"'If you'll insure the mules,' I replied, 'I will insure the driver.'
"I took aim and fired. The ambulance was covered, and I did not know that Mr. Hassard, the best fellow in the world—nemini secundus—was sitting inside and talking to Brigham. The bullet passed between their faces, which were a foot apart—less rather than more.
"'What is that?' cried Hassard.
"'Injuns!' replied Brigham, who knew by many an experience how wagons were Apached, Comanchied, or otherwise aboriginated.
"'Lay down flat!'
"He drove desperately till he thought he was out of shot, and then put out his head to give the Indians a taunting war-whoop. I shall never forget the appearance of that sunburned face, with gold ear-rings and a vast sombrero! What was his amazement at seeing only friends! I did not know what Brigham's state of mind might be toward me, but I remembered that he gloried in his familiarity with Spanish, so I said to him in the Castile-soap dialect, 'I fired that shot; is it to be hand or knife between us?' It is to his credit that he at once shook my hand, and said, 'La mano!' He drove on in grim silence, and then said, 'I've driven for twelve years on this frontier, but I never heard, before, of anybody trying to stop one by shooting the driver.'
"Another silence, broken by the following remark: 'I wish to God there was a gulch any where between here and the fort! I'd upset this party into it d——n quick.'
"But I had a great fear. It was of General Custer and what he would have to say to me, for recklessly imperiling the life of one of his drivers, to say nothing of what might have happened to a valuable team of mules and the wagon. It was with perturbed feelings—and, ay de mi! with an evil conscience—that I approached him. He had been informed of the incident, but was neither angry nor vindictive. All he did was to utter a hearty laugh and say, 'I never heard before of such an original way of ringing a bell to call a man.'
"In a letter written about this time to a friend, I find the following: