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.)
Jim answered, "That, sir, is your business, not ours. It is our business
to see that the people under our care do not meet with the same fate
these men have met, and I do not intend to put the lives of all this
train in danger by stopping to hunt for the remains of men who refused
with scorn to stay with us and share the protection we offered them;
they brought the trouble and their own deaths on them selves, but I will
say this, if any of you men want to hunt for these bodies and take the
time to bury them, I have no objection, but you must understand that
when you get outside of the scout force we shall not be responsible for
any thing that may happen to you."
At that moment more than twenty men spoke together, saying, "Mr. Bridger
is right, Mr. Bridger is right; he proposes to do just what he agreed to
do, and no one can blame him." One of the men then asked if we would be
willing to stop long enough to bury the bodies if we found them; Jim
said, "We have no objections to stopping if it is a suitable place to
make our camp, but if it isn't we can't afford to lose the time, as we
must make certain places to camp every day, for we are now in a hostile
Indian country, and in order to protect our selves we must camp in
certain places, for without we take this care this train will not be in
existence a week, and Will and I feel the responsibility that rests upon
us, for the lives of your women and children as well as your own are in
our hands."
At this moment a middle-aged lady who stood near us with the tears
running down her cheeks said, "Why don't you let Mr. Bridger and Mr.
Drannan have their way? You see what these other men came to by not
obeying their orders, and do you want to bring us all to the predicament
they are in?" At this Jim said, "I'll be dog goned if they will."
This settled the controversy for the time being.
That evening before we turned in for the night Jim and I talked the
matter over together; and we decided that after I put out the scouts in
the morning I would take ten men all mounted on horses and keeping about
five miles ahead of the train, and if we found the bodies I should set
the men I had with me to work digging graves, and I should turn back and
report to Jim what we had found, and the condition we found them in.
As soon as possible the next morning the men I had selected and myself
pulled out. We had made eight or nine miles when we found the bodies we
were looking for. They were all laying near together, around what had
been their camp fire, and all of them were scalped.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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