"FIVE INDIANS FELL AND ROLLED DOWN THE BANK."
Presently we saw a lasso thrown from behind a rock and fall among the dead Indians; the survivors were trying to rope them and drag the bodies to cover. They threw many times, and succeeded in catching and dragging them all in except one. This man had fallen farther down the bank than the others, and his arms hung over the bluff, so that he was hard to lasso. Loop after loop came down, and finally he was caught under the arms and dragged away. The Indians did not show themselves again, and at last we harnessed up the mules, turning back to Fort Clark to get reinforcements, as we feared an ambuscade by a larger force. During the fight a number of arrows hit the stage and stuck in, and we allowed them to remain where they were during many trips. They were examined with a great deal of curiosity and awe by Eastern visitors whenever we came into San Antonio.
In the autumn of 1870 a band of Comanches came raiding near Bastrop, Texas. Close to this town lived a man named Craig, who was the owner of a pair of fine grey horses, which, with many others, the Indians stole. Craig was greatly distressed about the loss of his team, and called on his neighbours to help him recover them, and quite a number responded, including several friendly Indians. In the neighbourhood lived a Tonkaway Indian named John. He was a good trailer and fighter, and immediately joined the party, following the trail of the Comanches very rapidly.
On the afternoon of the first day out we discovered the robbers camped in a ravine. They were cooking meat, and it was the smoke of their camp fire which led us to their position. We promptly charged, but the Indians discovered us in time to make their escape, leaving one of Craig's horses behind. We had ridden all day with nothing to eat, so we at once proceeded to help ourselves to the roast meat left by the fugitives. While thus engaged we heard a yell, and, looking round, saw a solitary warrior on a hill, mounted on Craig's other horse. Seeing us watching him, the Indian yelled again and began wheeling the horse about in a circle. He had a brand-new bridle on this horse—probably obtained from a looted store in Bastrop—and as he wheeled his mount rapidly the metal on the bridle glistened in the sunshine, although the Indian must have been a quarter of a mile away. There was a man in the party named Bates, who was riding a very fast horse, and Tonkaway John said if Bates would let him have the horse he would catch the Comanche and bring back his scalp, together with Craig's horse. "All right," replied Bates, "but don't you lose my horse."
When the Comanche saw John coming he galloped off across the valley, yelling defiance, and no doubt thinking he could easily get away. When he saw the Tonkaway gaining on him, however, he began whipping and kicking furiously, but it was all of no avail—Bates's horse steadily overtook the grey. The Comanche now strung his bow, and a battle with arrows commenced between the two red men, but the hostile Indian was soon stuck full of arrows and at the mercy of John, who rode quickly up alongside of him. They must have been fully a mile and a half from us, but there was not a bush or a shrub to obstruct the view, and in the bright light of the setting sun and the clear, thin atmosphere of the prairie we could see them as plainly as though within two hundred yards of them.
The Comanche, badly wounded, now threw away his bow and began to beg for his life. John, however, paid no attention to him, but grabbed him by his long, coarse hair, pulled him from his horse, and, dismounting, killed and scalped him with his long knife. Remounting, he came back yelling triumphantly, leading Craig's horse with one hand and waving the scalp with the other. Craig had now recovered both his horses, so he was profuse in his thanks, and never finished talking about the bravery of Tonkaway John.
In a fight we had with Indians on the Upper Brazos River, in the year 1876, we captured a big Comanche chief named Black Wolf. We took him to Fort Griffin, intending to turn him over to the colonel commanding, but he refused to have anything to do with the prisoner. As he was one of the most bloodthirsty Indians on the frontier, however, the officer recommended us to shoot him. None of us fancied the job, and as some friendly Tonkaways, who had been in this fight, had a special grudge against the Comanche, he was turned over to them to be killed, although we little thought at the time how they proposed to carry out the death-sentence.
There were about twenty of the Tonkaways, armed with bows and arrows, and they took the chief—a Herculean fellow—and turned him loose in front of the fort. Then they began shooting at him from all sides. They had to be careful, however, not to miss him and shoot some of their own men, so for this reason it was not safe to shoot very strongly. The first arrow that struck the big Indian he pulled out, and rushed about here and there with it, trying to stab his enemies as they shot at him. The greater the number of arrows that struck him the more furious he became, and the faster he ran the more difficult it was for the archers to hit him. The Comanche was tall, with long, powerful arms, and could reach far with his curious weapon, and very soon it began to look as though he would put the whole band of Tonkaways to flight with only an arrow. They rushed around frantically, uttering shrill cries of rage, trying hard to kill the big chief, but being careful to keep out of reach of his long arms. While this went on we stood around the gate of the fort with the soldiers, watching the absorbingly interesting fight. The Comanche was soon stuck full of arrows, but they did not penetrate deeply and did not interfere in the least with his fighting powers. Presently he had most of the Tonkaways on the run, those in front trying to get out of the way of the arrow in his hands, those at his back and sides endeavouring to kill him without wounding any of their comrades. Springing this way and that he wounded several of the Tonkaways, and our captain began to fear he would kill some of them, so the colonel at the fort sent several soldiers out to drive the Tonkaways away. The Comanche was afterwards shot. Spite of the chief's terrible record, one could not help admiring his pluck, and his last battle was the bravest fight for life I have ever seen put up by a lone Indian.
