I shot a second time, and Jack repeated his scratching performance, declaring that he was sure I barely missed breaking the skin.
The old army officer scowled at us as if we were devils. He told the men at the next station that we were the toughest bunch he was ever with, and that we had been shooting at each other all day. When the corral master wanted the old officer to ride the rest of the way with us, he positively and emphatically, even profanely refused, saying that we were the wrong kind of roosters for him to be with.
The rescue of the four Germain sisters who had been captured by the Indians was a romantic incident of the Miles expedition to subdue the hostile tribes in 1875. The circumstances surrounding their capture by the Indians shocked the whole country and inflamed the border settlements with a spirit of vengeance that would have wrought the destruction of every Indian west of the Mississippi had it been possible to attack the marauders at close quarters. From time to time news came from the Indian country that the girls were still alive, and mothers everywhere were praying for the restoration of the captives to their friends.
The fate of the Germain family was not unlike that of others in those troubulous times. John Germain was a poverty-stricken farmer at Blue Ridge, Fannin County, Georgia, when he returned from service in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Contending armies had pillaged and devastated his neighborhood. Germain decided that he would recruit his broken fortune by moving west. With a yoke of oxen and his wife and children, he set out in April, 1870, halting for a time in central Tennessee, where he remained until the following September. Southern Missouri invited him further westward, and he moved to that State, where he took a homestead and lived three years. He was sick and discouraged, and continued his way to Elgin, Kansas. Unrelenting misfortune met him at every turn. His children, as he believed, were predisposed to tuberculosis. On the other side of the Plains was Colorado with its mountain air and its pure water. Germain yoked his oxen and once more started for the promised land.
Catherine Germain, the oldest of the four captured sisters, has related the incidents of that journey and its final catastrophe in these words:
"We left Elgin August 10, 1874. We journeyed along till we came to the Smoky Hill River. Here we were told by the people living along the line that we had better keep along the river, so we could get water. They said we could not get water if we went along the railroad. And if we took the old trail by the river we would not see a house for over a hundred miles. We took the river road and everything seemed perfectly quiet. We met several persons on our several days' journey up the river.
"Father said we would start early and make Fort Wallace the last day. I knew that he felt uneasy all that lonely way, but we had no indications of danger, and now we were so near to the settlement he seemed more at ease.
"It was September 11. We were just starting as the sun began to peep over the hills. Father took his gun and started on ahead of the wagon. My brother and I had gone to drive the cows along. We were driving two cows and two yearlings. We had just turned them toward the moving wagon when we heard yells.
"On looking we saw Indians dashing down upon the wagon and father. We were about a hundred yards off and we started to run in a northeastern direction. We got something like a half mile but we were followed by the Indians. Brother was killed and I was taken back to the wagon, only to see that father, mother and my oldest sister had been killed. Then they killed my sister younger than me. They thought they were taking the four youngest because I was smaller than my sister they killed last. This was all done in a very short time.
"Leaving the wreck behind, they then started south, and took the cattle along some distance; then they killed them, ate what they wanted and left the carcasses lay. That afternoon a thunderstorm came up and the rain poured down, but we had no shelter. When they stopped for the night they tried to fix blankets up for shelter, but made a poor attempt at it. There were nineteen Indians, seventeen men and two squaws. The little squaw (we called her) seemed very sorry for us and would try to prepare something for us to eat, but the big one was of a different nature and not much inclined to do anything for our benefit. If anything was done to make our distress greater, she seemed to enjoy it hugely.