Capt. W. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago

by William F. Drannan

He sat in thought a few minutes and, turning to me, said, "What plan have you in your mind about making an attack on that camp, Mr. Drannan?"

I said, "They are so scattered that in my opinion it would be impossible to get them all, and I think the best way to make an attack on them would be at daybreak, and for us all to be mounted on our horses. You and your men make the attack, and me and my scouts make a dash for their horses and cut them loose and run them off out of the Indians' reach. Now Capt., I am satisfied that this fight will be no child's play, but will be a nasty little fight, but if we can get the Indians on a stampede and keep them from getting to their horses, I think we can run them down and get the most of them."

The Capt. told the men that they had better not go to sleep that night.

"If we sit around the fire here until three or four o'clock in the morning, you will all get over your scare and feel more like fighting."

One of the boys laughed and said, "It don't affect me in that way, Capt. The more I study about a bad scrape that I expect to get into, the more nervous it makes me."

Capt. McKee answered, "Perhaps you will fight better when you are nervous than you would if you were cool. Anyway, we will take the chances."

We sat around the fire and told stories and smoked until about one o'clock in the morning, and then we saddled our horses and pulled out for the Indian camp and arrived there in good time to look around and see if we could take any advantage of the Indians in the coming fight.

The Capt. selected the place to make the attack and told his men that he and they would sit on their horses and watch for the first Indian to get up, and as soon as the first Indian attempted to get up, they must make the charge, and every man must do all the shouting he could, "for," said the Capt. "if we can get the Indians stampeded once, we will have as good a thing as we want."

I told my scouts, that we would cut the horses loose and turn them in the opposite direction from the one the Capt. was making the charge, and I told the men to cut the horses loose as fast as they came to them, and to pay no attention to the Indians unless they saw them coming towards the horses, but if the Indians, one or many, seemed likely to get to the horses, to pull their pistols and shoot them down before they caught the horses, "for," I said, "every horse we drive away will be equal to killing an Indian, for it will be putting him in the way of the other boy's bullets."

We did not have to wait long before the sound of the guns and the yells of the men as they made the attack on the half-awake Indians reached us, and the din that the two noises made was something dreadful to listen to as it broke on the stillness of the early morning, but my men and I had too much to attend to to pay much attention to what the others were doing.