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 following morning, just as I could begin to see that it was
getting a little light in the east, myself and one assistant scout
crawled out quietly, without disturbing the other boys, to kill
some game. We had not gone far from camp when we saw nine
antelope; we both fired and both shot the same antelope. We
dressed the game and took it to camp, arriving there just as the
other two scouts came in from the south. The boys were all up in
camp, and considerable excitement prevailed among them, they
having heard two shots, and thought the Indians had attacked us.
They were all hungry as wolves, so we broiled and ate antelope
almost as long as there was any to eat.
Almost the entire scout force were from New York, and were new
recruits who had never known what it was to rough it, and they
said this was the first meal they had ever made on meat alone.
After breakfast was over, it now being understood that we would
lie over until the supply train should come up, my first assistant
scout and two others took a trip to a mountain some two miles from
camp, which was the highest mountain near us, taking my glasses
along to look for the supply train. In about two hours one of the
scouts returned to camp in great haste and somewhat excited,
saying that about fifteen or twenty miles distant they had seen a
band of Indians who were traveling in the direction of camp. We
all saddled our horses, left a note at camp informing Capt. Mills
where we had gone and for what purpose. We started for what has
ever since been known as Look-out Mountain--of course not the
famous Lookout Mountain of Tennessee--and there joined the other
three scouts. From the top of this mountain we could get a good
view of the Indians through the field glasses. We watched them
until about one o'clock, when they went into camp in the head of a
little ravine some five miles distant--This convinced us that
there was water and that they had stopped for the night. We
located them as well as we could, and the entire scout force,
being thirteen all told, started across the country for their
camp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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