the safety of the road to avert all Indian war. The latter appears to me an inevitable consequence of the license of plunder and immunity from the consequence which results from the absence of mounted troops from the plains. Evil-disposed white men are driving a brisk trade in whisky with the tribes above mentioned; this, and this alone, is the reason of their continued presence upon the road, and none but mounted men continually patrolling the roads between the Little Arkansas and Walnut Creek can break up the business. The Kaw Indians, who are employed as the "go-betweens" in this abominable traffic, it is respectfully suggested, should be confined to their reservation, or at the least a council should be held for the purpose of telling them that their appearance upon the Santa Fe road within 10 miles east from Lost Spring or within a day's march north or south of the road beyond that point or across the Smoky Hill wounded hereafter be considered as an act of hostility and the signal for attacking them on their reservation, The Kaws are partially civilized and wholly degraded, and their inter course with the prairie tribes is vitiating in the extreme and should be prevented, when if in doing so it should become necessary to cut into them as a moral ulcer in the body politic. The range of the Kiowas and Comanches lies south of the Arkansas and in texas. The latter tribe has not as yet made its appearance, but will probably be on the Arkansas some time in July, following the trail of the buffalo in their northern migration. Of the former, all the bands but that of Setapy are now encamped between Cow and Walnut Creeks. This is a turbulent and warlike tribe, who have not as yet been broken by the power of the Government. Their chiefs told me some time since that runners has been sent to them urging them to attack the trains upon the Santa Fe road, but this they all professed to be very much opposed to, believing a strict neutrality to be their best policy. I need hardly say, however, that their influence with their people is very trifling and their control purely nominal. I am told by travels recently over that portion of the road that the Indians are very earnest in their inquiries as to whether the troops of whose contemplated movements they have heard are surely coming, and if they "are mad," or, in the other words, if their own exactions and annoyances to the travel of the road had excited the anger of those in authority,or if, on the contrary, no notice was taken of their acts.

An Indian has no more appreciation of forbearance and long suffering that a little child, and though readily controlled by firmness and a reasonable show of force, yet the absence of the latter will ever be taken as an immunity to do evil, and he will proceeded from bad to worse in the ratio of his freedom from domination until and expedition against his becomes a sad necessity, thereby entailing an expenditure of thousand of dollars, where all might have been avoided had only timely notice been taken of his irregularities. I have been told that there are mounted regiments at Forty Riley destined for New Mexico, together with a battery of artillery.

May I be permitted to suggest that a show of this force on the road, though it came no farther then Pawnee Fork and then returned to Forth Riley, would have a most beneficial effect, and I desire to add that the presence of a company of mounted men on the Santa Fe road, drawing supplies from this post, under the command of a discreet officer, would thereafter be the only force recognized to maintain order until late in the fall, when they might be ordered into winter quarters at Fort Riley. Fort this service I would respectfully recommend Lieutenant [F. W.] Schaurte, commanding Captain Clarke's company of Kansas cavalry, as