The Daily Gate City

Indian Troubles on the Plains,

The Indian tribes engaged in war on the plains number in all about 18,000.

In the Upper Platte Agency there are the Sioux, 7,785 in number; the Arapahoes, 1,805, and the Cheyennes, 720. In the Upper Arkansas Agency there are Arapahoes, 1,500; Cheyennes, 1,600; Comanches, 1,800; Kioways, 1,800, and Apaches 500. It is estimated that of these 4,000 are warriors, and are now under arms. They are not so dangerous annoying. Mounted on horses as fleet as those of the Arabs who infest the northern line of the Sahara, and broken up into small war parties, scattered over plains of almost illimitable extent, it seems next to impossible to overtake and chastise them.

They pounce upon an emigrant train, murder its owners, destroy the wagons, drive off the stock, and are off with the plunder before the military of the nearest post are apprised of their presence. They fall upon the cabins of the squatters in thinly populated regions, massacre the inhabitants, burn the buildings, and reduce the pioneer's improvements to a state of native desolation, and the military pursue only to look upon the ruin they have wrought, without being able to overtake and punish those who have wasted the land with fire and sword.

There is a great deal of racing up and down the country, and occasionally a redskin atones for his atrocities with his life, and that is all.

We presume all is being done that can be accomplished with the means at hand, considering all the difficulties to be overcome, to put a quietus on these red devils. But so far the result has not been encouraging. All overland travel is pretty much suspended, and for hundreds of miles between the frontiers of Kansas and the Rocky Mountains, there is not a white man to be found, save the few collected in block houses, or huddled together at some military post. General Curtis will find his best auxiliary in the approaching cold weather, which will compel the savages to take to quarters for the winter, and by spring it is to be hoped such measures of war or peace will be taken as will put an end to the Indian war, and break up the combination which so seriously threatens the frontier from the Arkansas line to the Northern limits of Minnesota.