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

Jim answered, "That, sir, is your business, not ours. It is our business to see that the people under our care do not meet with the same fate these men have met, and I do not intend to put the lives of all this train in danger by stopping to hunt for the remains of men who refused with scorn to stay with us and share the protection we offered them; they brought the trouble and their own deaths on them selves, but I will say this, if any of you men want to hunt for these bodies and take the time to bury them, I have no objection, but you must understand that when you get outside of the scout force we shall not be responsible for any thing that may happen to you."

At that moment more than twenty men spoke together, saying, "Mr. Bridger is right, Mr. Bridger is right; he proposes to do just what he agreed to do, and no one can blame him." One of the men then asked if we would be willing to stop long enough to bury the bodies if we found them; Jim said, "We have no objections to stopping if it is a suitable place to make our camp, but if it isn't we can't afford to lose the time, as we must make certain places to camp every day, for we are now in a hostile Indian country, and in order to protect our selves we must camp in certain places, for without we take this care this train will not be in existence a week, and Will and I feel the responsibility that rests upon us, for the lives of your women and children as well as your own are in our hands."

At this moment a middle-aged lady who stood near us with the tears running down her cheeks said, "Why don't you let Mr. Bridger and Mr. Drannan have their way? You see what these other men came to by not obeying their orders, and do you want to bring us all to the predicament they are in?" At this Jim said, "I'll be dog goned if they will."

This settled the controversy for the time being.

That evening before we turned in for the night Jim and I talked the matter over together; and we decided that after I put out the scouts in the morning I would take ten men all mounted on horses and keeping about five miles ahead of the train, and if we found the bodies I should set the men I had with me to work digging graves, and I should turn back and report to Jim what we had found, and the condition we found them in.

As soon as possible the next morning the men I had selected and myself pulled out. We had made eight or nine miles when we found the bodies we were looking for. They were all laying near together, around what had been their camp fire, and all of them were scalped.

There was nothing about them to indicate that they had made any effort to protect themselves. Every one of the heads was split, showing they had been tomahawked, proving what the two survivors had told us about the suddenness of the attack to be correct. We found their wagons nearly empty. The covers had been torn off, the most of the bedding was gone and some of their clothing. The eatables such as bacon and flour and dried fruit was laying on the ground. I told the men I thought the best way to bury them would be to dig one large grave and put them all into it, and they seemed to be of the same mind. After helping to select a spot for the grave, I left them and rode back to meet the train and report our find. I told Jim all about the condition of things at the dead men's camp, at which he said, "I guess we had better stop there a couple of hours, which will give us time to bury the dead, and we can reach our camping ground before night."

On reaching the place Jim corralled the train, and he then went to all the families and told them that two hours was as long as we should stop there. I said, "I will take a stroll around through the brush and see if I can find some of their cattle."

I hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile when I found twelve head of their oxen. When I drove them back to the wagons, the two men said they were just half of the original number. They yoked them up and hooked them to two of the wagons and took what they wanted of the provisions and clothes and left the rest laying on the ground. As we were about to leave Jim said, "It is too dog goned bad to leave all that grub for the Coyotes to eat. That meat and flour will be worth fifty cents a pound when you get to California."

Then several of the men and women commenced to gather up the stuff, the men carrying the flour and the women the bacon, and they soon had it all stowed away in their wagons.