On Thursday we passed Big Timber, the only spot on the plains where there are trees; and there the Indians had counted the trunks and solemnly warned the men against cutting more: “Fifty-two tree. You no cut more tree--no more cut. Grass! You cut grass; grass make big fire. You good boy--you clear out. Fifteen day, we come: you no gone--ugh!” The “ugh” accompanied by an expressive pantomime. On Thursday evening we got a meal of buffalo and prairie dog, the former too strong for my failing stomach, the latter wholesome nourishment, and fit for kings--as like our rabbit in flavor as he is in shape. This was at the horse-station of “The Monuments,” a natural temple of awesome grandeur, rising from the plains like a giant Stonehenge. On Friday we “breakfasted” at Pond Creek station, two miles from Fort Wallis. Here the people had applied for a guard, and had been answered: “Come into the fort; we can‘t spare a man.” So much for the value of the present forts; and yet even these--Wallis and Ellsworth--are 200 miles apart. We were joined at breakfast by Bill Comstock, interpreter to the fort,--a long-haired, wild-eyed half-breed,--who gave us, in an hour‘s talk, the full history of the Indian politics that have led to the present war. The Indians, to the number of 20,000, have been in council with the Washington Commissioners all this summer at Fort Laramie; and, after being clothed, fed, and armed, lately concluded a treaty, allowing the running on the mail-roads. They now assert that this treaty was intended to apply to the Platte road (from Omaha and Atchison through Fort Kearney), and to the Arkansas road, but not to the Smoky Hill road, which lies between the others, and runs through the buffalo country; but their real opposition is to the railroad. The Cheyennes (pronounced Shíans) have got the Camanches, Appaches, and Arrapahoes from the south, and the Sioux and Kiowas from the north, to join them in a confederation, under the leadership of Spotted Dog, the chief of the Little Dog section of the Cheyennes, and son of White Antelope,--killed at Sand Creek battle by the Kansas and Colorado Volunteers,--who has sworn to avenge his father. Soon after leaving Pond Creek, we sighted at a distance three mounted “braves,” leading some horses; and when we reached the next station, we found that they had been there openly proclaiming that their mounts had been stolen from a team. All this day we sat with our revolvers laid upon the mail-bags in front of us, and our driver also had his armory conspicuously displayed, while we swept the plains with many an anxious glance. We were on lofty rolling downs, and to the south the eye often ranged over much of the 130 miles which lay between us and Texas. To the north the view was more bounded; still, our chief danger lay near the boulders, which here and there covered the plains.