But under the care of friendly Indians, Charles Quantrell lived.
Changing his name to Charley Hart, he sought the Jayhawkers, joined Pickens' company, and confided in no one.
Quantrell and three others were sent out to meet an “underground railroad” train of negroes from Missouri. One of the party did not come back.
Between October, 1857, and March, 1858, Pickens' company lost 13 men. Promotion was rapid. Charley “Hart” was made a lieutenant.
No one had recognized in him the boy who had been left for dead two summers before, else Capt. Pickens had been more careful in his confidences. One night he told the young lieutenant the story of a raid on an emigrant camp on the Cottonwood river; how the dead man had been left no shroud; the wounded one no blanket; how the mules were sold and the proceeds gambled for.
But Lieut. “Hart's” mask revealed nothing.
Three days later Pickens and two of his friends were found dead on Bull Creek.
Col. Jim Lane's orderly boasted of the Cottonwood affair in his cups at a banquet one night.
The orderly was found dead soon after.
Quantrell told a friend that of the 32 who were concerned in the killing of his brother, only two remained alive, and they had moved to California.