[Gutenberg 57252] • The Indians of the Pike's Peak Region / Including an Account of the Battle of Sand Creek, and of Occurrences in El Paso County, Colorado, during the War with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, in 1864 and 1868

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to [www.million-books.com](http://www.million-books.com) where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE INDIAN TROUBLES OF 1864 A S I have before mentioned, war parties of Cheyennes and Arapahoes continued to make occasional trips through the Ute Pass to the mountains in search of their enemies, the Utes, until 1864. As these war parties seldom tarried long in this vicinity, their presence was not seriously objected to during the first two or three years, but after rumors of impending trouble with them became current, their visits were looked upon with a good deal of apprehension. From the year 1859 to the beginning of 1863, the wagon trains that brought supplies from the Missouri River to Colorado came and went without molestation, but it was noticed, from the latter part of 1862 on, that the Indians of the plains were anxious to secure guns and ammunition, and were acquiring more than was necessary for their ordinary hunting. Early in 1863, they began to attack and rob wagon trains, steal horses, andthreaten exposed settlements, but nothing occurred to cause any great alarm in the immediate Pike's Peak region, until the spring of 1864. During a very considerable portion of the next four years, however, the people of El Paso County experienced all the horrors of Indian warfare. My story of the Indian troubles of that period will necessarily be much in the nature of a personal narrative. At the time hostilities began, I was little more than eighteen years old, and as fond of excitement and adventure as boys at that age usually are. I had a part in many of the occurrences which I shall mention, and was personally familiar with the details of most of the others. About the 2oth of June, 1864, word reached Colorado City that a day or two previously, the Hungate family, living on Running Creek about forty miles northeast of Colorado City, had been murdered by...