Forty Years Among the Indians / A true yet thrilling narrative of the author's experiences among the natives

by Daniel W. Jones

We kill our Cattle to keep Them from Wolves—Visit from Two Brethren—Letter from President Young—A Mail Company nearly Perishes.

I left the company feeling a little downcast, to return to Devil's Gate. It was pretty well understood that there would be no relief sent us. My hopes were that we could kill game. We had accepted the situation, and as far as Capt. Grant was concerned he had done as much as he could for us. There was more risk for those who went on than for us remaining.

On returning to camp, I found that the cattle left were very poor. The weather had moderated and we hoped to get them on good feed and recruit them a little. Over two hundred head of cattle had died in the vicinity of the fort. Along the road each way for a day's travel were carcases. This led droves of prairie wolves into our camp, it was almost impossible to keep them off from the cattle in the day time. We were obliged to corral them at night. Once in the day time a small bunch was taken and run off in spite of the efforts of the herders to stop them. In fact, it became dangerous to face these wolves, they were at times almost ready to attack men.

We soon found it would be impossible to save the cattle. Already some twenty-five had died or been killed by the wolves within a week. It was decided to kill the rest, some fifty head. A few were in living order, but many would have died within twenty-four hours. In fact we killed them to keep them from dying. We had a first-class butcher from London, who dressed everything in the best style. Everything was saved that we thought might be eaten. We hung the meat up. The poorest of it we did not expect to eat, but intended to use it for wolf bait further along when the carcases were all devoured, provided we could get traps from the Platte bridge, which we afterwards did. We never used our poor beef for wolf bait as we had to eat the whole of it ourselves, and finally the hides were all consumed for food.

After killing the cattle we had nothing much to do but fix up the fort and look after four ponies we had left. Brother Hampton and myself had our saddle horses yet in good order.

There were plenty of guns and ammunition left with us, also dishes and cooking utensils. After thoroughly repairing the houses, chinking and daubing them, we overhauled the goods stored away.

While storing the bales and boxes the snow had drifted in among them. There was nothing but dirt floors and the goods had been tumbled in without any regard to order. Having cleaned out everything, we took ox yokes, of which there were a great many, and made floors of them and then piled the goods on them. While handling the goods we found some coffee, sugar and fruit, also a roll of leather. These we kept out and put in our store room for use. We also found a box of soap and candles. These goods were marked F. D. Richards, Daniel Spencer, John Van Cott, James Furgeson, William Dunbar, Cyrus Wheelock and Chauncy Webb; most of them John Van Cott. We were told by Captain Grant to use anything we could find to make us comfortable.

During the time we were at a loss what to do, men's minds did not run much upon property, the main interest was to save life. One prominent Elder became very liberal. He had several large trunks filled with valuable stuff. He opened his heart and trunks, making presents to several of the boys from the valley of socks, shirts and such things as would help to make them comfortable. He left his trunks in my rooms, giving me the keys and telling me to use anything there was, not to suffer for anything that could be found, and asked God to bless me.

I told the boys who remained with me that we had better not open this man's trunks, that when he got to the valley and had time to think, he would change his mind and would doubtless be thinking we were using his goods, and if we touched anything belonging to him we would be accused of taking more than we had. Later occurrences proved this to be a good suggestion.

With the cattle killed that were fit to eat, and what provisions we had on hand, we managed to live for a while without suffering, except for salt. Bread soon gave out and we lived on meat alone. Some of us went out hunting daily but with poor success.