the white people used in the war. And I sometimes saw dif- 

 ferent small war parties of both Blues and Grays. The first 

 that I saw was a number of the Gray men. They were on 

 horseback, and came from somewhere on the river below me- 

 They stopped and tied their horses in the woods around me, 

 and cooked and ate their dinner. A little group of the best- 

 dressed ones, and who seemed to be the leaders, sat under my 

 shade while they ate their meal. They stopped only a little' 

 while, then got on their horses and went on up the river. 

 The birds afterwards told me that the next day these men fell 

 upon a little town up the river where Blue people lived, and 

 burnt the town, and took and carried away a great deal of the 

 food and clothes and many of the cattle and horses of the people 

 of the town.* But they didn't kill anybody, because the Blue 

 men in the town did not belong to the soldiers, and so they 

 had no guns to fight with, and just had to run away and hide. 

 The Gray men went back to their own country by some other 

 road, and I never saw any of them again. But after that, 

 from my topmost branches I sometimes saw war parties of 

 the Blue men. They were on horseback, in long strings, and 

 went down the river valley along the edge of the prairie. But, 

 as I have said, the most of the fighting and killing was done 

 far from me, toward the sunrise, and all I know about that 

 I got from the birds; but from all they told me, it must have 

 been a terrible war. After it had lasted for some years, the 

 Gray men got discouraged, and quit fighting, and then all 

 the white people came together again, and were friends like 

 they had been before. Soon after the war was over, the red 

 men left this neighborhood and went away somewhere, and 

 then the white people commenced pouring in by thousands — 

 men, women, and children. 



"And then began the fatal troubles of the trees, and of 

 all the wild animals and birds of this region. The first comers 

 of these people built their cabins in the edge of the woods 

 along the river and the little streams, and at once began cut- 

 ting down the trees, so that they might have cleared places 



♦The sacking of Humboldt, Kansas, in September, 1861. 



i8 



