A LITTLE COMPASSION--WHITE FOLLY AND RED TREACHERY--A SQUEAK FOR
LIFE--MAKING TRACKS--FEMALE SOCIETY--A TASTE OF WESTERN
CIVILIZATION--DEFERRING A HONEY-MOON--THE ARMY OFFICER--TRAILING
AND SPOTTING--A CHANCE TO LOOK AT A LITTLE INDIAN
FIGHTING--WRATHFUL AND RIGHTEOUS BUNCOMBE--FORCED TO BEND ONE'S
HEAD--MIRTH EVEN AT THE POINT OF DEATH.
We had not to wait long for the red-skins to attempt carrying out their
late threats. On this occasion, we also had a good example afforded us
of their gratitude, and keen sense of obligation for kindness.
About ten o'clock on the following day, I discovered some thirty-five or
forty of them descending the side of the mountain near the Ranch, on
their ponies. Tom Harvey was at the moment standing by me. He recognized
an Indian at their head whom he had almost, as he himself expressed it,
raised. He had lived with Tom for several years, and on one occasion,
had saved Tom's life. Naturally enough, old love for the lad, who was
now barely eighteen years of age, moved Harvey's bowels strongly with
compassion.
Being, as my readers already know, a largely fat man, his compassion for
the young Pah-ute was as oilily large and full-sized.
To state matters briefly, he wished to save him, and applied to me for
permission to go out and warn him to leave.
"If I grant it, you must keep your tongue still, upon our being here."
"In course I will, Cap!"
"Not one word must you utter about our presence at the Ranch."
"D'yer think I'm a fool, Cap?"
Well! It can be no use to induce the belief that I did not wish him to
go. Perhaps, at the time, owing to my conversation with Laithrop on the
night before, I may have fancied we had judged the red rascals too
harshly. Possibly--but there is no reason for my hesitation, or beating
the cover. I may as well have it out, at once. The truth is, like an
idiot, I permitted him to constitute himself good adviser to the one
red-skin in particular, and necessarily to the others in general.
With my full sympathy he walked towards the Indians, and motioned to him
he had recognized, to come forward. The young Pah-ute advanced.
Tom spoke to him, and the red-skin replied, making a gesture of dissent
as he did so. After this Harvey continued long and earnestly, apparently
urging him warmly to induce his colored friends to desist from their
hostile intentions. The Indian, with an emphatic movement of the arm,
seemed positively to refuse attempting to bring them to any such
concession. It was then I saw the Ranger point in the direction of the
_corral_ in which I had stationed portion of my men.
Immediately that I saw this, I became aware of the folly I had been
guilty of, even more clearly than Harvey himself, soon afterwards, was
of his.
The young red-skin turned at once to his companions, pointing to the
_corral_, and uttering a few rapid words. Then I saw Tom Harvey rushing
back towards me, while the Pah-utes fired a volley on the house or shed
to which the Ranger's insane frankness had directed them. It was merely
made of boards, an inch in thickness, reared end-ways. Their bullets
riddled it, with the rattle of a storm of hail. All we could do in
return was to fire on them from the _corral_ and the house, as they
turned tail and urged their ponies up the mountain they had been
descending. We saw five or six of them reel in their saddles. But they
were prevented from falling from them, by their companions, until the
whole of them were out of sight.
One of our own men had been instantly killed by their volley.
My wish was to follow them instantly. But, in this instance, my orders
were not attended to. The boys had rushed upon Harvey and seized him.
They were already violently discussing the question whether they should
shoot or hang him for the crime he had committed. It was fortunate for
him that my wrath, as well as that of Arnold and Painter, although
fierce enough, was scarcely so savage as theirs was. Brighton Bill and
Butch', I knew, would stand by me in almost any case, whether they
agreed with me or not. If matters came to the worst, I also felt certain
that we might count upon the assistance of George Laithrop. Rushing
amongst them, it was with no small violence, and even a fierce blow or
two, that I struggled to the side of the pale and weaponless Harvey, and
wrenched him from their hands.
"What are you doing--Rangers?"
"A' going to hang him, darned quick."
"Without even a trial?" I demanded.
"We'll jist try him, arterwards."
"Then, by God!" I said, "you will have to hang me and try me
afterwards, too." As they paused for perhaps half a minute, I continued
without giving them a chance to speak. "I believed you chose me your
Captain, yet here you are going to hang one of my boys, without letting
me say a single word."
