"It wasn't quite noon when she struck the Santa Fe Trail. When she got there, looking to the east, she saw in the distance, not more than three miles away, a large caravan coming, and then, almost wild with delight, she dismounted, sot down on the grass, and waited for it to arrive. In less than an hour, the train come up to where she was, and as good luck would have it, it happened to be an American outfit, going to Taos with merchandise. As soon as the master of the caravan seen her setting on the prairie, he rid up ahead of the wagons, and she told him her story. He was a kind-hearted man; had the train stop right there on the bank of the river, though he wasn't half through his day's drive, so as to make her comfortable as possible, and give her something to eat; for she was 'bout played out. He bought the Ingin pony, giving her thirty dollars for it, and after she had rested for some time, the caravan moved out. She rid in one of the wagons, on a bed of blankets, and the next evening arrived at Bent's Old Fort. There she found women-folks, who cared for her and nussed her; for she was dreadfully sore and tired after her long ride. Then she was hired to cook, meaning to work until she'd earned enough to take her back to Pennsylvany, to her mother's, where she had started for when the Ingins attackted the train.
"That night, after listening to her mirac'lous escape, we made up a 'pot' for her, collecting 'bout eight hundred dollars. The master of Colonel St. Vrain's caravan, what had come out with us, told her he was going back again to the river in a couple of weeks, and he'd take her and Paul in without costing her a cent; besides, she'd be safer than with any other outfit, as his train was a big one, and he had all American teamsters.
"Next morning the caravan went on to Mora, and after we'd bid good-by to Mrs. Dale and Paul, before which I give the boy two hundred dollars for himself, me, Thorpe, and Curtis pulled out with our team north for Frenchman's Creek, and I never felt so miserable before nor since as I did parting with the kid that morning. I hain't never seen him since; but he must be nigh forty now. Mebby he went into the war and was killed; mebby he got to be a general, but I hain't forgot him."
Uncle John knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and without saying another word went into the tent. In a few moments the camp was as quiet as a country village on Sunday, excepting the occasional howling of a hungry wolf down in the timbered recesses of the Washita, or the crackling and sputtering of the signal fires on the hilltops.
In a few days afterward, we were camping on Hackberry Creek, in the Indian Territory. We had been living on wild turkey, as before for some time, and still longed for a change. At last one of my hunters succeeded in bagging a dozen or more quails. Late that evening, when my cook brought the delicious little birds, beautifully spitted and broiled on peeled willow twigs, into my tent, I passed one to Uncle John. Much to the surprise of every one, he refused. He said, "Boys, I don't eat no quail!"
We looked at him in astonishment; for he was somewhat of a gourmand, and prided himself upon the "faculty," as he termed it, of being able to eat anything, from a piece of jerked buffalo-hide to the juiciest young antelope steak.
I remonstrated with the venerable guide; said to him, "You are making a terrible mistake, Uncle John. Tomorrow I expect to leave here, and as we are going directly away from the buffalo country, we don't know when we shall strike fresh meat again. You'd better try one," and I again proffered one of the birds.
"Boys," said he again, "I don't tech quail; I hain't eat one for more than twenty years. One of the little cusses saved my life once, and I swore right thar and then that I would starve first; and I have kept my oath, though I've seen the time mighty often sence I could a killed 'em with my quirt, when all I had to chaw on for four days was the soles of a greasy pair of old moccasins.
"Well, boys, it's a good many years ago—in June, if I don't disremember, 1847. We was a coming in from way up in Cache le Poudre and from Yellowstone Lake, whar we'd been a trapping for two seasons. We was a working our way slowly back to Independence, Missouri, where we was a going to get a new outfit. Let's see, there was me, and a man by the name of Boyd, and Lew Thorp—Lew was a working for Colonel Boone at the time—and two more men, whose names I disremember now, and a nigger wench we had for a cook. We had mighty good luck, and had a big pile of skins; and the Indians never troubled us till we got down on Pawnee Bottom, this side of Pawnee Rock. We all of us had mighty good ponies, but Thorp had a team and wagon, which he was driving for Colonel Boone.
"We had went into camp on Pawnee Bottom airly in the afternoon, and I told the boys to look out for Ingins—for I knowed ef we was to have any trouble with them it would be somewhere in that vicinity. But we didn't see a darned redskin that night, nor the sign of one.