The water in Adobe Walls Creek was now so low that there was not enough for the horses, so we pulled over on Bent's Creek, and camped on a mesquite flat, just north of the old Adobe Walls ruins.
Next morning Lieutenant Baldwin asked me to walk over the battleground with him. Practically all the men went with us, the distance being about a mile. The coming of the soldiers had given a feeling of security to the men at the Walls, who now turned out their horses to graze. Everybody was laughing and talking and telling jokes, without the slightest thought of danger. Some mischievous fellow had stuck an Indian's skull on each post of the corral gate.
Tobe Robinson and George Huffman, civilians, rode down the valley toward the Canadian River to hunt wild plums which at that time were ripe and plentiful. They had been gone only a short time when our attention was drawn to two horsemen riding at top speed from the direction of the river toward the Walls. Behind them came ten or fifteen Indians quirting their ponies at every jump. The two men were Robinson and Huffman. They had unexpectedly run into this band of Indians who were doing their best to circle and cut off the two white men. There we stood a mile from camp where our arms lay, unable to render these men any assistance in their desperate straits.
Robinson and Huffman were riding side by side and were able to maintain this position until they were rounding a little knoll just beyond the old ruins. Here an Indian managed to ride up near enough to run his lance through Huffman's body. Huffman fell dead from his horse.
The riderless horse continued running beside Robinson's, the Indian still pursuing, grabbing again and again at the rein of Huffman's horse. Finally, he seized the rein, checked the horse, and rode back at full speed toward his companions. All the Indians now galloped away and disappeared among the sand hills.
The tragedy had happened so quickly that we could hardly believe our eyes. The Indians made no effort to mutilate or carry off Huffman's body. Robinson reached us in safety, though shaking with excitement. From the Indian standpoint, the warrior who had killed Huffman and escaped with his horse had covered himself with glory. Sight of the tents in the mesquite flat doubtless caused the other Indians to give up the chase, or else both Huffman and Robinson would have been lanced to death.
Considerable time was lost in rounding up our horses, which were grazing in the valley, and getting into our saddles, to go in pursuit of the Indians. Before we could reach the Canadian the Indians had vanished in the sandhills of White Deer Creek. We found two fagged ponies which the Indians had abandoned.
We carried Huffman's body to the Walls and dug a grave close beside the others. This made five graves. Some day I hope a stone will be erected to mark the spot. These men gave all they had—their lives—to help make this a civilized country.
Next day the soldiers and the men we found at the Walls started south to join the main command on Cantonment Creek. We crossed the Canadian near the mouth of Tallahone, where J. A. King now has a cow ranch. On Chicken Creek we found two Indians who had stopped for noon, and had built a small fire. Their ponies were near at hand, tied to some sagebrush, and their blankets had been spread out on the ground to dry. We succeeded in killing one of them, but the other warrior certainly had a fine quality of stuff in his "medicine" bag, for he mounted his pony and got away, despite the bullets that split the air around him. He was too hard-pressed to get his blanket and a butcher knife which he left sticking in the ground.
The noise of our guns stampeded a big bunch of buffaloes further up the creek. They kicked up such a cloud of dust that we thought a war party of Indians, possibly the same that had attacked Adobe Walls, was coming for us, and that we had stirred up the worst kind of trouble. Happily, we were soon able to see the buffaloes, and the world looked brighter.