Bridger and I rode down to where the emigrants were in camp, and we found the most excited people I ever saw in my life. They had passed through one of the most terrible experiences that had ever occurred on the frontier. There were thirty wagons in the train, and they were all from the southeastern part of Missouri, and it seemed that there was one man in the train by the name of Rebel who at the time they had left home had sworn that he would kill the first Indian he came across. This opportunity occurred this morning about five miles back of where we met them. The train was moving along slowly when this man "Rebel" saw a squaw sitting on a log with a papoose in her arms, nursing. He shot her down; she was a Kiawah squaw, and it was right on the edge of their village where he killed her in cold blood. The Kiawahs were a very strong tribe, but up to this time they had never been hostile to the whites; but this deed so enraged the warriors that they came out in a body and surrounded the emigrants and demanded them to give up the man who had shot the squaw. Of course, his comrades tried not to give him to them, but the Indians told them if they did not give the man to them, they would kill them all. So knowing that the whole train was at the mercy of the Indians, they gave the man to them. The Indians dragged him about a hundred yards and tied him to a tree, and then they skinned him alive and then turned him loose. One of the men told us that the butchered creature lived about an hour, suffering the most intense agony. They had just buried him when we rode into the camp. The woman and some of the men talked about the dreadful thing; one of the men said it was a comfort to know that he had no family with him here or back home to grieve at his dreadful death.
On hearing this remark Jim said, "You are the most lucky outfit I ever saw. Any other tribe of Indians this side of the Rocky Mountains would not have left one of you to have told the tale, and it is just such darned fools as that man that stir up the Indians, to do so much deviltry."
Until this time there had been but a few of the emigrants near us. We were both dressed in buck-skin, and they did not know what to make of us. The young girls and some of the young men were very shy. They had never seen anyone dressed in buck-skin before. An elderly woman came to us and said, "Ain't you two men what they call mountaineers?" Jim answered, "Yes, marm, I reckon, we are."
She replied, "Well, if you are, my old man wants you to come and eat supper with we'ns."
Jim turned to me and laughed. "Shall we go and eat with them, Willie?" he asked. I answered, "Yes, let's get acquainted with everybody."
We went with the old lady to their tent, which was but a few steps from where we stood. When she had presented us to her old man as she called him, she said to him, "Jim, I know these men can tell you what to do." He shook hands with us, saying, "I don't know what in the world we are going to do. I believe the Indians will kill us all if we try to go any further, and I know they will if we go back."
By this time there was quite a crowd around us.
I said to Jim, "Why don't you tell the people, what we can do for them?" Jim then said, "why, dog gorn it, this boy and I can take you all through to California and not be troubled with the Indians if there is no more durned fools among you to be a-shooting squaws. But you will have to do just as we tell you to do." And looking over the ground he asked, "Who is your captain? I want to see him."
The old man said, "Want to see our Capt'n? We hain't got any capt'n, got no use for one." Jim then asked, "Who puts out your guards around the camp at night?"
"Guards? Didn't know we had to have any."