"I don't know but what it was best, after all," remarked old Tom, "seein' that the Injun had to be killed, for an officer to do it, for after that shot the Kiowas started on the war-path an' caused the loss of a good many lives of innocent people an' give the troops a whole lot of trouble an' hard service for a year or more afterward. Ef it had 'a' been an enlisted man fired that shot he'd 'a' been court-martialled an' punished, more'n likely, instead of being honored. So I guess Peck lost nothin' by it, for Bayard was sharply reprimanded an' had to do a whole lot of explaining to get out of trouble for that little job. As to the killing of Pawnee bein' the real cause of the Kiowa outbreak, that was the idea that some fool people back East got of it; but none of us ever believed that, for we knew from the actions of ol' Satank an' his band for some time before that, they was bound to go on the war-path with or without provocation, an' they seized on the killin' of one o' their chiefs as an excuse for turnin' loose on the Pike's Peak emigrants an' others along the road."
"You'll remember," said Jack, "that I wasn't with you the next summer on the Kiowa expedition, for I'd been left back at Fort Riley, in the hospital, but I know Peck an' you"--speaking directly to Tom--"was both with Major Sedgwick's command in this part of the country when Peacock was killed; an', as I've heard two or three different stories about that affair, I'd like to know the straight of it. Tell me jist how it happened."
"Well, sir," began old Tom as he raised up and began whittling another pipeful of tobacco, "I can give you the straight facts about that scrape, for I got 'em from Charley Rath an' the sick man--you know at the time Satank killed Peacock there was a man sick in bed in the ranch that the Injuns never touched, an' he was the only one of Peacock's men left alive, 'cept Wild Bill an' John Adkins, an' they was away from the ranch somewhere. After peace was made with the Kiowas an' they got to comin' around to the Walnut Creek ranch to trade ag'in, Charley Rath was runnin' it, an' he got all the particulars about it from the Indians who was with Satank when he killed Peacock. So I think I got it pretty straight.