"Say it darned sharp, then, Cap!"
"And give us your orders to run him up with a rope, or put a bullet
through his skull, in two minutes," roared out another.
As they were again crowding up and one of them had grasped Harvey by the
collar, Ben Painter, followed by Arnold, had struggled to my side and
thrust him back.
"I tell yer," he shouted out, for otherwise he would scarcely have been
heard, "Mose is right. He's Captain. We mustn't have any Vigilance
Committee business, but do up things square."
"We'll take him down to Susanville, and give him a fair trial," added
Arnold.
"And then yer can hang him, if yer choose to," exclaimed Butch'. "Yer'll
only have tu wait twenty-four hours."
By this time, the last speaker and Brighton Bill had vigorously thrust
their way to my side, and I felt I had a sufficient support to carry my
point and save Harvey from the menacing rope and tree which had so
lately reared themselves before him.
But he also seemed to feel his increased chance of safety, and anxious
to improve it, attempted to commence defending himself. When, however,
he did so, I cut him short with a fierce whisper, announcing to him that
if he uttered "a single word," I would abandon him. The Rangers were in
a moment of such wild excitement, that, had he spoken, every effort we
might have made would have been useless. Their savage fury would very
speedily have settled the question, in spite of us. Even as it was, we
had to contend with them for more than an hour, before we had calmed
them down sufficiently to listen to our arguments.
When this was at last effected, I placed him in the charge of Painter
and Brighton Bill, while we buried the man who had been slain through
his insane want of judgment.
That night we slept in George Laithrop's house, and on the following
morning we were no sooner stirring, than it was discovered that while we
had been sleeping, Tom Harvey had been awake. In other words, he had
made tracks.
It must be remembered that there was scarcely one of our party who,
while engaged in active work, looking after the Indians, was not in the
habit of keeping one eye at least half-open in the hours of his
intermittent rest. Possibly, however, it was the belief that there was
no actual danger immediately around us, as well as the security Tom's
size and weight appeared to afford against any attempt on his part to
escape, that prevented our slumbers from being broken. At all events, it
was difficult for us to realize the fact that he had managed it. We were
all of us sleeping upon the floor of the house. Our blankets were all we
had. Beds were then a scarcity, in this portion of the West, as, indeed,
they would be now, at any Ranch in a section of it not too thickly
populated. How the deuce he managed to step over the prostrate forms of
so many of us as were lying between him and the door, without disturbing
one of the sleepers, it would be impossible to say. Had he made the
error of half an inch, in placing one of his feet upon the ground, he
could not have failed to waken the Ranger on whose body or limbs he must
have trodden. Fear had evidently much lightened his person. In addition
to this, I could not help suspecting that George Laithrop had connived
at his escape. Of course, there was a frightful commotion about it
amongst the boys, whose feelings of security amongst themselves had been
so unpleasantly dispelled by his conduct. George, however, escaped
without the slightest suspicion. If any one was imagined to have aided
and abetted his flight it was myself and Harry Arnold. In fact, as we
were riding back to Susanville, Butch' could not help saying:
"I'm darned if yer didn't manage the thing well, Mose."
After this, none of us again alluded to it. Life was too active and full
of daily excitement, to give us time for recalling such an event after
it had reckoned itself with the doings of the past.
Only once since then, did I hear anything of "Fatty." He had been seen
by a trapper on the Humboldt River, and had then said he was on the way
to Salt Lake City. He may possibly by this time have become a Mormon,
and been enrolled as an elder of that polygamous community.
Some time in July, 1862, I received a letter from the last-named place.
A few months earlier I had written to my wife, begging her to come to
me, and giving her directions how to cross the Plains. This letter was
from her. She had immediately complied with my wishes, and requested me
to meet her as soon after she left Salt Lake as might be possible. It
would be impossible to express the delight which I felt in knowing she
was so near me. None of those who have not experienced the pleasures of
a life with little female society, and no near female relative to whom
they can unbosom all their joy as well as all their weariness,
discomfort, and trouble, can realize it. In the excess of my
gratification, I fear I must have exposed myself to the laughter and
jocularity as well as the envy of many of my comrades, as I cannot doubt
but that, in my first moments of well-nigh delirious pleasure, I must
have made a complete fool of myself.
Almost immediately, I left Susanville for Virginia City, Nevada. Thence,
I went to Dayton.
