I had been taught by Uncle Kit that when I attempted to do a thing to carry it out at all hazards, if it was in my power to do so. After I had ridden about twelve miles or so, and was just entering the mouth of a little ravine, on looking up the same ravine I saw three Indians who had just hove in sight over the hill. I dropped back from their view as quick as I could, which only took about two or three jumps of my horse. The Indians having their backs toward me, I was confident they had not seen me. They were heading for the emigrant trail, that being what we called the wagon road across the plains in those days. I rode around the point of a hill and tied my horse in a washout where he would be hid from view, climbed up the top of the hill and saw five warriors, riding direct for the trail. After watching them for a short time I hurried back to my horse, mounted him and rode as fast as Mexico could conveniently carry me over this sagebrush country--about a quarter of a mile in an opposite direction to which the Indians were traveling. Riding up to the head of a little ravine, where I could tie my horse in a place where he would not be discovered by the redskins, I dismounted, tied my horse and crawled up through the sagebrush to the top of the hill, where I could watch the movements of the Indians. This was a rolling country, low hills covered with a heavy growth of sagebrush, and not a tree of any description to be seen anywhere. I had discovered my game, but how to capture it was what puzzled me. The reader can have a faint idea of the situation of a young man in a strange country and a sandy, sagebrush plain, who did not know where to find either water or grass. If I returned to headquarters they would escape me, and this being my first time out in the scouting business, I could not afford to let them get away. So, after holding a private council with myself, I decided these Indians were spies, who were scouting for a large party of Indians that were somewhere in this part of the country, and that they were looking for emigrants, and in case they did not see any such that day, they would no doubt go to water that night. I laid there on the hill watching their movements and trying to devise some plan by which I could capture them then. Could I only have had Jim with me, how easy it would have been to follow them to their camp that night, kill and scalp them and capture their horses. In those days an independent scout was entitled to all the stock captured of the enemy by him. I watched the Indians until they got to the emigrant trail, where they stopped and held a council, apparently in doubt as to which way they should go. After parleying for some five minutes they struck out on the trail. I watched them for about two miles, then they passed over a low range of hills and were out of sight.