“’Cordin’ to Wild Bill, that village had $150,000 worth of stuff in it; an’ d’ye suppose the Injuns’ll stand for the destruction of it all? Now they’ll claim we started the war, an’ we claim they started it, an’ what the end’ll be, nobody can say.”
“In my opinion,” said Sergeant Kennedy, “General Hancock ought never to have let that village-full get away from him. They played with him, and held him off, and then they gave him the slip.”
“You’re right,” agreed Henderson. “An’ now we’re up agin it, with the Injuns loose in three hundred miles square o’ territory, an’ we chasin’ ’em. An’ won’t there be a great howl, from the agents an’ the traders an’ the contractors, because the war is spoilin’ their business.”
“Those traders and contractors are responsible for much of this trouble, just the same,” asserted the lawyer “rooky” (who now was a veteran). “They do not deliver the agency goods in quality and quantity up to grade.”
“That’s true,” nodded Odell. “Yez ought to see some o’ the stuff that gets through to the Injuns. Shoddy cotton for wool; shirts ye can stick your finger through, an’ suits o’ clothes that won’t hang together while the Injun puts ’em on an’ that the Government pays the contractor thirteen dollars for!”
“Yes,” said Sergeant Henderson. “An’ the first thing the Injun does with the pants is to cut out the seat. What do they want o’ suits o’ clothes, anyway—one suit a year! An’ the government thinks to trade ’em this way for their lands an’ game an’ all that, an’ lets ’em get cheated into the bargain.”
“Huh!” grunted another member of the circle. “They don’t fare any worse’n us fellows. Did you notice that bread served out to us to-night? Talk about hard-tack! Cook says the boxes show it was baked in ’61—six years ago! Even a mule won’t eat it.”
“Sure,” answered Odell. “And didn’t wan o’ the boxes o’ salt beef opened at the commissary contain a big stone, to make it weigh more!”
General Hancock passed through back from the south. Then followed another event. This was the arrival of the great General Sherman, who was commander of the whole Military Division of the Missouri, whereas General Hancock was commander only of the Department of the Missouri, in it. Of course everybody knew of General William Tecumseh Sherman, the man who had “marched to the sea.” And with General Sherman came, in the same ambulance from Fort Harker, the end of the railroad, Mrs. Custer and Miss Diana!