KILLED BY THE INDIANS
For the next few days we were all very busy. Tom was putting the
finishing touches on our quarters, while Jack and I were doing the
trapping, baiting, and skinning. I assisted Jack in trapping beaver and
he helped me in killing buffalo and taking care of the wolfskins.
While working at these tasks we were riding the surrounding country,
east and west, up and down the creek, and north and south in open
prairie. At a distance of about three miles down the creek, on the
north side, we found a series of connected sloughs leading off from the
creek out into the prairie bottom, through which a string of little
ponds ran for about a mile and then united with the main stream again.
These sloughs, bordered by a rank growth of rushes, made excellent
feeding-grounds for water-fowl. It was easy here to procure all the
ducks, geese, brant, and sand-hill cranes that we wished. On the
prairie were plenty of antelope, with now and then a few deer and
elk in the timber along the creek. Everywhere were seen bleached and
bleaching buffalo bones--too common a feature of the landscape to
attract more than a passing glance.
One day Jack and I had been killing some buffalo for wolf baits on the
high prairie south of our camp. We had become separated by a couple
of miles; each had killed his buffalo, and I had poisoned mine and
started to Jack, who was waiting for me to prepare his buffalo for the
wolves also. As I rode through a scattered lot of bones, where several
animals seemed to have been killed together, I noticed among the lot a
human skull. Looking more closely, I saw other human bones of the same
skeleton and those of a horse, the hoofs of which, with the shoes still
on, showed that it had not been an Indian's horse. Bones of wolves lay
among the others.
Here, then, seemed the evidences of a past tragedy, and, wishing
to have Jack come and help to read the signs, I rode out clear of
this bone-yard, fired a shot from my rifle to attract his attention,
and then began riding around in a circle--the usual signal in such
cases--to call him to me.
He understood and galloped toward me. While he was coming I walked
about among the relics, trying to solve the mystery of which these
bones were the record. They had been somewhat scattered, by the wolves
that had picked them, but their general lay indicated pretty clearly
the relative situation of the man and animals at the time of their
death. The bones had probably not been there more than about a year.
Although somewhat mixed and scattered, the general lay of the bones
seemed to show the buffalo on one side, the horse on the other, and
the man between them. The man's skull had a small bullet hole through
it at the temples, which sufficiently indicated the immediate cause of
his death; but whether this shot had come from an enemy or had been
self-inflicted could not be determined by the signs.
While thus trying to interpret the indications, Jack reached me.
"Here, Jack, has been a man, horse, and buffalo killed," I said as he
halted, "and from the looks of things, I think it happened about a year
ago. Help me to read the signs. The horse was a white man's horse, for
the hoofs, you see, have shoes on."
"That ain't sure proof," replied he, "for the horse might have been
lately captured or stolen from the whites. But, hold on!" he exclaimed
after a moment's survey of the bone-yard, as, stooping, he picked up
what proved to be the lower jaw-bone of the human skull. "This settles
it. This says he was a white man, for here's a gold plug in one tooth."
"Well, that settles one important point," I replied. "But how did the
buffalo, man, and horse happen to die so close together?"
"Seems to me," said Jack, still walking about scrutinizing the relics,
"it could have happened in only one or two ways. Either the man and
his horse have been killed by a wounded bull, an' the bull then fell
an' died with 'em, or--which is more likely--the man killed the buffalo
an', while busy cutting some of the meat out, was corralled by Injuns.
How do you read it?"
"The signs disprove your first proposition, Jack," I answered, "but
confirm the second. If it had been an accident from a wounded bull
there would be some such remains as the metallic parts of his gun or
pistol, or buttons, spurs, buckles, and so forth; but you see there's
not a thing of that kind to be seen. If he was killed by Indians they
would have carried off all his and his horse's equipments; and I think
that is what happened."
"I guess you're right," admitted Jack. "It must have been the work of
Injuns."
Just then he stopped and picked up an old bleached buffalo
shoulder-blade that seemed to have been carefully placed, flat side
down, on top of the weather-whitened skull of the older set of bones.
"Halloo! what's this?" he exclaimed excitedly as he began scanning the
bone. "Here it is, Peck. This'll tell us something about it if we can
only make out the writing. See if you can make it out."
On the flat side of the shoulder-blade was dimly pencilled a partially
obliterated and nervously written inscription. It was without date, and
yet enough of the wording was legible to enable us to make out the
following message from the dead man:
[Illustration: Cut off and surrounded by Injens Woonded--laying between
ded hors and ded buffalow standing them off. Catriges nearly all gon
God hep me
John S. Kel Gran Mo.]
