Away we marched. After we had crossed the draw and were lined up facing toward the abandoned camp, Smith's men rejoined us, and down the draw we went to the long water-hole, previously putting out a guard on top of the plain. Everybody drank a sufficient amount of water. The horses were brought down and watered.
The ends of a blanket were laced together around two pieces of lodge-poles, several of which were lying around and near the watering-place. We made a stretcher for Joe Jackson. Squirrel-eye, George Cornett, Hi. Bickerdyke and I rode back and got Grimes's saddle.
We now all felt that we were masters of the field since the Indians had fled. Then we followed down the plain and got the war-bonnet from the brave that rode to his death on the snow-white horse. Then we were off for the supply camp.
We got there an hour before sundown. We unsaddled and turned our horses loose. No fear of a raid for the present. The fires were built and a hurry-up supper prepared.
We opened two boxes of crackers; carved a big cheese; made two camp-kettles full of oyster-soup; opened peach cans by the dozen; set out a keg of pickles; opened a firkin of oleomargarine; made lots of strong coffee; and sat down to a feast. We had eaten nothing since four o'clock the day before.
After supper we attended all three of our worst wounded men the best we could. We probed Hosea's wound through the shoulder; washed it out clean; sprinkled it with iodoform and tied bandages around it as well as we could; made splints for Grimes's broken wrist, bound it up, and kept water handy for him to bathe it.
Poor Joe Jackson had been hit in the groin, by Sewall's gun, which was a 45, just as we turned, when we fell back the first time. The ball passed through, and lodged. He was hauled in a wagon 150 miles, to Fort Griffin, where the post surgeon extracted the bullet. But, poor fellow, after two months of suffering, although in the mean time he got up and went around after his surgical work was done, he took a relapse, and died.
The next morning we started back to Rath's. We arrived there on the 22d of the month. Just a week later, Captain Lee, of G Company, Tenth U. S. Cavalry, with five Tonkawa Indians for guides, scouts and trailers, and his seventy-two colored troopers, took the field, under orders from General Ord, who at that time was in command of the Military Department of Texas, with his headquarters at San Antonio.
Captain Lee's special mission was to find these Indians and bring them in. From him we learned all that we did not know already in regard to our fight with the Indians on the 18th of March. It was now believed that, for a time at least, we would be safe by going in small parties to bring in the hides from the many camps in the Brazos country.