All went well with us at first: I promised my three lieutenants a third share in the profits and a small wage besides: they were as keen as mustard and did all men could do. As soon as we reached the latitude of the Indian territory our troubles began. One wild night Indians, who wore sheets and had smeared their hands with phosphorus, stampeded the cattle and though the boys did wonders we lost nearly a thousand head and some hundred horses all of them broken in carefully.
It was a serious loss but not irreparable. The Plain Indians, however, were as persistent that summer as mosquitoes. I never went out after game but they tried to cut me off and once at least nothing but the speed and stamina of Blue Devil saved me. I had to give up serious shooting and depend on luck bringing us near game. Gradually the Indians following us grew more numerous and bolder. We were attacked at nightfall and daybreak three or four days running and the half wild cattle began to get very scary.
Bob did not conceal his anxiety. “Bad Injuns! very mean Injuns—!” One afternoon they followed us openly; there were at one time over a hundred in view; evidently they were getting ready for a serious attack. Bob’s genius got us a respite. While Charlie was advising a pitched battle, Bob suddenly remembered that there was a scrub-oak forest some five miles further on to our right that would give us a refuge. Charlie and Bent, the best shots, lay down and began to shoot and soon made the Indians keep out of sight. In three hours we reached the scrub-oak wood and the bay or bight in it where Bob said the cattle would be safe; for nothing could get through scrub-oak and as soon as we had driven the cattle deep into the bay and brought our wagon to the centre, on the arc of the bight, so to speak, no Indians could stampede the cattle without blotting us out first. For the moment we were safe and as luck would have it, the water in a little creek near by was drinkable. Still we were besieged by over a hundred Indians and those odds were heavy as even Bob admitted.
Days passed and the siege continued: the Indians evidently meant to tire us out and get the herd, and our tempers didn’t improve under the enforced idleness and vigilance. One evening Charlie was sprawling at the fire taking up more than his share of it, when Bent who had been looking after the cattle, came in. “Take up your legs, Charlie,” he said roughly, “you don’t want the whole fire.” Charlie didn’t hear or paid no attention: the next moment Bent had thrown himself down on Charlie’s long limbs. With a curse Charlie pushed him off: the next moment Bent had hurled himself on Charlie and had shoved his head down in the fire. After a short struggle Charlie got free and in spite of all I could do, struck Bent.
Bent groped for his gun at once; but Charlie was at him striking and swinging like a wild man and Bent had to meet the attack.
Till the trial came, everyone would have said that Charlie was far and away the better man, younger too and astonishingly powerful. But Bent evidently was no novice at the game. He side-stepped Charlie’s rush and hit out straight and hard and Charlie went down; but was up again like a flash, and went for his man in a wild rush: soon he was down again and everyone realized that sooner or later Bent must win. Fighting, however, has a large element of chance in it and as luck would have it just when Bent seemed most certain of winning, one of Charlie’s wild swings caught him on the point of the jaw and to our amazement he went, down like a log and could not be brought to for some ten minutes. It was the first time I had seen this blow and naturally we all exaggerated the force of it not knowing that a light blow up against the chin jars the spinal cord and knocks any man insensible, in fact, in many cases, such a blow results in partial paralysis and life-long weakness.
Charlie was inclined to brag of his victory but Bob told him the truth and on reflection Bent’s purpose and fighting power made the deeper impression on all of us and he himself took pains next day to warn Charlie:
“Don’t get in my way again”, he said to him drily, “or I’ll make meat of you.”
The dire menace in his hard, face was convincing. “Oh, Hell”, replied Charlie, “who wants to get in your way!”
Reflection teaches me that all the worst toughs on the border in my time were ex-soldiers: it was the Civil war that had bred those men to violence and the use of the revolver; it was the civil war that produced the “Wild Bills” and Bents who forced the good-humored Westerners to hold life cheaply and to use their guns instead of fists.