BUFFALO BILL’S DIFFICULT MISSION. In answer to Buffalo Bill’s report of the iniquity he had unearthed in the Gallatin Valley, and the discovery that various tribes of Sioux were massing in the Bad Lands and raiding ranches and herders far and near, came an order to him from the authorities in Washington to get in touch with Sitting Bull himself, if possible. To the scout’s knowledge of Indian characteristics and customs and his well-known sympathies for the red man were intrusted a difficult mission of peace. He was to undertake to persuade the tribes to voluntarily abandon the Black Hills, and take up their abode on lands selected for them by the government in Indian Territory. It was the plan of the government to gather the various tribes in peaceful community there and provide for their sustenance by annual appropriation. The powerful Sioux chief had refused to comply, and every resource of the government was being exhausted to bring about the desired end without resorting to arms. Buffalo Bill went to what is now the respectable city of Livingston, on the Yellowstone River, and there awaited orders. Skibo, however, went south to the valley of the Little Popo-agie to take part in the house warming of his friends, the Staffords, and Nick Nomad had returned to Virginia City on business of his own. On receiving his orders, Buffalo Bill at once sent word to Bozeman, where Nomad and Skibo would next report, for them to follow the Yellowstone, stopping at the military posts for instructions. Then, with Wild Bill and Little Cayuse, he himself began the journey down the Yellowstone. At that critical period of the country’s Indian history it was destined to be one of the most dangerous and thrilling of the scout’s career. Everywhere the Sioux were retaliating for their wrongs, fancied or real, upon the white settlers. The young warriors, aroused by the call of the great chief, had accepted it as a general license for plunder. They had spread over a territory with a radius of hundreds of miles, and struck swiftly and relentlessly, ever replenishing their mounts from the best of the herds they raided. To Buffalo Bill had been awarded a herculean task. With the daring Wild Bill Hickok and the faithful Cayuse, he set forth to meet a foe which one thousand mounted soldiers could not have hoped to subdue. But with peace in his mission, the brave plainsman hoped to accomplish that which rifle ball and sword could not do--the pacification of the tribes without bloodshed. Scarce a day’s ride to the east the scout came upon the smouldering dugout of a settler and the mutilated bodies of the settler, his wife, and children, and on the grazing lands near by the carcasses of the slaughtered stock.