The battle raged all day and dead Indians and ponies were piled up to within a few feet of the doors. One young brave, painted and bedecked with feathers, gained the roof and tore away the adobe covering until he could reach through with his revolver, which he fired at random below, filling the room with smoke. He was killed before he emptied his weapon. There were only fourteen guns of the defenders and at times every one had to be brought into action to resist the renewed attack against the doors. Finally the doors parted until there was a wide aperture on both sides through which the Indians fired as they rode past, or hurled their arrows and lances. Fixed ammunition was running low, but there was an abundance of powder, bullets and primers for reloading shells. Men were detailed for this work so that there was a volcano of fire belching from the fort all day. Meanwhile, Minimic, the medicine man of the tribes, who had planned the fight, rode at a safe distance, urging on the Indians, saying the medicine he had made was good and they could not fail. Finally, late in the day, his horse was hit by a sharpshooter and with this the Indians lost faith and withdrew. “I was only busy like the rest,” was all Antelope Jack would say of his courage on that day. * * * * * The massacre at the White River Indian agency in Colorado, and the ambuscade of Major Thornburg’s command by Utes in 1879, was the last of the serious troubles with the Indians in Colorado. It was the cause, however, of a reign of terror on the plains, as it was thought to be the signal for a general uprising. When the news reached the C. C. Ranch on the Cimarron River, I was especially interested in the fate of E. W. Eskridge, an employe of the White River agency, who I would have joined within a short time, had the terrible affair resulting in his death not occurred. I have never met any of the soldiers under Major Thornburg’s command, nor any settlers who were in the vicinity at the time, and the best account I have been able to get of the massacre is the following by an unknown writer: “The White River Utes had been ugly for some time, and had prepared for an outbreak. They committed many depredations among the settlers and cherished resentment against the agent, Mr. Meeker. Only an hour before the attack upon the agency by Chief Douglass and twenty braves Meeker dispatched a message to Major Thornburg, known to be en route, in which he said: “‘Everything is quiet here and Douglass is flying the United States flag.’ “At that hour Thornburg lay dead in Milk River canon, on the reservation. The writer was cruelly slain and mutilated within an hour, and the messenger, E. W. Eskridge, who carried the note, was shot down before he had proceeded two miles from the agency.