Indians of all sorts were loafing about--all friendly, but a new and different kind of Indians from any I had seen--Kickapoos, Possawatomies, Delawares, Choctaws, and other tribes, of which I had often heard.

Everything I saw fascinated me.
These drills at the Fort were no fancy dress-parades.

They meant business.

A thousand miles to the west the Mormons were running things in Utah with a high hand.

No one at Fort Leavenworth doubted that these very troops would soon be on their way to determine whether Brigham Young or the United States Government should be supreme there.
To the north and west the hostile Indians, constantly irritated by the encroachments of the white man, had become a growing menace.