The middle 1800s brought a great surge westward which aroused and antagonized the Native American tribes whose land was being violated and whose staff of life, the buffalo, was being exterminated. The Indians relentlessly attacked the endless wagon trains, the crews laying the railroad tracks, the pony express riders, the men stringing telegraph wires and the lone prospector seeking hidden mineral wealth on the Indian's sacred grounds. Warring bands waiting silently on high ridges and outcroppings would receive smoke signals from their scouts, whereupon they would descent in full fury upon the unsuspecting trespassers.
