Horses, men and pack-mules unloaded themselves from the freight car, and went racing over the prairie; the pack-mules, as usual, plunging and braying with tail in air, their tinware clattering in a manner calculated to put a whole tribe of Indians into a panic and send them capering across the eastern horizon into their own domain. But there were no Indians. It was as Captain Bill had thought; a gang of cowboys, the evening before, had rounded up some cattle; killed a beef; carried it to their camp near by, where they had built a great fire and roasted it, doing a wild war-dance of celebration, and shooting off their six-shooters in their prodigal expression of joy. Viewed from a little distance, through a sort of mirage condition which had exaggerated the whole effect, the scene to the newcomers was a horrifying picture of savages about a burning home, with the inhabitants fleeing for their lives.
The man who had just moved in had stampeded for his own safety and started a general alarm, which did not subside even when the cowboys themselves came in and testified to the truth. The panic spread throughout that section of the country and other reports of Indian outbreaks were circulated, becoming magnified until it was believed that the Indians had broken out, and were making a general raid on the Pan-handle. The inhabitants of one town, south of Amarillo, threw up breastworks, got behind them, and put out pickets in preparation for the arrival of the Indians. Every man seen loping across the prairie was reported as an Indian; and all this happened as late as 1891, when there had been no Indian outbreaks for years, and when there was scarcely a possibility of anything of the sort. It was a big joke, of course, afterward, but it seemed no joke at the time, and it was Bill McDonald's initiation as Captain of Company B.
A Bit of Farming and Politics
CAPTAIN BILL AND HIS GOATS. THE "CAR-SHED" CONVENTION
There were to be plenty of real alarms soon enough, with plenty of desperately hard work. Before taking up this part of the story, however, it may not be out of place to dwell briefly on certain other labors and interests incident to this period in Captain McDonald's career.
The ranch on Wanderer's Creek, conducted for the most part by his plucky wife, remained one of his possessions and in time became not unprofitable. McDonald was one of the first to break land in that section and when he put in a sowing of wheat it was thought that he had gone daft. But the following year when the plowed land turned off a crop of from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre, those who had been first to scoff were likewise the earliest to imitate.