Our rapid firing of six shots for Moore and five for me had brought every man and gun from camp, all believing it was an "Indian fight." After Moore had explained matters to the boys we all started for the little knolls, and soon found the Indian's horse breathing its last. We left everything just as we found them, viz.: saddle, bridle, lariat, and blanket. Moore had shot the horse in the left jugular vein, also grazed him along the spinal column with another bullet. We brought all our horses to camp, tied them to wagon-wheels, and took turns at night watch.
We now concluded to all stay together till Benson came, which was the third day after this event. We stood guard every night and kept close watch during the daytime; but did no hunting only for camp meat.
The next morning after the affair with the Indian, at breakfast, we were discussing the matter, and I remarked:
"Well, Moore, I guess if you had not been where you were I would now be in the other hunting-ground."
He replied: "No; not unless he could shoot better, by practicing on you a while."
He said that when the Indian first fired at me he himself had not seen him until then, and he was almost sure the Indian had not seen him until he fired at him; and then his pony jumped, and as he turned to run he went in a staggering gait. Moore was 300 yards from him when he fired, which he did in a hurry before he could get his third shot at me. The Indian was over 250 yards from me when he fired. When Benson arrived he informed us that Charlie Rath himself was on his way down from Dodge City with a small train of supplies—lumber, nails, tools, and some extra men, to build a supply store somewhere east of Double Mountain, near the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos; and that John Russell's train of fifty wagons, drawn by six yoke of oxen to the wagon, was following Rath, loaded with all kinds of hunters' supplies. So we all decided to pull toward that point. When we got to the McKinzie trail, looking south around the base of Double Mountain, we could see that we were close to the "main herd" of buffaloes, as the parlance went those days.
We had now been encamped and moving, and were hardly making expenses; and this change decided us to take chances. We held a council, at the close of which we agreed to waive the former custom of conceding to each camp a radius of a few miles, where they could hunt unmolested by one another, and to camp as close together as we could.
We turned west and went up the trail to Stinking creek, thence south in a rough broken country, and found camps from a half-mile to a mile and a half apart, where we all had good water. We were now a little south of west of Double Mountain; the buffaloes were plentiful, and seemed to be located and contented.
When we first reached this location Crawford and I were camped at some water-holes fed by two springs. From our camp the country sloped south to the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, which was some five or six miles distant, our camp being west of the other outfits.