This is the cry of Western men. It is very easy to talk of "extermination." General Harney, an old Indian fighter, told General Sherman that a general war with the Indians would cost the government $50,000,000 a year, and stop for a long time the running of the Pacific Railroad. They fight only at an advantage,--when they outnumber the whites. They fight, scatter away, and reunite again; hide away in canons (_canyons_), gorges, and mountain fastnesses, where no soldier can find them. It would be a war of fifty years' duration. General Sherman is reported to have said at a meeting of the Indian Peace Commissioners, at Fort Laramie, with several tribes, "Say to the head chief that President Grant loves the red men and will do all he can for them. But they must behave themselves, and if they don't, tell him _I'll kill them_!" The old chief began to mutter away something to himself and others. "What does he say?" said the general. "Why," said the interpreter, "he says, '_catch 'em first, then kill them_!'" Have they never been wronged by white men? Have you never heard of the Sand Creek massacre? There had been some trouble between the Cheyennes and Arapahoes and some soldiers near Fort Lyon, in 1864, south of Denver, Colorado, where these Indians have a reservation. The origin of the trouble is uncertain. Major Anthony was sent out to fight them; but on his arrival he found them peaceable,--they had given up their prisoners and horses. [Indians take their squaws and papooses with them when they go on hunting expeditions. The squaws prepare all the meat, dry all the game for winter food, and tan the buffalo- and deer-hides to sell. They live in tents or lodges, called "Tepees," made of tanned buffalo-skins, and usually hold about five persons, in which they cook and sleep. _On the war-path_, they leave their squaws and papooses in their villages. This was the case when Colonel Chivington (formerly a preacher) charged that they were hostile, as an apology for his wholesale slaughter.] Five hundred Indians of all ages flocked, soon as attacked, to the head chief's camp,--"Black Kettle,"--and he raised the American flag, _with a white truce beneath_. This, you know, is respected in all civilized warfare. Then the slaughter began. One who saw it said, "The troops (mainly volunteers) committed all manner of depredations on their victims,--_scalped them_, knocked out their brains. The white men used their knives, cutting squaws to pieces, clubbed little children, knocking out their brains and mutilating their bodies in every sense of the word." Thus imitating savage warfare by nominally Christian men. Robert Bent testified thus: "I saw a little girl about five years of age, who had been hid in the sand; two soldiers discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her, and then pulled her out of the sand by her arm," etc.