One or two trifling encounters occurred in May between the troops and Indians, presumably Comanche and Kiowa, in western Texas, and others more serious in June farther north, in Indian Territory and the adjoining part of Kansas, the Indians concerned being probably chiefly Cheyenne.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
QUANAH PARKER, PRINCIPAL CHIEF OF THE COMANCHE]
In the latter part of June, 1874, the confederated Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa made a combined attack upon the buffalo hunters intrenched in the fort of the Adobe Walls, on South Canadian river, in the Texas panhandle. The engagement began about the 27th, and continued several days, the Indians attacking with desperate courage, urged on by their medicine-man, who had assured them that the bullets of the whites could not hurt them. The hunters, however, had a small field cannon, and with this, protected as they were by the solid walls of adobe, they finally compelled the Indians to withdraw with considerable loss. The medicine-man excused the result on the ground that his medicine was for guns and not for cannon. The combined force was led by Quanah, the present noted head chief of the Comanche, who informed the author that he had seven hundred warriors in the fight, but added sententiously, "No use Indians fight adobe." The result convinced him of the falsity of the claims of medicine-men, against whom he has ever since used his powerful influence in his tribe. Finding their position untenable without military protection, which was refused by the general commanding the department, the buffalo hunters soon afterward abandoned the fort. The location is known among the Kiowa as "The place where Quanah led his confederates" (see _Report, 39_; _War, 2_; Record, 2).
On July 3 a small wagon train in charge of Patrick Hennessey and three other men, loaded with supplies from Wichita, Kansas, for the Wichita agency at Anadarko, was attacked by Cheyenne on the trail where now stands the town of Hennessey, Oklahoma. The four white men were killed and scalped, the stores and mules taken, and the wagons burned. Hennessey was tortured by being tied to a wagon wheel and burned upon a pile of grain taken from his own wagon. This last deed was the work of some Osage who came up while the Cheyenne were still there, and who secured the larger share of the plunder. These same Osage were ostensibly friends of the whites, and had completely deceived their agent and missionary into the belief that they were doing all in their power to quiet the hostile tribes. The bodies of three of the men killed were buried by a neighboring ranchman, who had warned them of their danger only a few hours before, and unsuccessfully endeavored to persuade them to turn back. Hennessey's remains were buried two days later by a party under agent Miles(_Battey, 8_; _Report, 40_).