ANECDOTE OF THEIR CHIEF. 229 



excellent scouts they were, and belonged to a tribe which 

 boasted that they had never killed a white man. Their chief 

 had gone into the Southern army at the beginning of the war, 

 and had risen to the rank of captain and gained a name 

 for bravery. 



I heard here a story of him which will show the kind of 

 man he was. It seems that some time in the summer of the 

 previous year, he and seventy of his men were out on a 

 hunt, in the course of which they came across the Comanche 

 chief Queen- a-ha-be and about three hundred warriors of his 

 tribe. Now though the Comanches were at war with the 

 whites, they were not so with the Caddos, so they fraternized 

 and camped together. 



One day as the Caddo chief was walking about the Comanche 

 camp, he came upon a horse with the U.S. brand, showing he 

 belonged to the Government, and on asking how he came to 

 be there, he was told that shortly before meeting the Caddos, 

 and after the latter had left Fort Arbuckle, the Comanches 

 had made a raid on it, and had carried off some ten or twelve 

 soldiers' horses. On hearing this the Caddo chief went to 

 Queen-a-ha-be and asked if what he had heard was true, when 

 Queen-a-ha-be said that it was an affair between the United 

 States Government and himself, and with which he had nothing 

 to do. The Caddo chief replied, that as head of the scouts he 

 was answerable for the safety of the fort and all its horses, and 

 that those which had been stolen must be given up to him. 

 that he might take them back. Queen-a-ha-be flatly refused 

 to do this, on which the Caddo chief said that if they were not 

 given up to him by the next morning he should come and take 

 them. Queen-a-ha-be laughed at the idea, saying that he had 



