At that time I was riding from Shell Creek through Egan Canyon to Ruby Valley. We who knew the Gosiute Indians could tell that they were going to make a raid. They were making signals in the mountains with smokes by day and fires by night to gather their band. We knew by their signs that the emigrants would be attacked as they were going through some of the bad canyons on the route. Egan Canyon was about the worst of these; it was a narrow canyon nearly six miles long, with cliffs on each side from three hundred to one thousand feet high, so that one could not turn to the right or the left after entering it. This canyon was the dread of all that had to go through it.
The train of emigrants had entered this canyon just ahead of me. I rode very fast to catch up with them before they got to the worst part of it, but just before I reached them, I heard the shooting and I knew the Indians had made an attack. As I stopped to listen two men came running for dear life. They were bare-headed.
“Go back!” they shouted as they came near, “The whole company has been killed but us.” They passed me and ran on.
After a little while I could hear no more shooting, so I went on cautiously, looking ahead and around at every turn of the road. Soon I came in sight of the wagons. I made sure the Indians had gone before I went up to them.
Such a terrible sight I never saw before. Every man, woman, and child except the two that escaped had been cruelly murdered. Only one woman had any life left when I got there and she died a moment later. I looked around carefully to see whether any others were alive, but finding none I rode on. I could not stand to look long on the dreadful scene. The Indians had cut the tugs of the harnesses and taken every horse and mule in the train. When I got out of the canyon, and saw where the murderous band had turned off the road, I did not spare my horse until I reached the next station. The keeper there immediately sent a messenger to Ruby Valley where the soldiers were and they came and buried the unfortunate emigrants.
“I told Johnson to have his shooting-irons ready.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN JOHNSTON PUNISHES THE INDIANS
The Indians became so troublesome that the soldiers from Camp Floyd were called out to stop their dreadful work. I got a letter from Major Egan directing me to meet him at Camp Floyd as soon as I could get there, for they wanted me to act as interpreter and guide for the soldiers. I started at once and made two hundred miles in three days. When I reached Camp Floyd, General Albert Sidney Johnston was all ready to start out against the Indians with four companies of soldiers. We traveled west, and crossed the Great American Desert in the night, so as not to be seen by the Indians.
The soldiers stayed at Fish Springs and sent me out with three other scouts to see if we could find any signs of the Indians we were after. We took only two days’ rations with us. The first day we met with no success, so the next morning we separated. I sent two of the scouts to circle around to the south, and took with me a young man by the name of Johnson, and went northwest. That afternoon we saw two Indians crossing a valley. We kept out of sight but followed them until night, and saw them go into a small bunch of cedars. We left our horses and slipped up as close to them as we could without letting them see us.