all the principal chiefs and headmen.
Through such influences,