Pete was born on a ranch near what is now Fort Worth, Texas. His father was a red-headed Irishman, who had lived and traded with the Comanche for years. His mother was the daughter of a Comanche medicine man and a cousin to Quanah Parker. The white man knew him as Pete O'Neal; the Comanche knew him as Little Fire. Pete was accepted to West Point, but his education was cut short when the Civil War broke out. He spent the entire war as one of Jeb Stuart's aides. After the war, he did a lot of things; he lived with Indians, fought Indians, worked on the railroad, and punched cattle. It took six hundred heads of cattle, one very large dog, and a Wyoming winter to set his mind at rest. A letter from his uncle in Texas got him started on his way home.