Beecher Island A Western Story Author:Tim Champlin Matt Talbot was a scout with Sharp Grover and Bill Comstock at a parley with the Cheyenne chief Bull Bear along the Solomon river in western Kansas. The year was 1868. The Army was concerned about an uprising among all the young braves coming to join Bull Bear's band. Comstock was so confident in his ability to find out what he wanted to kno... more »w from Bull Bear that the trio had not been accompanied by a military escort. the chief was aware of the menace they faced. While he could, or would, tell them nothing, he did grant them safe conduct out of the camp. But before long their Cheyenne sentinels turned back and were replaced by a defiant band of Cheyenne braves who attacked the trio, killing Bill Comstock. For Matt Talbot this was the beginning of what he regarded as an adventure. He would scout for the military mission that would seek out and subdue the Cheyenne hostiles. This would turn out to be an adventure with grave consequences, since the number of hostile Cheyennes now under the war chief Roman Nose had grown so as vastly to outnumber the peace keeping mission.« less