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
"All right," said Kit, "mount your horses and let's be off." And
he gave orders to ride abreast when the ground would permit.
By riding in this manner we could corral quicker. What is meant by
corralling is that each man has his string of horses as we have
before stated, and when attacked each man rides to the center, and
the horses are a great protection to the men in time of battle. We
traveled some four or five miles without seeing an Indian, but all
this time we were on open ground.
Finally we came to a little stream, a tributary to the Madison
river, and when crossing this we were again attacked by the
Indians, who were secreted in the brush.
This was a surprise, for we had not seen an Indian since we left
the West Gallatin. Here we had a fight that lasted full twenty
minutes. We were about the middle of the stream when they opened
fire on us.
Uncle Kit said: "Come ahead, boys;" at the same we commenced
firing at the Indians, and every foot of that stream had to be
contested, from the middle, where they first opened fire on us, to
the shore. I saw two dead Indians in the water, and there might
have been more, but I did not have time to stop and look for
Indians, either dead or alive. I had seen the time that I was
hunting for Indians, but at this particular time I didn't feel as
though I had lost any.
Uncle Kit was now in the lead and I was bringing up the rear. Just
as we were out of the water and he was removing the saddle from
his horse, he got two arrows through his buckskin hunting shirt,
and was very slightly hurt.
We managed to stand them off until he removed the saddle from the
dying horse to another, after which we pulled for open ground, all
escaping unhurt, excepting the slight scratch Uncle Kit received
from the arrow.
The redskins did not follow us away from the creek.
As soon as we were on open ground we stopped and built a fire and
dried our clothing, for we were as wet as drowned rats. To build a
fire we had to pull small sagebrush that grew here and there in
the open prairie in that country. While we were drying our
clothing and eating a lunch, we had our horses feeding near us,
but did not dare let them scatter for fear of an attack, which we
were liable to experience at any moment. After we had our clothing
pretty well dried out and having had a little something in the way
of refreshments, on looking off to the northeast about two miles
distant, we saw a big band of buffalo and a lot of Indians after
them.
We concluded that we had remained here long enough, so we mounted
and pulled out again.
The balance of the day we kept on open ground, and saw numerous
little bands of Indians, but were not molested by them until late
in the afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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