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.)
We had all just taken our seats, and the head chief was in the act of
lighting the pipe when he sang out, "O Wah," at the top of his voice,
and in an instant every Indian sprang to his feet and started to run. I
could not think what was the matter until I looked around and saw a man
a short distance from us with a camera in the act of taking a photo of
us, but he never got the picture, for not an Indian stopped running
until his wigwam hid him from view.
The man with the camera looked the disappointment he felt as he came to
me and asked if I were acquainted with those Indians.
He said, "What in creation was the matter with them? What made them get
up and run? I would rather have given fifty dollars than miss taking
that picture."
I could scarcely answer him I was so choked with laughter. But I managed
to tell him that I reckoned the Indians thought that he had some
infernal machine pointed at them that would blow them all to the happy
hunting grounds.
He asked me if I would go and tell the chief that the camera would not
hurt them and try to make them understand what he was doing with it. He
said, "If you can persuade them to let me take a photo of them, I will
pay you well for your trouble."
I told him I would try, but I was doubtful of his getting the picture.
So I went to the chief's wigwam and tried to explain to him and to
persuade him to have him and all the band sit for their pictures to be
taken.
The chief shook his head and said, "Hae-Lo-Hae-Lo white man heap devil,"
which meant "I will not that the white man would do them some evil," and
then he said he was afraid that the white man with the big gun wanted
to kill all his warriors, and all that I could say would not change his
mind.
Carson, Bridger and I staid at Denver three weeks, and then we went back
to Bent's Fort, and when we left Denver, the town and the country in
every direction was covered with wagons belonging to emigrants that
the excitement about gold having been discovered in the mountains had
brought to Denver and the surrounding country.
We reached Bent's Fort late in the afternoon and had not been there over
an hour when three men and a boy came in on foot and brought the news
that the Indians had attacked a train of emigrants and killed them all.
The emigrants were on their way back east, from Cherry Creek, where they
had been led to believe that gold had been discovered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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