The Great Salt Lake Trail

by Henry Inman; Buffalo Bill

One evening the coach was late, and, as to be behind time was a sure sign that something was wrong, we all felt very uneasy. The drivers made it a rule to get from one station to another on time, and if they did not arrive, parties were immediately started out to the next ranch, ten miles below, to see what the matter was, the stations being eight, ten, and twelve miles apart.

On the particular evening in question I had got tired of waiting, and gone over to the stable-keeper to see if we had not better take the change horses, go down the road, and try if we could not find the coach. It was due at the station at eight-thirty in the evening, and it was now ten, so I was confident it had been attacked or broken down. While we were talking, the sentinel on the outpost, whose business it was to look out for the stage and give notice of its approach, signalled that the coach was coming. We all ran down the road to meet it, and soon saw it coming slowly along with three horses instead of four, and the driver driving very slowly, as if he were going to a funeral, or hauling wounded.

When we came up to the coach we learned that he was indeed both conveying a corpse and wounded. On the arrival of the party at the ranch, Captain Hancock, who was a passenger, related to me all that had happened, and I repeat the story as it fell from his lips.

“We were,” said the captain, “driving along smartly in the bottom, about four miles below, when, just as we crossed a little ravine, some twenty Indians jumped out of the long grass and fired on us. The first volley killed Mr. Cinnamon, a telegraph operator, who was a passenger, on his way from Plum Creek to some point up the river. He was riding on the box with the driver when he received the fatal shot, and the driver caught his body just as it was falling forward off the coach on the rear horses. He put Cinnamon's corpse in the front boot among the mail bags, where it now is.

“The first fire had also killed our nigh wheeler, and, as the coach was going pretty fast at the time, the horse was dragged a considerable distance, and his hind leg becoming fast between the spokes of the fore wheel, his body was drawn up against the bed of the coach and all further progress completely blocked.

“The driver took it very coolly, first swearing fearfully at the Indians, toward whom he cracked his whip repeatedly, as if flaying their naked backs, and then, having vented his spleen, he quietly descended from his box and stripped the harness off the dead horse.

“Meanwhile the Indians had been circling around us, firing into the coach every few minutes, and I had got under the wagon with my clerks, the better to be protected and to fire at the Indians, who could be seen best from the ground as they moved against the horizon.

“The driver tried in vain to extricate the leg of the dead horse from the wheel, but it was firmly wedged in, and after uniting my strength to his, I found it necessary to take my knife and amputate the leg at the knee-joint. The body was at length removed, and mounting the box, the driver bid us get in, and we were off once more. One of the clerks had been severely wounded, and, as his wound was quite painful, we had to drive very slowly; so we were late in getting in.”

While the captain was talking, the driver came to the door to say the coach was waiting, for on the Plains stages stop not for accidents or dead men. I bade my friend good-night, hoping he would not again be interrupted on his journey by the redskins, and, the driver cracking his whip, the four fresh bays bounded forward at a gallop, and soon carried the coach out of sight of the valley.

Next day we buried poor Cinnamon, and sent the wounded man to McPherson, where he could have medical attendance, and we were pleased to learn he speedily recovered.