"The personnel of our party who went out to treat with the Indians was somewhat remarkable and notable. Let me first speak of the press gang, the most important part of the outfit, of course. There was the well known (subsequently) great African explorer, Henry M. Stanley; Thomas W. Knox of the New York Herald, who has written so many magazine articles and books on Siberia and the northern countries; Colonel Burt, of the Cincinnati Gazette, and one or two others. Stanley represented the Cincinnati Commercial. We newspaper fellows tented together, a tent being assigned us by General Sherman. We had the best the government could afford, including perhaps those things not used on the plains of Kansas since the passage of the amendment, though my memory is a little dim on the branch of the subject. Stanley was undoubtedly the biggest liar of the newspaper crowd. He impressed me as being a lazy fellow, rather good nature and fond of telling stories, particularly his exploits in the old world and his hair-breadth escapes among the Arabs. I presume that Stanley has since become a Christian and as truthful as a Kansas editor, but none of us credited his yarns as he rattled them off by the yard about his wonderful deeds among the Redouins. Knox was the best liked of any of the boys. He was courtly, gentlemanly, and truthful. As a writer and journalist of veracity, he seemed to have been modeled on the Kansas plan.

"On the commission were General Sherman, General Sanborn, General Harney, Senator Henderson, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Taylor of Tennessee - father of the Taylor boys who ran for governor on opposing ticket at the last election, Taylor, by the way, is the only noted politician I have ever known to remember an editor after he was out of sight. I got acquainted with Taylor on one of these expeditions, and a long time afterwards, when the Sac and Fox and Pottawatomie, Indians were to be located in the Indian Territory, Commissioner Taylor appointed me one of the commissioners without solicitation from senator, representative, or governor, or myself.

"The council was called, as you know, after many bloody tragedies that had been enacted on these western plains. The blood thirsty Cheyennes - in revolt of that suicidal and nonsensical policy that for a time rules the maudlin sentimentalists of the East and an impractical congress, and which sought to tear the wild denizens of the Northern hills and prairies from the graves of their ancestors and to paint them in masmatic reigns - had torn themselves away from the homesick grounds of the Indian territory and sweeping like a southern simoon or the hot winds of July and August, across our western Kansas prairies deluged them with blood. The sad stories of settlers scalped, of the German and other families murdered, western Kansas ravaged and plundered, at last aroused the sleepy Indian bureau at Washington, and Col. Thomas Murphy, a superintendent of Kansas Indians, a brave Irish republican, and as nobel a soul as ever spun an Irish story or unflinchingly took a glass of grog was sent out early in the spring of 1867 to gather the Indians in council. It was a perilous adventure; none but a brave man would have undertaken it. Colonel Murphy corralled the Indians at Medicine Lodge, and you doubtless all know where the council grounds are.

"Or of the incidents of the trip I will say nothing. We left the cars at Ellsworth; the great Santa Fe was not then built. This gigantic and imperial corporation was then only a maggot, so to speak, incubating in the prolific brain of Col. C. K. Holliday of Topeka. Touching the countless millions of buffalo we saw and counted (?) I have told you before and will not repeat. The great valley was grand, colossal and imperial in its majestic splendor and unrivaled beauty. The bronze-glories of an autumn sun had tinged its scanty foliage with colors of gold and flecked its sides with flashes of beauty such as were only seen in the absolutely perfect days of autumn in Kansas before the white man appeared.

"It was a great council on the part of the Indians. They were assembled en masse. It is said that there were 15,000 present. They had their squaws and their papooses. They were at first sullen, monrose, and not disposed to treat; they were hungry and mad. They were filled and after feasting they became better natured. It was at this council that I heard Santanta, in the presence of General Sherman, boast of the men he had killed and the horses he had stolen 'up at Larned.' He then rode a big black horse with U. S. branded on the flank, Santanta was a fiery speaker, vehement, impetuous, tumultuous as a torrent, generally believed to be a common liar and a most consummate scoundrel. Kicking Bird was the second chief and afterward became principal chief. He was a good Indian. I slept in the same tent with him. He saved my life and the life of my friend Colonel Murphy, but as this incident is only important to ourselves I pass it by.

"On one occasion we came very nearly being gobbled up by the Indians, and probably would have been but for the presence of two old Indian fighters - Gov. Sam Crawford and General Harney. It was a dull, dreary day. Listlessly and lazily the drops of rain drizzled all day long. Towards evening the Indians became restless; they moved about silently, sluggishly, and slow; they would not come into the council. Governor Crawford called General Harvey's attention to the unpleasant signs, which to his practiced eye were plainly visible. The General drew up his troops in a hollow square, and turned a Gatling gun straight upon the camp of the Indians; and the massacre at the lava beds in California was not repeated upon the virgin bosom of southern Kansas.

"After many days of pow-wowing, the Indians treated. They were given homes in the Indian Territory, and agreed to leave and forever abandon Kansas. We-that is, the commission - slashed away promiscuously and gave away empires to the Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches; anything they wanted in the way of lands and hunting-grounds in the Indian territory; anything to get them out of the state of Kansas.