About half-past eleven, as near as he could guess, Kit told me, one of the guards yelled out "Indians!" and ran the mules that were grazing near, into the corral, while the entire company turned out of their blankets on the report of a rifle on the midnight air coming from the direction of the Rock.
In a few minutes young Kit came running down toward the corral, where the men had collected, and Col. St. Vrain asked him if he had seen any Indians.
THE TRAIN AT PAWNEE ROCK.
"Yes," replied Kit, "I killed one of the red devils—I saw him fall."
There was no further disturbance that night; it proved to be a false alarm; so all who were not standing guard that night were soon peacefully sleeping again.
The next morning at the first streak of day, every one was up and anxious to see young Carson's dead Indian. They went out en masse to the Rock, when instead of finding a painted Pawnee, they discovered Kit's riding-mule, dead—shot through the head.
The boy felt terribly mortified over his ridiculous blunder, and it was a long time before he heard the last of his midnight shot at his mule.
He explained to me the circumstances: He had not slept any the previous night, and he had watched so earnestly for a chance to kill a Pawnee that he supposed he must have fallen asleep leaning against the face of the Rock; "but I was wide enough awake to hear the cry of 'Indians!'" said he. "I had picketed my mule about twenty steps from where I stood, and I suppose it had been lying down. All I know is that the first thing I saw after the alarm was something rising up out of the grass. I thought sure it was an Indian; I took aim, and pulled the trigger. It was a center shot; I don't believe that mule kicked once after he was hit!"
In the morning, a few minutes after the men had returned from a visit to Kit's dead mule, a real battle commenced. The Pawnees attacked the camp in earnest, and kept the little outfit busy all that day, the next night, and till the following night—nearly three whole days, the animals all that time shut up in the corral without food or water.