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
As I rode along Gen. Wheaton dashed up by my side and said: "Where
can those Indians be and what kind of guns have they? I have been
losing men all day and there has not been an Indian seen." I told
the General I would try and locate them and let him know just
where they were. Taking George Jones and another man by the name
of Owens with me, I rode around on the opposite ridge, dismounted,
and leaving my horse with the other boys, I crawled down among the
rocks. I had on a buckskin suit and could not be seen much easier
than a Modoc when in the lava beds. They kept up a continual
firing, and now and then I could hear a bullet whiz near me. After
I had crawled about sixty yards as cautiously as I could I raised
on one knee and foot and my gun was resting across my leg while I
was peering through the fog to see if I could get sight of any
Indians, and listening to see if I could hear an Indian's voice. I
had remained in this position about five minutes when a ball
struck me on the shin-bone, just below the boot top. It appeared
to me that I could have heard it crack at a hundred yards. Never
before in my life had I experienced such a miserable feeling as at
that time. I thought that my leg was broken into atoms. I started
to crawl back up the hill, taking the same route that I had come
down, and when I had ascended the hill near enough to the boys so
they could see me, George Jones saw that I was hurt.
He dropped his gun and ran to me at once and said: "Captain, are
you badly hurt?" But before I had time to answer him he had picked
me up bodily and was running up the hill with me.
When he got to where our horses were he said: "Where are you
shot?" I said: "George, my left leg is shot off." "What shall we
do?" said George. I told him to put me on Johnny, that being the
name of my horse, and I would go to headquarters. He said: "Let me
pull your boot off," at the same time taking hold of my boot. I
caught my leg with both hands to hold the bones together while the
boot was being removed from the leg, thinking that the bone was
shattered into small pieces. As soon as George had succeeded in
removing my boot from my foot, he turned the top of the boot
downward to let the blood run out of it. "Why," said he, "your leg
is not bleeding at all." I then commenced feeling my leg, but could
not feel or hear any bones work, so by the assistance of George I
got my breeches-leg up and there the ball stuck just between the
skin and the bone of my leg, and the boys had a good laugh at my
expense.
When I had learned that my leg was not broken, George and I
crawled down together into the canyon, and located the Indians. We
got so near that we could see the flash from their guns through
the fog. We then ascended the hill, mounted our horses, rode back
and reported to Gen. Wheaton. But the Indians had the advantage
over the soldiers from the fact that the soldiers' could be easily
distinguished from the rocks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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