Here I met an overland stage-driver. From him I heard that he had passed
a train at Austin, in which I might find my wife. Accordingly, I
purchased a horse and side-saddle from the keeper of the hotel, who was
named Jaquish, and on the succeeding day was again in the saddle.
Dan Vanderhoof, a friend of mine whom I had known for several years,
accompanied me portion of the way to Carson City. I went to this place
with the view of meeting Colonel P. E. Connor with his command of
California Volunteers. My friend introduced me to him and Major
Gallagher, and I was asked to accompany them some eight miles down the
Carson River to Reed's Station. It was to talk upon "business."
Otherwise, I should have certainly declined deviating from the road, so
increasingly anxious was I to see the little woman from whom I had so
long been separated.
This business was, after the evening meal, speedily arranged.
They needed a guide and scout through Idaho and Utah, in the Fall. My
qualifications as the last, would counterbalance any deficiency I might
have as to the first-named. The necessary details were quickly agreed
upon, and early on the next morning I was crossing the Desert towards
the big bend of the Carson River. On the day following this, I came upon
a large train of stock, and one of the guides told me a larger train was
then some four miles behind them, at a distance of something more than a
mile from the main track. Pushing on at once, in less than half an hour
I came in sight of the encampment.
While I was riding up to it, my wife recognized me. How she was able to
do so, has, on thinking the matter over, always astonished me. The tan
of exposure on the frontier, fuller muscle, and the general style of my
dress and equipment, had so thoroughly changed my personal appearance.
However, she certainly did know me. As for her, I should have recognized
her features, even had she been dressed in the unsightly garb of an
Esquimaux.
It would be little use for me to detail the words and actions of this
meeting. Any man who has been so long separated from his wife as I had
been, and any female who had, for so long a period, not seen the face of
her husband, will readily imagine what passed between us. We were,
nevertheless, quickly compelled to bring our outburst of natural joy to
an end, by the approach of Chart Gregory with Mr. and Mrs. Devine, and
others of her companions on the train. Then I heard of all the trouble
she had been exposed to, and more especially of a fellow named Mat
Carpenter, who had been consistently unkind to her since they had first
struck the Plains. He had been an old school-mate of hers, and had
displayed the memory of their childish intimacy, by doing all he
possibly could to increase the discomfort she had experienced in her
preliminary taste of Western civilization.
"You needn't look round for him, Mr. P----," said Gregory, as he saw my
eyes wandering round the camp, with an ominous look for him. "No sooner
had your lady recognized you, than the scamp cleared out."
At the instant, the employment of my real name, for the first time in so
many years, as well as the polite appellation he had bestowed on "Mrs.
P----," so completely astonished me, that I momentarily lost my
self-possession. After this I could not help laughing, as my wife also
did, although she, very certainly, could not comprehend the motive which
induced such an audible peal of merriment on my part. Then she told me
that Mr. Gregory had already thrashed Mat, some two days since. At the
same time he had told him, I should be made acquainted with his conduct
the moment that I met the train. This very clearly accounted for his
disappearance, without waiting for an introduction.
Having adjusted the side-saddle for my wife, and seen that she was
safely mounted, I took behind me what positively needful articles she
might require. With a friendly farewell upon our part, and a grateful
leave-taking on mine to those of her fellow-travellers who had shown her
kindness, we started across the great Desert.
Continuing all night, we broke fast next morning at one of the stage
stations, and after resting for an hour, once more started.
From this point the road followed the river, and in my anxiety to save
some eight or ten miles of a track which I knew must be toilsome in the
extreme to a female whose life had not been passed in this part of the
country, I cut across the low range of hills by an old Indian trail.
When, however, I observed some Indians approaching from our right, I
recognized the want of caution I had displayed. Without calling my
wife's attention to their dark specks in the distance, for they were a
long way from us, I urged the horses into a sharp gallop, trusting they
might not have seen us. But the red man has eyes quite as keen as the
white ranger. They changed their course, with the evident purpose of
cutting us off from the river.
My decision was rapidly formed.
Knowing we should soon mount a small ridge, and should on its far side
be unseen by them for some time, we had no sooner crossed it, than I
turned left into the ravine known as Six-mile Cañon. Pushing rapidly up
this, we made our escape, and I did not mention the narrow chance we had
run of an Indian fight, until my wife and myself were in sight of
Virginia City.
This was, I may undoubtedly say, the first case in which I had turned
tail on the red-skins without an interchange of hostile salutations.
