But nobody was allowed to stray far from the wagons, even to note the silence of the Plains, for fear lest it might be broken by very unpleasant sounds. All the "horse Indians" of the country were leagued together, that summer, to fight the whites. North of the Platte, Sioux, Blackfeet, and Crows had smoked the peace-pipe, and united to harass the builders of the Union Pacific. South of that river, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Comanches, and Arrapahoes were waging common war against those who were turning the buffalo pastures into farms, and making such alarming inroads into the vast herds upon which they depended for meat. The Indians were well armed, well mounted, and determined. Custer, with the Seventh Cavalry, was ranging the Platte valley, and the country between it and the Republican, so that, in that vicinity, Indians were becoming scarce. South of that, however, and particularly along the Smoky Hill, the valley of which General Lyle's expedition was ascending, Indians had never been more plentiful or troublesome than now.