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

This was the last word of complaint that was expressed, while we were with this train. Everyone seemed satisfied, and all things went pleasantly from this time on. But talk about Coyotes' howling. This was one of the nights when they did howl. They came so close to us that we could hear them snap their teeth. Apparently there were hundreds of them around us.

After leaving this camp we had no more trouble for two days. The second night we camped on a little stream which was a tributary to Snake river. In the morning before we camped at this place, I told Jim when I left him with my scouts that he need not expect to see me until supper time. "You know, Jim, that we are in the heart of the Ute country, and I shall prospect every hill or ravine where there is liable to be found signs of Indians."

That evening it was perhaps a couple of miles before we got to the camp and a mile or so away from the other scouts, I ran on three wagons standing right in the middle of the road. After examining them a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that they had been standing where they were all winter. I saw that there had been ox-teams attached to them some time, but there was no sign of yokes there. The covers were still on the wagons, so I got off my horse and climbed into one of them. I found some flour and probably three hundred pounds of bacon in the three wagons. There was no bedding, but some clothing for both men and women, which was quite old and worn. On the front gate of one of the wagons I found considerable blood, and there was blood on the tongue of the same wagon. I now made an examination of the ground to see if there were any signs of a fight. After I had looked around some time, I was convinced that the owners of the wagons, whoever they had been, had been massacred by the Indians.

About forty steps from the wagons I found the remains of three people. One was a large body, that of a man, and one a medium size, which I took for the body of a woman, and the other was a small child. All there was left of them was their bones and some hair, the Wolves having stripped the flesh entirely from them.

I signaled to my scouts to come to me. As soon as they came, I told them to take all the grub out of the wagons and put it in a pile, and I would go back and meet the train and have three men appointed to distribute the stuff among the families. I told the boys that there were two trunks in the wagons and to break them open and see what was in them.

They did so and found them full of women's clothes, some of the garments of very nice material. I rode back and met the train and told Jim what I had found, and what I thought we had best do.

He selected three men to divide the provisions among the families of the train. I never inquired what they did with the clothes that was in the trunks.

We hunted all around in every direction, but we could find no more bodies, so if there had been others, the Indians must have taken them into captivity or, what was more likely, the Coyotes had dragged them away into the brush beyond our reach.

After the emigrants had stored the provisions in their wagons, we went on to the place we had selected for a camping ground for that night. I preceded the train a half a mile, and I found plenty of Indian signs, but they were all old. All their trails were pointing south that night. I asked Jim why all the Indians were going south this time of the year. He told me that they were going to hunt big game such as Buffalo, Bison and Elk, and they had to go further south to find such game, and he said, he should not be surprised if we did not see another Indian until we struck the Sink of Humboldt.

"But you may look out then, for we will find them then in plenty." As Jim finished this remark, one of my scouts came riding into camp at full speed. Jim and I went to meet him, for we suspected that something was up. As soon as he got in speaking distance he said to me, "There are a thousand Indians up on that ridge yonder, and they are coming this way; they are all on horse back, and there are women and children with them." Jim asked how far off they were. He said he didn't believe they were over a mile from camp at this minute; Jim mounted his horse and went to the herders and ordered them to corral the stock at once, at the same time telling every man to get his gun and form in line for the Indians were coming upon us, and the reader may be sure that everybody and every animal in that train was moving lively for a few minutes.