On arriving at Susanville, my friends told me that the Indians had, the
day before, killed Loomis Kellogg and a man of the name of Block, beside
wounding Theodore Perdum, at a place more than half-way between
Laithrop's Ranch and Mud Springs. They had been attacked by a party of
Indians, which were generally in the vicinity of Honey Lake and closely
upon the Humboldt. These had been baptized by the settlers as the
Smoke-creek tribe, although by no means a tribe in the same sense as the
Pah-utes and Modocs were.
This band of red-skins was composed of the offscourings of these two
tribes who had either fled or been chased from them, simply because they
were too scoundrelly and contemptibly degraded, in the eyes of their
original brethren, to be trusted or consorted with.
Smoke-creek Sam was their chief. He had earned this pre-eminence by
being, at long odds, not only the most blood-thirsty villain in this
gang of red devils, but perhaps the most irredeemable ruffian the Indian
history of the West can chronicle. The outrages in which he and his band
had been involved, both at our immediate expense and that of all the
settlers anywhere in our vicinity, were well-nigh numberless. During the
past year, whether Uncle Sam's patience had been worn out by the
accounts he had received of his namesake's rascally and bloody offences,
or from a wish to make some capital in the East by bestowing a little
affection on his Western nephew, it would be impossible to say. He,
however, condescended to bestow a little attention upon Smoke-creek Sam.
Some blue-coats had been sent out, and two military posts had been
formed. These were, respectively, on Smoke and Granite Creeks, in the
centre of the sweep of country exposed to this scoundrel's depredations.
For a short time, he became somewhat quieter; but as the blue-coats did
not busy themselves in punishing him, he had again plucked up courage,
and since the Pah-ute troubles had anew commenced, was, once more, on
the war-trail.
Harry Arnold had already called the Buckskin Rangers together, and they
had determined upon starting for the purpose, if possible, of completely
exterminating Smoke-creek Sam and his gang of cut-throats. My presence
in Susanville was speedily known by them, and I was unanimously called
to take my position as the leader in this expedition.
The second honey-moon of my one marriage was, therefore, brought to an
end, or, rather, indefinitely deferred. It had, most certainly, scarcely
begun, unless the commencement of such an agreeable period of life may
be supposed to take place in the saddle, and in flight from a party of
hostile Indians.
Short time was allowed me to make my wife as comfortable as the
exigencies of the moment permitted. The little woman submitted to them
like a veritable heroine.
In something less than an hour, we were on our way to the spot where the
murders had taken place. While going, we were joined by two companies of
soldiers, ordered out for the same purpose. Captain Knight was in
command of them; and shortly after we had passed Summit Lake, and
reached the place where Fort Warner now stands, I touched on a fresh
Indian trail.
My readers will not be unlikely to inquire how in the dry season of the
year, when the cracked and parched earth takes no footprint, I was able
to discern it. A small pebble here and there, freshly turned over, or a
few stones formed into a sign for other red-skins, either to tell the
day of the month on which they passed,[1] or indicate the period of the
year, are more than sufficient to the ordinary scout and trapper. In
this case the first sign of a trail had been sufficient for me. It was
clear that a very large number of the red-skins were in front of us,
and, very certainly, scarcely as much as twelve hours ahead.
Consequently I sent Arnold up the side of the mountain, to see whether
the red-skins might not be still in our neighborhood.
The Rangers were on foot, and I and Harry had been in advance of them.
As I now continued, Captain Knight overtook me, almost immediately after
I had been joined by Brighton Bill and most of the other boys.
"They say, Mose, you are on the trail?"
"So I am, Captain."
"I can see nothing!"
"Perhaps not. It needs quick eyes to follow this one."
"If there really is one," he said sharply.
His tone was not the most agreeably confiding possible, and I raised my
eyes from the ground on which they had hitherto been fixed, to
contemplate him, when Bill inquired:
"'Ow long, Cap, was hit since the blamed cusses went by 'ere?"
"From four to six hours. Possibly, something more," was my answer.
The officer gave utterance to a low and very dubious whistle, which
unmistakably suggested a disbelief in the authority Bill had appealed
to. On hearing it the Ranger's bronzed face flushed, and he turned on
the captain, exclaiming:
"What hin 'ell do you know habout hit? Hi'll bet my bottom dollar, Mose
hain't made no mistake."
"Well, my lads," said Knight, who, I must do him justice, immediately
saw the mistake he had made, "go ahead, if you feel so confoundedly sure
of the rascals."
