The white Indian boy

by Elijah Nicholas Wilson

If Mr. Egan had not happened along when he did, I think I should not be here now telling about it. But oh, I have suffered with my head at times since then!

The Indians kept getting worse. They began to attack and murder emigrants, and they did a lot of damage to the express line by burning stations, killing the riders, and running off with the horses. It became harder to get riders to carry the mail; for every one that could leave would do so, and the agents found it difficult to find others to take the dangerous job. They raised the wages from forty dollars to sixty per month, but men did not want to risk their lives for even that price.

Between Deep Creek and Shell Creek was what we called “Eight-mile station.” It was kept by an old man, and he had two young emigrant boys to help him. Their mother had died of the cholera, east of Salt Lake City, and their father had been shot by the Indians farther along the trail west. He died when they reached Deep Creek, leaving these two boys with the station keeper. Before he passed away he gave this keeper five hundred dollars, a span of big mules, and a new wagon if he would send the boys back to Missouri where the family had lived.

As it was too late for them to make the trip that fall, the boys were to pass the winter at Deep Creek. The old keeper of the “Eight-mile station” could not do the work very well, so the older of the two boys was sent there to help him. An emigrant train came along and the old man slipped away with it, leaving the boy to take care of the station alone. It was hard to get men to stay at this station when the Indians began to get mean. The boy wanted to stay with it, so they let him do it; and his brother was sent out to help him.

One day, while these two boys were in charge, I rode up there to meet the other rider. As I reached the station, I could see him coming five or six miles away. While we were watching him a band of Indians broke out of the brush and began to chase him. He made a great race for his life; but just before he reached the station, they shot and killed him. We knew the Indians would attack the station next, so we hurried to the barn and brought the three horses there to the house.

The station was a stone building about twelve by twenty feet in size, with a shed roof covered with dirt, so that no timbers were sticking out for the Indians to set on fire. There were portholes in each end of the building, and one on each side of the door in front.

We succeeded in getting our horses into this house by the time the Indians surrounded the station. They kept shooting at the back of the house; for they soon learned not to come up in front of these portholes. One or two of them that were foolish enough to do it got killed. I know that one made a mistake by darkening my porthole. When I saw the shadow, I pulled the trigger. Three days afterwards, when I went out, I found an Indian lying there. He must have got in the way of my bullet.

They kept us there for three days. It was lucky for us that the station was built on low ground. The water had risen in the cellar under the house. We had only one pan that the boys had used for mixing dough to make their bread. This we had to use to water and feed the horses in and for mixing bread also. The water in the cellar was not good, but it kept us from choking to death those three days that we were held prisoners.

The younger boy was not more than eleven years old, and the other one was about fourteen. I was only a few years older. We put the little boy to tending the horses and looking after things while we guarded the house. Sometimes the little fellow would get to crying, and talking about his mother dying and his father getting killed by the Indians. The older boy was full of grit. He would try to comfort his little brother.

The first night none of us slept at all, but the next day and the following night I let them sleep a little by having one of them watch while the other slept. The third night I went to sleep and left the boys on guard.