About a mile's ride brought us to a ranch where several yoke of oxen stood grazing, near the door. Finding a sack of corn in a wagon we fed our horses and then burst open the door of the log house, which was locked. Out jumped a little playful puppy, who had been asleep, his master having locked him up in there, no doubt, in his anxiety to pull for Dodge.
Hanging over the still warm ashes was a pot of nice beef soup which had never been touched. And in the old box cupboard was a lot of cold biscuits and a jar of nice preserves, besides a jug of molasses, etc.
After filling up we struck out for Dodge, still a distance of twenty-five miles. We arrived there a short while after sun-up next morning; and the first man we met—an old friend by the name of Willingham—informed us of the indian outbreak. There had been several men killed on Crooked Creek the evening before—hence John and I finding the ranches deserted.
On riding through the streets that morning, crowds of women, some of them crying, seeing we were just in from the South, flocked around us inquiring for their absent ones, fathers, brothers, lovers and sons, some of whom had already been killed, no doubt; there having been hundreds of men killed in the past few days.
John and I of course laughed in our boots to think that we turned back, instead of going on to the band of blood-thirsty devils that we had started to go to.
The first thing after putting our horses up at the livery stable, we went to Wright & Beverly's store and deposited our "wealth." John had a draft for one hundred and fourteen dollars, while I had about three hundred and fifty dollars. We then shed our old clothes and crawled into a bran new rig out and out. Erskine Clement, one of Mr. Beal's partners, was in town waiting to ship the herd which should have been there by that time. But he hadn't heard a word from it, since getting Moore's letter—which, by the way, had to go around through Las Vegas, New Mexico, and down through the southern part of Colorado—stating about what time it would arrive in Dodge. He was terribly worried when I informed him that John and I had neither seen nor heard anything of the outfit since it left the ranch.
That night about ten o'clock John, who had struck a lot of his old chums, came and borrowed twenty-five dollars from me, having already spent his one hundred and fourteen dollars that he had when he struck town.
I went to bed early that night, as I had promised to go with Clement early next morning to make a search for the missing herd.
The next morning when Clement and I were fixing to strike out, John came to me, looking bad after his all night rampage, to get his horse and saddle out of "soak." I done so, which cost me thirty-five dollars, and never seen the poor boy afterwards. Shortly after that he went to Ft. Sumner and was killed by one of "Billy the Kid's" men, a fellow by the name of Barney Mason. Thus ended the life of a good man who, like scores of others, let the greatest curse ever known to mankind, whisky, get the upper hand of him.
Clement and I pulled south, our ponies loaded down with ammunition so in case the indians got us corralled we could stand them off a few days, at least. We were well armed, both having a good winchester and a couple of colts' pistols apiece.