"In course we are," put in Butch'. "You just leave Mose alone, and we'll
have their hair, afore night."
By this time, Arnold had rejoined us. He had as yet seen nothing.
Leaving him, therefore, to follow the trail, I went up the mountain to
try my luck. As I reached its summit, and cast a careless glance down
the other side, which was bare of timber, I caught sight of what I
believed must be our Indians. Some juniper trees concealed me.
Descending a few paces on the side where I had left the boys, I swung my
hat. They understood my meaning and came to a halt. Arnold and Painter
very soon joined me, and carefully concealing our movements, we crept
again to the summit. As they coincided with me, we immediately returned
to our party.
Upon informing Captain Knight of what we had seen, he condescended to
express his gratification, and immediately ordered his men to continue
the trail we had hitherto been pursuing, and follow the red-skins round
the far side of the mountain.
On my venturing to suggest that he had better send only a portion of his
men up the valley, he inquired what reason induced me to advise such a
division of his command.
"All the red devils are smart enough, Captain! Smoke-creek Sam is 'cuter
than every Yankee pedler rolled into one, if that one had been between
Honey Lake and the Humboldt for the last five years."
"Well! What if he is?"
"He's sure to smell us out. But if you will give me part of your men, I
will take them with my boys across the mountain. Between us, not a
red-skin shall escape."
"That's so, Captain!" said Harry Arnold, emphatically. "Mose gives good
advice."
Whether or no Harry's opinion was so little flattering to his own
judgment or not, that he was riled by the preference given to my
counsel, modestly as it had been offered him, I am unable to say. With
an obstinacy which may be a good thing in regular war, but is surely the
reverse of it in following Indians, he would neither abandon his
previous determination, nor give me one of his men. He, indeed, did all
but order me to continue with him.
My back was now up. To his astonishment he found out that I was to the
full as--perhaps, even more determined to have my own way in a matter I
thoroughly understood, than he was. Possibly, although I do not like to
venture such an opinion touching any of Uncle Sam's servants, he may
have had no wish to catch the red-skins. In entertaining such a
disinclination, he would only be imitating too closely the general
policy of our respected relative.
Whatever his wish may have been, I ordered the boys to their saddles,
and leaving him, struck a long cañon we had recently passed, which led
us almost to the spot on which the Indians had just been sighted, whom
Arnold and Ben Painter as well as myself believed to be the Smoke-creek
gang. When we reached the valley in which they were, we found ourselves
immediately ahead of the course they were taking.
No sooner had they spotted our party, which it was easy to do, in a
tract of country almost entirely bare of foliage of any description,
than they came to a halt.
We were yet far beyond rifle-range, and I actually thought they were
going to give us the chance of a fair and square stand-up fight.
True, however, to their invariable character, the red men thought twice
upon the matter. Turning from us they started up the valley, in the
direction Knight's command was coming. However, they did not continue
their retreat (it was a tolerably rapid one, as our pursuit also was)
for more than a mile. Here they plunged into a rocky gorge on their
left. Fancying that they might intend drawing the Rangers into a trap, I
sent Brighton Bill and four others up the right side of the gorge, which
was the most precipitous. Ben Painter, and some half-dozen more, were
told to mount the other side. My directions were that they should
advance as quickly as was possible, so that they might be able to head
the party we were pursuing. It was fortunate that the ground presented
tolerably rough travelling for horses, or, as they had necessarily
dismounted, it would have been impossible for them to do this.
After pursuing the uneven and broken track in the centre of the gorge
for a considerable length, perhaps some three-quarters of a mile, it
turned suddenly to the right.
Here it formed a deep and irregular basin, from which there was only one
means of escape.
This was a narrow and rocky defile, running up the steep side of the
cañon. As they saw us behind them, they endeavored to mount this.
Bill, and the boys who were with him, had, however, moved too quickly.
Scarcely had they entered the defile, than he administered them a sharp
warning to retreat.
Astounded by the totally unexpected warmth with which they had been
saluted, they faced round, with the intention of fighting their way
through their pursuers.
Upon reaching the bend of the gorge, at which it widened into this
basin, Ben's party received them with a round volley.
The red-skins now knew they were fairly trapped, and drawing back into
the basin, commenced, with the fragments of rock, to pile up a rude sort
of breastwork. As the boys were dismounting for active business, a
blue-coat suddenly appeared upon the scene. The soldiers had reached the
mouth of the gorge, and Captain Knight had despatched him to find out
what the firing he had heard, meant.
