Page 236

236 
COLORADO SUPERINTENDENCY. 
T. 
DENVER, August 30, 1864. 
SIR: I have the honor to report that, in pursuance of your verbal instructions
to proceed to Camp Collins with all practicable haste to look after the interests
and condition of the friendly Indians encamped there, I have performed that
duty. Owing to the disabled condition of my own horse, and general impress-
ment of livery and other horses into the military service, I was delayed,
but 
succeeded in reaching Camp Collins on the 23d, two days after your order.
I found there, in addition to Friday's band of nine lodges, nineteen other
lodges 
of Arapahoes, under White Wolf, who had arrived from the Arkansas river.
Although not actually starving, they were miserably provided with food. Of
course the commanding officer of the post, Captain Evans, could not permit
the 
men to go hunting except in small parties, which he confined to a small range,
from which most of the game was very soon driven away; and the limited amount
of commissary stores precluded his making any considerable issues to them.
Mr. Sherwood, who, under your direction, had made some distribution of pro-
visions to them, I found confined to his bed, having been badly torn and
mangled 
in an encounter with a grizzly bear in the mountains. 
The ten sacks of flour which I purchased in Denver did not arrive until the
27th, but, for a temporary relief, I purchased some beef at 121 cents per
pound; 
as the Indians butchered it themselves nothing was wasted. 
The amount of food required by these people, of whom, by actual count, there
are 170 of all ages, will be about ten or twelve sacks of flour, and from
eight 
hundred to one thousand pounds of beef per week. If other articles are substi-
tuted, the quantities of these items may be proportionately reduced. They
asked 
for coffee and sugar, but I told them that many white people could not afford
to 
use these articles on account of the high price caused by the Indian war.
I 
could not furnish them. PerhapS, however, it might be well to issue to them
one 
ration a week of coffee and sugar. I can purchase beef readily at the price
named 
above, but flour, which last year sold in this market for six dollars per
100 lbs., 
cannot now be purchased for less than $20, to which must be added at least
2j or three cents per lb. for transportation. It cannot be purchased at the
store 
at La Porte for less than $25 or $28 per sack. Colonel Chivington informs
me 
that he has no authority to issue at that post, as it is out of his district;
and 
Captain Evans assures me he only issued the few sacks of flour he did, out
of 
his small stock on hand, in the confidence he felt that it would be repaid
by the 
Indian department in kind. 
The failure. of Mr. North to find the Arapahoes under "Roman Nose,"
in- 
duced "Friday" to send four of his young men to induce him to come
with his 
people, as he is very anxious for a treaty which shall provide for their
perma- 
nent settlement on the Cache la Poudre. Should they come, they will necessarily
have to be fed likewise. 
From my talk with White Wolf and others of his men, I am fully satisfied
of their present intention to keep peace, from motives of prudence more than
of 
friendship. On one occasion Captain Evans accompanied me to their camp, and
afterwards expressed himself equally satisfied on this point, as well as
of their 
disposition to respect his authority and requirements regarding keeping within
prescribed limits. 
I am happy to inform you that Captain Evans summarily closed the only 
grog-shop in the vicinity, having found some Indians and soldiers there engaged
in a drunken brawl. 
I learn nothing of "Left Hand," "Little Raven," or "
Storm," except that they 
were at Fort Larned, happy in receiving full army rations daily, although
warned 
to leave by the Apaches, Comanches, Kioways and Cheyennes, who declared their