"I reckon we'd been travelling about ten days since we left Point o' Rocks, and was on the other side of the Big Bend of the Arkansas, near the mouth of the Walnut, where Fort Zarah is now. We had went into camp at sundown, close to a big spring that's there yet. We drawed up the wagons into a corral on the edge of the river where there wasn't no grass for quite a long stretch; we done this to kind o' fortify ourselves, for we expected to have trouble with the Ingins there, if anywhere, as we warn't but seventeen miles from Pawnee Rock, the worst place on the whole Trail for them; so we picked out that bare spot where they couldn't set fire to the prairie. It was long after dark when we eat our supper; then we smoked our pipes, waiting for the oxen to fill themselves, which had been driven about a mile off where there was good grass. The Mexicans was herding them, and when they'd eat all they could hold, and was commencing to lay down, they was driven into the corral. Then all of us, except Comstock and Curtis, turned in; they was to stand guard until 'bout one o'clock, when me and Thorpe was to change places with them and stay up until morning; for, you see, we was afraid to trust them Mexicans. "It seemed like we hadn't been asleep more than an hour when me and Thorpe was called to take our turn on guard. We got out of our blankets, I putting Paul into one of the wagons, then me and Thorpe lighted our pipes and walked around, keeping our eyes and ears open, watching the heavy fringe of timber on the creek mighty close, I tell you. Just as daylight was coming, we noticed that our mules, what was tied to a wagon in the corral, was getting uneasy, a pawing and snorting, with their long ears cocked up and looking toward the Walnut. Before I could finish saying to Thorpe, 'Them mules smells Ingins,' half a dozen or more of the darned cusses dashed out of the timber, yelling and shaking their robes, which, of course, waked up the whole camp. Me and Thorpe sent a couple of shots after them, that scattered the devils for a minute; but we hadn't hit nary one, because it was too dark yet to draw a bead on them. We was certain there was a good many more of them behind the first that had charged us; so we got all the men on the side of the corral next to the Trail. The Ingins we know'd couldn't get behind us, on account of the river, and we was bound to make them fight where we wanted them to, if they meant to fight at all.