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
This man's name was Freeman. When we were ready to start Freeman
asked me what course I wished to take. I told him that I would
like to go in the direction that we would be the most likely to
find Apaches. I pointed in the direction of a range of mountains,
telling him that by ascending them he would be able to show me
where the different watering places were in the valley by land
marks, and we struck out southeast from the fort in the direction
of the middle fork of the Gila river. The first night we camped on
what was then called the Butterfield route, some thirty-five or
forty miles from the fort. This season there were a great many
emigrants passing over this route from Texas and Arkansas to
California, and Gen. Crook said the Apaches were giving them much
trouble on this part of the road, and if they continued to be so
bad he would have to send one or two companies of soldiers out
there for the protection of the emigrants. The second morning out
we passed a ranch owned by a man named Davis, who had lived there
two years. He told me that the Apaches had never given him any
trouble from the fact that he had gotten the good will of the
chief when he first went there by giving him numerous little
presents of different kinds.
He told me that although isolated from the world, he was doing
well, from the fact that most all of the people passing there
patronized him. This family was from Indiana. After I had told him
who I was and what would be my business, he insisted on my staying
over night with him when convenient, saying that it would not cost
me a cent. Thanking him for his hospitable offer, we rode on,
keeping the Butterfield route. Late that afternoon we met a train
of sixteen wagons on the way to California. The people told us
that the day before they had seen where five wagons had just been
burned. I asked how far it was, and they thought it was twenty-
five miles from where we met them. When we heard of this we pushed
on, thinking there might be some dead bodies there and that we
could bury them. On arriving at the scene, sure enough we found
three dead bodies two hundred and fifty yards from the burned
wagons; one of them being that of an old man, and the others, two
boys twelve and fourteen years of age. The Indians had not
stripped the bodies nor mutilated them, only they were all filled
with arrows. The dead bodies were all dressed in home-made jeans.
We found a few pieces of wagon boxes that had not been burned and
dug as good a grave as we could in the sand, giving them as good a
burial as we could under the circumstances. This being done, we
took the trail of the Indians, which led off in a south-westerly
direction. I felt confident that it had been at least three days
since this depredation had been committed. My object in following
them up was to see if we could get any evidence of white prisoners
in their camp. For the first ten or fifteen miles they kept on the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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