It must be owned, this was a sufficiently curious question. As Arnold
not unnaturally asked the sergeant, who addressed it to me:
"What the devil could it mean?"
I replied even more sharply:
"You can see for yourself. If the Captain wishes to look at a little
real Indian fighting, he's got a chance."
Time and words were, at this moment, too valuable for me to waste any
more of them. I again turned to the work on hand, and the blue-coat rode
back. It may be suspected he was glad enough to do so, as Indian bullets
and arrows were at the time rather lively. We were left to finish the
affair, without the slightest assistance from the paid servants of Uncle
Sam. As we subsequently had reason to know, this was not, however,
owing to any want of courage on the part of Captain Knight. His men had
proved too cowardly to lend us a hand. They did not relish exposing
themselves to the Indians. Neither the angry commands nor threatening
appeals of their indignant officer could in any way induce them to give
us an effective support.
Wrathful as we not unnaturally felt, we had no opportunity at the
instant of discussing the matter with that righteous amount of Buncombe,
which is, in similar cases, so gratifying to the average American mind.
It should be mentioned, nevertheless, that one of the boys became
fearfully disgusted with the conduct of his paid protectors.
Indeed, Mart Gilbert, for such was his name, jumped from behind the mass
of rock under which he was crouching. In his rage he actually executed
an indignant _pas seul_, as I should in my earlier years have styled it,
in the very face of the enemy. While displaying his maniacal agility, he
roared out for any "darned red skunk" to show himself and fight him.
None of those to whom he addressed himself, however, displayed any wish
to accept his invitation. But, naturally enough, they thought they had
an excellent chance afforded them for picking him off. A regular storm
of bullets and arrows rang and whistled round him.
Fortune generally seems to have a sympathy with madness.
It certainly had so in this instance. Not one of these missiles even
scraped his body. And before a second volley could be discharged at him,
with, in all probability, a more successful result for the red-skins,
Painter had crept to a point from which he could rake them a second
time. This volley was delivered at short range and, as an officer of
the regular army might say, destroyed their _morale_. As Ben
subsequently thought proper to say, in a more vernacular phrase than I
choose at present to employ, it impaired their digestion.
Seeing the disorder into which they were thrown, I gave the boys the
order to advance.
My words were not quite rapid enough. The boys Brighton Bill had with
him were once more in a position available for following the example
those with Painter had set them.
Demoralized as they were by the second volley, the red-skins
nevertheless exhibited what Saxons denominate pluck, and made a furious
rush upon the main body of their assailants, meeting us about half-way
up to their breastworks. Our work was now short and thorough.
Harry and myself had not dismounted. He was a capital horseman, and rode
in Comanche style, better even than I did. It was in this fashion that
he approached an old Indian who was literally hailing his arrows at us,
and shot him from under the neck of his horse. Ridding his hand of the
revolver which was attached to his wrist by a strap, he rushed the
animal past his prostrate enemy, and took his scalp very neatly, almost
at the same instant recovering his seat.
The red-skin, however, although dropped by Arnold's shot, very evidently
disapproved of the loss of his hair. Raising himself from the ground,
precisely at the moment when the former reappeared above the back of his
horse, he let fly another arrow.
This struck Harry in the back of the neck, immediately behind the
vertebral bones, passing directly through it for more than half its
length.
No time was given the Indian for another shot, as I was sufficiently
near to settle him.
"I say, Mose! lend me a hand."
On looking round, I could not forbear laughing. The manner in which the
arrow had passed through Arnold's neck compelled him to protrude his
head in front of him in such a strangely quaint fashion. Mirth would
have been compulsory, even in one at the point of death.
Of course, while laughing, I had pulled out the unpleasant addition to
his muscular anatomy.
Upon counting the bodies of the dead, we found seventeen. The remainder
of the party had managed to effect an escape.
After this we returned to the mouth of the gorge, where we did not find
Captain Knight and the blue-coats waiting for us. We felt considerably
mortified by the fact, that although the slain red-skins might have been
a portion of Smoke-creek Sam's band, he himself was, as decidedly, not
amongst them.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] These stones are ranged in a circle or semicircle, to indicate the
quarter of the moon. Within these, the number of fragments of rock
calendars the number of days from it. Other signs tell whether these
indications are left by a war or hunting party, and how many of them
there are. There are, besides, other marks, which tell whether the deer
is in the velvet and all the changes it is subject to, which are
invaluable to the hunter who is able to read them.