While Booth was intently regarding the movements of the savages, Hallowell inquired of him: "They're Indians, aren't they, Booth?"
"Yes," was Booth's answer, "and they're coming down on us like a whirlwind."
"Then I shall never see poor Lizzie again!" said Hallowell. He had been married only a few weeks before starting out on this trip, and his young wife's name came to his lips.
"Never mind Lizzie," responded Booth; "let's get out of here!" He was as badly frightened as Hallowell, but had no bride at Riley, and, as he tells it, "was selfishly thinking of himself only, and escape."
In answer to Booth's remark, Hallowell, in a firm, clear voice, said: "All right! You do the shooting, and I'll do the driving," and suiting the action to the words, he snatched the whip out of Booth's hand, slipped from the seat to the front of the wagon, and commenced lashing the mules furiously.
Booth then crawled back, pulled out one of his revolvers, crept, or rather fell, over the "lazy-back" of the seat, and reaching the hole made by puckering the wagon-sheet, looked out of it, and counted the Indians; thirty-four feather-bedecked, paint-bedaubed savages, as vicious a set as ever scalped a white man, swooping down on them like a hawk upon a chicken.
Hallowell, between his yells at the mules, cried out, "How far are they off now, Booth?" for of course he could see nothing of what was going on in his rear.
Booth replied as well as he could judge of the distance, while Hallowell renewed his yelling at the animals and redoubled his efforts with the lash.
Noiselessly the Indians gained on the little wagon, for they had not as yet uttered a whoop, and the determined driver, anxious to know how far the red devils were from him, again asked Booth. The latter told him how near they were, guessing at the distance, from which Hallowell gathered inspiration for fresh cries and still more vigorous blows with his whip.
Booth, all this time, was sitting on the box containing the crackers and sardines, watching the rapid approach of the cut-throats, and seeing with fear and trembling the ease with which they gained upon the little mules.