treating with them, and the success which he had in sustaining friendly
relations with them was one of the wonders of the West, and was a
circumstance of much comment by those who had occasion to use the
Santa Fe Trail.

It is small wonder, then, that "Little Billy of the Stage Coach" won for
himself the title of the "Second William Penn."

In the early Sixties, the region through which the Old Trail passed was
an unexplored territory where constant struggles for supremacy between
the Wild Red Man and the hardy White man were carried on.

Many and tragical were the hardships endured by those who attempted to
open up this famous highway and establish a line of communication
between the East and the West. The only method of travel was by odd
freight caravans drawn by oxen or the old-fashioned, lumbering
uncomfortable Concord Stage Coaches drawn by five mules.

The stage coach carried besides its passengers the United States mail
and express.

An escort of United States militia often accompanied the stage coach in
order to protect it against attacks of the Indians at that time when the
plains were invested with the Arapahoes, Comanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas
and other tribes, some of whom were on the warpath, bedecked in war
paint and feathers.

The Indians were often in search of something to satisfy their hunger,
rather than the scalps of the white men. The author of this book won
their confidence and friendship by dividing with them his rations, and