“Here’s yer Injun,” shouted “Doc,” as he untied his lariat from a blanket and let the bloody head of an Indian roll on the ground near Stephenson’s feet.
The old squaw came over, took a look, and, uttering a long, doleful sound like the cry of a wounded wolf, ran inside and grabbing her blanket, started for the hills, chanting a dismal wail peculiar to her people when in distress.
“You fellows have played billy hell; you’ve killed my brother-in-law,” calmly remarked Stephenson as he refilled his pipe and again cast his one eye toward the north.
“And the best thing you can do is to hit the trail while you are wearing your scalps,” he continued after a pause of several minutes.
At that moment the old man’s half Indian boy and myself came up from the corral.
This incident furnished the cause for an ugly Indian fight which occurred on Rock creek, northeastern Colorado, on June 12, 1877.
“Doc” Kinnie, Charley Hayes and myself had come from Deadwood to Cheyenne as an escort for a stage coach carrying the Wells-Fargo express, when Stephenson offered us better pay to work on his cattle ranch.
Four days before the incident of the bloody head, Stephenson had missed seven head of cattle and had struck the trail of one Indian who had driven them off. He rode to the ranch house in high rage and offered Kinnie and Hayes one hundred dollars if they would recover the cattle and kill the Indian. In five minutes they were in their saddles riding to the point where Stephenson indicated the trail. I did not join them, as Stephenson insisted that two were enough. Kinnie and Hayes had no difficulty in following the trail of the stolen cattle and were close on them the next evening. Not caring for a night attack they went into camp, eating their bacon raw rather than make a fire. They were in their saddles at the first grey streak of dawn and within an hour came upon two Indians eating their morning meal in a canon, while the missing cattle were grazing five hundred yards beyond.
Charles Hayes, “Doc” Kinnie, Robert McReynolds.
After the Fight ([page 40]).