I told him that was for him to decide, but that there were so few of them that I thought it would be to his advantage to make the attack on foot.
"It will be impossible for them to get away, for my scouts and I will be between them and their horses, and if any of them should get away from you, we will attend to them before they can get to their horses."
The whole company dismounted, and without making the least noise they crept down to the Indian camp, and in a few moments the firing commenced. But it was only a short time before we knew that it was over, as we heard the boys shouting, and in a moment more we were with them at the Indian camp. I asked them what they made such a racket about, and they said that they were shouting for more Indians to come, that there were not enough of them to go around.
One of the boys said that every time he drew a bead on an Indian, someone else had got in before him, and that he did not get a chance to shoot one Indian in the whole fight.
The Capt. and his men now went and got their horses and unsaddled them and staked them out, and we all turned in for the night.
The next morning the Capt. was up before I was awake, and he and his men had counted the horses that the Indians had. He came back as I was just getting up and said, "Guess how many horses there are in the bunch we have taken?"
"I counted a hundred and twenty-five last night," I answered.
He said, "You are a pretty close guesser. There are just one hundred and thirty-two in the band, and some of them are as fine work horses as I ever saw in Texas. It is a mystery to me where the Indians get such nice horses. Do you think it possible that these wretches have been into Kansas and robbed the people there?"
I said, "It would be hard to tell, Capt., where they got them, for they go anywhere that they think there is anything to steal."
After we had eaten breakfast, Capt. McKee proposed that he and I go to the settlement alone and leave the men in camp until we came back. He said that the settlement was no more than five or six miles from where we then were in camp, and perhaps we could get some information in regard to where the Indians had been stealing stock and doing other depradations to the settlers.