Capt. W. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years AgoDrannan, William F.
History
Capt. W. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago
Drannan, William F.
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
I said at the time, and I think now, that that was the most accurate
shooting and with the least excitement of any Indian fight I was ever
in. It seemed as if every man was as cool as if he was shooting at
prairie dogs, and every shot hit the mark. We did not touch the dead
Indians but left them as a warning to others who might come that way. We
next looked after the stock. By examining the horses, we found that they
tallied with the number of Indians, for every horse that belonged to the
Indians had a hair rope around his neck, which was a custom followed by
all the Western Indians at that time, as by marking a half hitch around
the horse's nose he made a bridle of it.
We found twenty-two horses and thirty-two head of cattle that the
Indians had stolen from the white settlers. Capt. McKee looked the
horses over that had belonged to the Indians and said, "Those are the
most valuable horses that I ever saw in the possession of the Indians.
They are all good stock, and we will get a good price for them if we
take them to Fort Worth, for good horses bring good money there."
When we returned to camp, we saw that two of the young men had their
horses saddled. The Capt. asked them where they were going. One of them
answered that, as they did not earn any of the honor that morning in
killing Indians, they would try to kill some deer for supper, as they
knew they would enjoy a piece of good, fat venison and thought the
others would, and they believed there was plenty of deer all around
there.
Capt. McKee and I spread our blankets and laid down to try and make up
for some of the sleep we had lost while in pursuit of the Indians.
About three o'clock one of the boys came and woke us up, saying they had
some fine venison all cooked and ready for supper, and that was one of
the times that I enjoyed a venison roast. It was as fat and tender as a
young chicken.
The next morning we pulled out of there bright and early, and it took us
two days to make it back to the settlement that the Indians had robbed
and in whose behalf Capt. McKee and I had gone out to punish the
thieves, with what success the reader already knows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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