We found all the ranches west of this deserted and sacked, but could find nothing of the mail till we reached Fort Larned, where we found it had not started, as the Colorado troops who had the fight with the Indians had reached the fort in thirty-six or forty hours after the fight and reported the danger.

The commander of the post called a council of the Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Comanches who were about the fort, to know their intentions. They will professed themselves adverse to going to war, but none but the Comanches seemed to have any censure for the Cheyennes. They said the Sioux were with the Cheyennes and that 10 Sioux and 7 Cheyennes were killed in the fight; said the Indians claimed the victory and were still in the same vicinity where the fight occurred; admitted that they had asked them to join them. While they were thus nominally professing to be peaceable, they robbed a train of wagons within a few miles of the fort of all their provisions, and word came that they had just robbed a corn train on the road to Fort Lyon.

We started with the U. S. mail from Fort Larne don the 24th, and reached Saline in two days and a half without any difficulty, though we were watched by scouting parties of Indians all the way. The stage stock is all of the road for 100 miles and every station keeper has left.

Unless assistance, is promptly furnished the mail between the forts will be discontinued and the road abandoned. It is a hard blow on the settlement,for so long as these hostile Indians hold the country no one knows where they will strike, and all branches of industry are suffering. We were robbed by guerrillas in the fall of 1862. They took 50 head of mules, 2 horses, and rifled the stores, and my own opinion now is we stand in great danger from the same source. They can run stock from our country into Texas without any possibility of anything to obstruct them. Look on the map and you will see. My impression is that the Indians meditate a general war, and the move is simultaneous with the guerrilla movement on the border and in Missouri.

There is little doubt white men are instigating the move ment. I could find no proof of any of the ranchmen selling whisky, but I was very credibly informed that some of them on the Santa Fe road and one on the Riley road had been in the habit of trading them revolvers; that they had been very anxious to get them for some months past, and had paid exorbitant prices for them. I think this matter should be looked after. The stage company has now lost 16 mules on this route, and when the report came that the mail was interrupted and probably destroyed, I felt authorized to act. I traveled 100 miles and back on this errand.

Yours, truly,

H. L. JONES,

Deputy U. S. Marshal

[Indorsement.]

H. L. Jones is deputy U. S. marshal, appointed by me, and is acting under my authority.

THOMAS O. OSBURN,

U. S. Marshal.