Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far WestDrannan, William F.
History
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West
Drannan, William F.
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America -- Wars
The next morning we were up and had our breakfast and started very
early. We had not gone more than two miles, when, on looking
ahead, we saw twelve men coming on horseback. Through my glasses I
saw they were white men, and told the boys so. George Jones could
not believe they were white men until he looked through the glass,
when he said: "Well, I'll be d--d if they ain't white men."
We altered our course so as to meet them, and less than a half
hour's ride brought us face to face.
There was a man by the name of Wm. McConnell riding in the lead,
and on meeting us the first word uttered by any of the party was
by McConnell. He said: "Where in the name of God did you get those
horses?" While I was telling him where and how we came in
possession of them, George Jones took the five Indian scalps from
the pack and said:
"And there is something else we got at the same time we got the
horses."
Then he took the two white men's scalps from the pack, also the
two rifles, and they were also satisfied that the scalps were the
scalps of the two white men who had been herding this same band of
horses and mules, for the hair was similar in color to that of the
two herders. One of them had dark brown hair and the other one had
rather light hair.
From this company of men we learned that near us there was a
mining camp, the stock belonged to the miners, and that the two
men killed had been herding the horses and mules about three miles
away from camp. This was a new camp called Greenhorn Gulch.
The herders always brought the horses to camp every night, but the
last two nights they had failed to bring the stock in, and this
man McConnell had raised the crowd to hunt the stock, being
satisfied that the two herders were killed and the stock driven
away by the Indians.
After giving them a brief outline of our little fight with the
Indians, our business there, etc., McConnell asked us how much the
miners would have to pay us for our trouble. I told him that we
did not make any charge, but that if the miners felt that it was
worth anything to them to have their horses brought back, they
could pay us just what they felt like giving. McConnell said for
us to ride back to camp with them and he would call a miners'
meeting that afternoon and state the case to the miners, and he
was satisfied they would do what was right.
We drove the stock to where they were accustomed to being
corralled at night and corralled them, and made camp for the
night, for I was needing rest, very much, on account of my
shoulder.
This man McConnell was erecting a store building about half way
between Greenhorn Gulch and a new discovery that had recently been
made, some two or three miles off.
About two o'clock Mr. McConnell came to our camp and told us to
come along with him to a certain miner's cabin, and that the
miners would all be there and we would see what could be done.
When we got to the cabin, sure enough every miner was there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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