“The fust we knew there wuz Injuns around wuz when Mac was attacked. He rode down to the Butte to bring in a horse from the herd. We heard shootin’ down that way. Jim and I and the blacksmith took our arms and rode toward the firin’. When we got near the Butte, we seen three our four Injuns circlin’ round Mac, whose pony was wounded, firin’ at him from all directions. I think he wuz already dead when we first seen him. We made all the haste we could, and druv them from the body, but we wuz too late to stop ‘em from playin’ some o’ their usual tricks. We got the body on to one of the horses, and started back for the station at an easy pace, drivin’ in the loose stock afore us. When we’d come within about three-quarters of a mile of the station, we seen the soldiers runnin’ towards us with their muskets in their hands and makin’ signs to us. I looked back and seen the durned Injuns with twenty or thirty more comin’ for us. I hollered to Jim and the smith to light out for the station. We separated, to give the soldiers a chance to git in their fire on ’em, which they did. This staggered ’em somewhat and saved us. They got two of our animals, though!”
Some one proposed going to the granary to look at poor Mac’s remains. The body lay among corn-sacks and miscellaneous stores. Mac was a tall, well-shaped young fellow of twenty-three or twenty-four. He had evidently made the best fight he could. When he left the station, his revolver had but two loads. He fired them both at his savage foes. Bunter said, had it not been for the wounding of his pony, “the Indians would not have got him.”
The Indians had raised Mac’s entire scalp, slitting it through the centre and turning it down over his face. This sight was not beheld unmoved by even the most hardened frontierman in the party. Had one of those worthy and humane gentlemen, the Peace Commissioners, unfortunately dropped in at that moment, I fear he might have been the recipient of much personal indignity, if not of serious bodily harm. The presence of a regular officer with the station-guard would have saved him from falling a martyr to his humanitarian convictions. Without the soldiers he might even attain the crown of martyrdom.
“As we’re here, boys,” said the driver, with a view to economy of time, “let’s fix him out like a Christian.”
Rough in speech, yet tender in action, they set to work to make ready poor Mac’s remains for the grave. His scalp was returned to its proper place and sewed together, his hair combed, and his blood-stained face cleansed of its gory marks. He was shrouded in a pair of soldier’s drawers and an under-shirt. Several empty chests in the room were measured, but proved too short for a coffin. A large arms-chest was furnished by the soldiers, which, with a slight addition to its length, supplied the improvised bier on which we laid “poor Mac.” Scarcely had these sad offices been performed when the sentinel without shouted:
“Indians in sight!”
There was a rush for the outside. Every man picked up his gun. With the glass the Indians could be seen crossing the stream near where they had murdered MacSorley. The party was increased to a hundred and fifty or two hundred. They moved to the top of the bluff, and remained there for some time, apparently holding a council as to their future movements. The lieutenant, after instructing the commander of the station-guard to wake him as soon as the Indians showed a disposition to move, spread out his blankets, lay down, and fell asleep over a novel. The driver and conductor followed his example; and the latter was soon in the arms of Morpheus. But I could not sleep. I was too much excited by the unusual events I had witnessed during the past twenty-four hours. So I fraternized with the soldiers of the guard, and listened to their opinions on Indian matters, and their tales of Indian adventure.
About sunset the Indians began to move. Unanimity of action was not the result of their council; they separated into two parties, one of which went due east, the other to the northwest, passing in rear of the station, but at the respectful distance of three or four miles from it.
Night fell at last. Sentinels having been properly posted, all who were not on guard, except the lieutenant and the writer, went to bed, or, rather, to a blanket on the floor. I sat up to write some letters by a dirty, sputtering candle on a lame, old table, the only furniture in the room, except a greasy, rickety chair. The lieutenant read his novel by the better light of a civilized candle which, knowing the customs of the region, he had had the good sense to bring with him.
The savage stillness of night on the plains fell upon the place. No sound was heard save the occasional wailing of the hungry wolves, that thronged around the barn where the dead man lay.