That was the end of the Stanley-Cook exploration of Asia. The explorer’s first quest had met a staggering set-back. But, ‘repulse is interpreted according to the man’s nature,’ as Morley puts it; ‘one of the differences between the first-rate man and the fifth-rate lies in the vigour with which the first-rate man recovers from this reaction, and crushes it down, and again flings himself once more upon the breach.’ CHAPTER XI WEST AND EAST INDIAN WARS OF THE WEST.--ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN, ETC. * * * * * Stanley writes: ‘My first entry into journalistic life as a selected “special” was at St. Louis after my return from Asia Minor. Hitherto, I had only been an attaché, or supernumerary, as it were, whose communications had been accepted and most handsomely rewarded, when, as during the two bombardments of Fort Fisher, they described events of great public interest. I was now instructed to “write-up” North-western Missouri, and Kansas, and Nebraska. In 1867, I was delegated to join General Hancock’s expedition against the Kiowas and Comanches, and, soon after the termination of a bloodless campaign, was asked to accompany the Peace Commission to the Indians.’ * * * * * These two expeditions he reported in a series of letters to the ‘Missouri Democrat,’ which, in 1895, he made into the first of two volumes, ‘My Early Travels and Adventures.’ It is the graphic story of a significant and momentous contact of civilization with savagery. Two years after the close of the Civil War, the tide of settlers was swiftly advancing over the great prairies of the West. The Union Pacific Railroad was being pushed forward at the rate of four miles a day. The Powder River military road was being constructed to Montana, and forts erected along its line, through the best and most reliable hunting-grounds of the Sioux, and without their consent. The Indians throughout a wide region were thrown into a ferment, and there were outbreaks against the white settlers. In March, a force was sent out under General Hancock, which Stanley accompanied, with the general expectation of severe fighting. But General Hancock soon imparted to Stanley his views and purposes, which were to feel the temper of the Indians, to see who were guilty, and who were not; to learn which tribes were friendly-disposed; to separate them from the tribes bent on war; to make treaties wherever practicable; and to post more troops on certain roads. In a march of four hundred and fifty miles, he practically accomplished this plan. The hostile Sioux and Cheyennes were detached from their allies, the Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Comanches; and when the hostiles stole away from the conference, and began outrages on the settlers, they were punished by the destruction of their villages. But after Hancock’s return, the plains still seethed with menace and occasional outbreaks, and a general Indian war seemed imminent.