I said at the time, and I think now, that that was the most accurate shooting and with the least excitement of any Indian fight I was ever in. It seemed as if every man was as cool as if he was shooting at prairie dogs, and every shot hit the mark. We did not touch the dead Indians but left them as a warning to others who might come that way. We next looked after the stock. By examining the horses, we found that they tallied with the number of Indians, for every horse that belonged to the Indians had a hair rope around his neck, which was a custom followed by all the Western Indians at that time, as by marking a half hitch around the horse's nose he made a bridle of it.
We found twenty-two horses and thirty-two head of cattle that the Indians had stolen from the white settlers. Capt. McKee looked the horses over that had belonged to the Indians and said, "Those are the most valuable horses that I ever saw in the possession of the Indians. They are all good stock, and we will get a good price for them if we take them to Fort Worth, for good horses bring good money there."
When we returned to camp, we saw that two of the young men had their horses saddled. The Capt. asked them where they were going. One of them answered that, as they did not earn any of the honor that morning in killing Indians, they would try to kill some deer for supper, as they knew they would enjoy a piece of good, fat venison and thought the others would, and they believed there was plenty of deer all around there.
Capt. McKee and I spread our blankets and laid down to try and make up for some of the sleep we had lost while in pursuit of the Indians.
About three o'clock one of the boys came and woke us up, saying they had some fine venison all cooked and ready for supper, and that was one of the times that I enjoyed a venison roast. It was as fat and tender as a young chicken.
The next morning we pulled out of there bright and early, and it took us two days to make it back to the settlement that the Indians had robbed and in whose behalf Capt. McKee and I had gone out to punish the thieves, with what success the reader already knows.
As soon as we landed, we sent word to all that had been robbed to come and get their stock. Each owner came and claimed what belonged to him, and when all had taken what they said belonged to them, there were still four horses left unclaimed. These horses we never found an owner for, so we kept them ourselves. The settlers whose property we had returned to them now met and came to find out how much we intended to charge them for what we had done for them. We knew that these people were all poor, and we told them that they might give us what they could afford to pay without distressing themselves. They made up one hundred and forty-four dollars and gave it to us, which was a much larger sum than we expected to receive. After thanking them for their generous payment and refusing their invitation to stay with them longer, we bid them all good bye and continued on our journey to Fort Worth, which had been interrupted by the Indian raid on the settlement.
We had ridden to within ten miles or so of Fort Worth when we met an old acquaintance of Capt. McKee. His name was Reese. There were two other men with him, and they all three wanted to purchase horses. They examined all the horses we had, and then they asked Capt. McKee what we would take for the entire lot. The Capt. asked me what I thought would be a fair price. I answered, "Let the men make an offer before we set a price."
When the Capt asked them what they would give for them, they said they would give a hundred dollars apiece for them if we would help them drive the horses to Dallas.
I told the men that we would let them have the whole bunch and help drive them to Dallas for a hundred and ten dollars apiece. The three men rode off a few yards and consulted together a few minutes. When they came back, they said they would take the horses on my terms.