That was how the Indian in his simple faith, trusted and regarded the soldier, who was too often unjustly sent out to fight him. And how do you suppose the soldier felt when he had to? Certainly he could have no relish for such dismal, perilous work. Anyway Crook and his small command kept up their exhausting efforts to avoid bloodshed. But all the while the Indian Agent Ring was sending out newspaper accounts of murder and depredations by the Indians, in order to involve Crook in a fight, which would drive the Indian away from the land on which the agents wished to profiteer. These stories Crook investigated and wherever he could, gave the lie to the rumor. Despite this knifing in the back, he again restored peace and contentment to the Apache--after two years. And so I could recount for many evenings true incidents like this. In five years one regiment had sixty-seven battles and skirmishes and another marched sixty-four hundred miles. In the first six years after the Civil War, the army experienced two hundred three actions with the redmen. And Indian troubles didn’t dwindle out until over 30 years after the Civil War. But the uphill work with the redman was by no means all that the soldier had to encounter. Between 1886 and 1895, he was called upon to restore order in civil uprisings throughout every state and territory in our country to the number of three hundred twenty-eight. And he accomplished these tasks with almost no bloodshed. The show of trained force was enough, small as it was. But during all this time when the soldier was enduring the hardships of intense heat and cold, and running untold risks for his nation, his work was little understood or appreciated. Once Congress tried to reduce the army to ten thousand, which would have brought on more slaughter, especially to the whites, and prolonged the Indian troubles indefinitely. Fortunately the reduction didn’t succeed. But something else did. No appropriation for the pay of the army for the fiscal year 1877-78 was made by Congress, and this right after the Custer fight. The soldier without his meager wage had to borrow money at interest, in order to live--to go on--go on enduring rude conditions and the hazards of life and death. There was a faction back east which believed the Indian should be exterminated. There was another which believed the Indian was right and should be left alone. There were very few who realized that there were good Indians and bad Indians just as there are good and bad white men. When the soldier lost battles, he was investigated. When he won some, he was branded as a butcher. Meanwhile the settlers were crowding in and had to be protected, and the Indian Agent Ring was forcing Crook, Canby, Howard, Miles and many others into fights they wished to avoid.