The name seemed to be something like Kelton, Kelsey, or Kelley, and
several of the other words were so imperfectly written that I had to
guess them out. We guessed the name of the town to be Granby, Missouri.
As I finished rendering my interpretation of the inscription Jack said,
as he devoutly crossed himself:
"'God help me!' the poor fellow said, an' no doubt the Good Man took
pity on him an' let him in at the gate, for the good Book do tell
us that he never was known to go back on such a prayer as that. Well,
he must have hurted some of them Injuns in the row. It would be a
satisfaction to find some sign that he got away with some of 'em; so
let's mount an' take a circuit 'round over the prairie for two or three
hundred yards out an' see if we can find anything."
[Illustration: "It must have been the work of Injuns."]
We did so and were rewarded by finding the bones of two small horses,
probably Indian ponies that the man had shot in defending his position.
"That's some satisfaction," said Jack as we returned, "for it's more'n
likely that he killed some of the Injuns, too. Well, what'll we do
with these things?" pointing to the skull, jaw-bone, and buffalo
shoulder-blade.
"I was thinking of taking them back to camp with us," I replied, "to
see what Tom will say."
"Just what I was thinkin'," said Jack, dismounting and preparing to
tie the skull and jawbone to his saddle. "I'll carry these an' you can
carry the shoulder-blade. You'd better carry it in your hand, an' be
careful of it so's not to rub out the writin' any more, for it's hard
enough to make out as it is."
Of course Tom was interested in the memorials we brought and asked us
many questions about the signs we had found.
After giving him time to study the problem out, I asked:
"Well, Tom, what do you make of it?"
"It's my guess," he replied deliberately, holding the skull up before
him as though reading its history, "that this man was a wolf hunter,
like ourselves, an' if so there'll be more of this affair to be
discovered hereabouts. He had killed that buffalo for wolf bait, 'cause
if he'd been after meat he'd 'a' killed a younger one, or a cow, for
you say the bones showed it was a big bull. A man wouldn't be so far
away from the Santa Fé road huntin' buffalo without he had a camp in
this neighborhood. If he had a camp he's had a pardner or two, an' what
must have become of them? Their camp must have been somewheres along
the creek, not far from here. Have either of you seen any signs of such
a layout in your rambles up or down the creek?"
"No," I answered, "but, then, neither of us has been more than about
three miles up or down."
"Well, after this, when you go up or down the creek make your trips
extend a little farther each time till you've covered at least ten or
twelve miles each way; an' by keeping your eyes peeled you may be able
to find some remains of a hunter's camp or some sign that'll give us
something more about this. This man came to his death about as you an'
Jack guessed it; that is, while getting ready to poison his buffalo for
wolf bait the Injuns came onto him an' surrounded him."
"I think," I interrupted him to say, "that he had probably already
poisoned the buffalo, for I noticed the bones of several wolves there,
which would go to show that the wolves had died from eating the
poisoned meat of the buffalo."
"Well, yes--likely," returned Tom. "He put up a good fight, though,
from what you say, an' seems to have been a man that's had some
previous experience in that line. Did you notice any bullet hole in his
horse's skull?"
"No. I looked for that, but there was no sign that the horse had been
shot in the head; but he might have been shot elsewhere."
"'Tain't likely," replied the old man thoughtfully, "for you say the
horse's bones show that he died close to the buffalo, an' the man in
between 'em, as his bones show an' the writing on the shoulder-blade
says. He must have cut its throat. How far off from the man's bones was
the bones of the Injun ponies that you found?"
"About three hundred yards," I replied.
"Well, he must have had a Sharp's rifle,[D] for a muzzle-loader
wouldn't kill that far. But he's had a navy pistol, too, for this shot
he give himself was a navy ball."
And taking a navy bullet out of his pocket, Tom showed us that it would
just fit the hole in the skull.
"He's been right-handed, too," continued the old man, "for the ball
went in on the right side an' come out on the left. You see, the little
hole is clean-cut on the right side but bigger an' ragged on the left
where it come out. That tells where it went in an' where it come out.
When he wrote that note on the old shoulder-blade he's been getting
nervous, or maybe weak from loss of blood. It's a pity, though, that
he didn't set down his name an' the town where he come from a little
plainer so's we could write to his folks an' let 'em know what become
of him. But, like many another poor devil that's been wiped out by
Injuns, his people'll never know where, when, or how he died.
"Well," continued the old man after a pause, "I b'lieve I'll ride over
to the fort to-morrow; an' get our mail an' come back next day, an' I
guess I'll just take them things along," pointing to the bones, "an'
maybe some o' the folks over there can tell me somethin' more about
this affair. If anybody knows anything about it French Dave'll know,
for he's been among the Injuns a good deal an' would be likely to have
heard something about it."