He did the work uncomplainingly, and with not a murmur of discontent, for many years.

One day they missed him from the work, and they never made a search. They knew that the wilderness had beckoned to him, that he

had heard the call of the wild solitudes, and had gone. They let him go, to spend his few remaining years in the old familiar fastnesses, where his rapidly dimming eyes would soon close forever to the changeful coloring of the sky and land.

Leach, in his historical stories, says that Harney had twelve hundred troops in the Battle of Min-ne-to-wap-pa, or Bluewater, which was more than half of all the soldiers along the Overland.

In 1855, which was the year following the Grattan Massacre, there were only 2,000 of the military guarding the entire line of the Overland, but this was gradually increased, for rebel spies and agitators were among the Indians during the trying times of the early sixties, and hostilities increased amazingly. At the close of the war, many men re-enlisted for service in the west, and they were among the best, for their experience in guerilla warfare well fitted them for the character of Indian fighting.

Al. Wiker, of Alliance, with five others of his original company were with the Harney convoy that had a battle in Scottsbluff Mountain Pass.

This convoy was in August, 1866, in charge of freight outfits for Fort Laramie and beyond as far as Salt Lake City. From Wiker I obtained the story.