ELEVEN GRAVES.
Monday, June 12.
We stood by the graves of eleven men that were killed last August by the Indians. There was a sort of bulletin-board about midway and at the foot of the graves stating the circumstances of the frightful tragedy. They were a party of fourteen, twelve men and two women, wives of two of the men. They were camped on Plum Creek, a short distance from where the graves are. They were all at breakfast except one man who had gone to the creek for water, he hid in the brush, or there would have been none to tell the tale of the massacre.
There had been no depredations committed on this road all Summer, and emigrants had become careless and traveled in small parties. They did not suspect that an Indian was near until they were surrounded, and the slaughter had commenced. All the men were killed and scalped, and the women taken prisoners. They took what they wanted of the provisions, burned the wagons and ran off with the horses.
The one man that escaped went with all haste to the nearest station for help. The soldiers pursued the Indians, had a fight with them and rescued the women. One of them had seen her husband killed and scalped and was insane when rescued, and died at the station. The other woman was the wife of the man that escaped. They were from St. Joe, Missouri.
Ezra met with quite an accident to-day; he went to sleep while driving the family wagon—he was on guard last night—the horses brought the wheel against a telegraph pole with a sudden jerk that threw him out of his seat and down at the horses’ heels—a sudden awakening—with a badly-bruised ankle.
We are in the worst place for Indians on all this road. The bluffs come within half a mile on our left, and hundreds of savages could hide in the hollows; the underbrush and willows are dense along the river banks. There is an island, about a mile in length, that comes so near this side in many places that a man could leap from bank to bank. The island is a thick wood, a place where any number of the dreaded savages could hide, and shoot down the unwary traveler with the guns and ammunition furnished them by the United States Government.
How I would like to climb to the top of those bluffs, and see what is on the other side, but the captain says, “Stay within sight of camp.” And I must obey.