before but for the press of business which had to go by the southern mail. The information upon which your letter is based differs from that which has reached e through other channels in regard to the complicity of the Comanches in the late robberies and murders on the plains. I am advised that these troubles first commenced with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and in the attempt to conciliate those tribes Colonel Bent and Indian Agent Colley, acting on the part of the Government, issued to those Indians a liberal supply of stores. This excited the jealously of the Comanches and Kiowas, who alleged that they did not understand why they, who had remained quiet, should be excluded from the bounty of the Government, while those who had been murdering and robbing should be thus favored, and as no attempt was made to remove this cause of complaint, they too, commenced depredating, and I was not aware until the receipt of your letter that any doubt existed as to the guilt of the Comanches equally with the Kiowas. It is certainly understood that the interruption to our line of travel to the States is owing to the hostility of the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Comanches and Kiowas. The mules taken from Mr. Bryant's train near Fort Larned were beyond a doubt run off by the same Indians, who, it is alleged crawled through a Mexican train and up to Bryant's train before they gave the yell which stampeded the mules. These mules other Comanches and Kiowas, mounted, were ready to take charge of as soon as they broke from the wagons, so it is said. The taking of oxen at pawnee Fork, where there were several men killed, is well known to have been by Comanches and Kiowas.

The large number of mules taken from Don Ambrosio Armijo's train this side of the Upper Crossing of the Cimarron, were taken by Comanches and Kiowas, for they were recognized as such by the teamsters in charge of the train. The outrage in Mr. Allison's train at the Lower Cimarron Springs was, as I have been informed by eye-witnesses, committed by Comanches. The Mexicans with the train witnessed the whole transaction, and saw the five Americans taken out from amongst themselves and shot down in cold blood. The bodies of the sufferers were afterward buried by Captain Nicholas S. Davis, First Infantry California Volunteers, whom I sent to the crossing of the Arkansas to render what assistance he could. When these Americans were thus brutally murdered and scalped, the Mexicans, their companions, were furnished by the Comanches with the means to return unharmed to the settlements. All the stock taken by the Indians at the points named along the Arkansas River was driven southward directly into the Comanche country, where it is understood those Indians have a large depot of stolen cattle, horses, and mules.

The expedition now on the plains under the command of General Blunt is for the purpose of making war upon the Comanches and Kiowas. For this purpose it is understood that expedition moved into the country of those Indians. There can hardly be a doubt that while the Comanches were this robbing and murdering at the points named, other parties of Comanches were depredating on the frontier settlements of Texas, and have brought herds of cattle from that State as well as out of the northeastern portion of Mexico. But these latter raids of these Bedouins of our plains do not prove the former not to have been made.