The report of Captain Alvord, already quoted at length, affords a good insight into Kiowa character. Gregg in 1844 described them as "one of the most savage tribes that infest the western prairies" (_Gregg, 7_). Captain (afterward General) John Pope ten years later called them deceitful and unreliable and "absolutely destitute of most of the chivalrous characteristics which distinguish the Comanche brave." General Pope in 1870 denounced them as being altogether the worst Indians the government had to deal with, having been for twenty-five years past "the most faithless, cruel, and unreliable of all the Indians of the plains." About the same time General Sheridan expressed his lasting regret that he did not hang Set-t'aiñte and Lone-wolf and punish the whole tribe when he first met them. The Quaker Battey, a good friend of theirs, describes them as "the most fierce and desperately bloodthirsty tribe of the Indian Territory"--a people who had hitherto resisted all attempts to bring them into friendly relations with the government or to a knowledge of civilization, still continuing to commit depredations upon the white settlements, stealing horses and mules, murdering men and women and carrying their children into captivity. He says it would probably be difficult to find in the whole tribe a man whose hands had not been imbrued in blood. Clark states that in personal appearance, intelligence, and tenacity of purpose he considers them inferior to the Comanche (_Pacific, 1_; _War, 5_; _Battey, 16_; _Clark, 8_). POPULATION