"The buffalo was now between me and Thorp and Boyd, and they was furtherest from camp. I could see them over the top of the grass kind o' edging up to the bull, and I kept a crawling on my hands and knees toward the cow, and when I got about a hundred and fifty yards of her, I pulled up my rifle and drawed a bead.
"Just as I was running my eyes along the bar'l, a darned little quail flew right out from under my feet and lit exactly on my front sight and of course cut off my aim—we didn't shoot reckless in those days; every shot had to tell, or a man was the laughing-stock for a month if he missed his game.
"I shook the little critter off and brought up my rifle again when, durn my skin, if the bird didn't light right on to the same place; at the same time my eyes grow'd kind o' hazy-like and in a minute I didn't know nothing.
"When I come to, the quail was gone, I heerd a couple of rifle shots, and right in front of where the bull had stood and close to Thorp and Boyd, half a dozen Ingins jumped up out o' the tall grass and, firing into the two men, killed Thorp instantly and wounded Boyd.
"He and me got to camp—keeping off the Ingins, who knowed I was loaded—when we, with the rest of the outfit, drove the red devils away.
"They was Apaches, and the fellow that shot Thorp was a half-breed nigger and Apache. He scalped Thorp and carred off the whole upper part of his skull with it. He got Thorp's rifle and bullet-pouch too, and his knife.
"We buried Thorp in the bottom there, and some of the party cut their names on the stones that they covered his body up with, to keep the coyotes from eating up his bones.
"Boyd got on to the river with us all right, and I never heerd of him after we separated at Booneville. We pulled out soon after the Indians left, but we didn't get no buffalo-meat.
"You see, boys, if I'd a fired into that cow, the devils would a had me before I could a got a patch on my ball—didn't have no breech-loaders in them days, and it took as much judgment to know how to load a rifle properly as it did to shoot it.
"Them Ingins knowed all that—they knowed I hadn't fired, so they kept a respectable distance. I would a fired, but the quail saved my life by interfering with my sight—and that's the reason I don't eat no quail. I hain't superstitious, but I don't believe they was meant to be eat."