In a moment Jim called, "I see him." I waited about an hour before Jim came back and was beginning to feel anxious about him. When I heard his footsteps, he said, "I followed that dog nearly a mile, and then I found the cause of his howling, and what do you think it was?" I answered, "Jim, I have no idea," to which he said, "Well, I will tell you. I found the body of a dead man laying on his blanket just as if he was laying down to rest. I did not get near the dog until I had discovered the body, and then he was very friendly with me, and came and whined, and wagged his tail, as if he knew me. I looked all around, but I could find nothing but the body laying on the blanket. I could not see that there had been a fire, and I saw no signs of a horse or anything else, and the strange part of it is that, although the dog was so friendly with me, I could not coax him away from the body which I suppose was his master."
I asked Jim what he thought it was best to do. He answered, "What can we do, Will? We have no tools to dig a grave with, and the body is laying among the rocks, and I expect that dog will stay beside it and starve to death."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to go to the place in the morning and pile rocks on the body to keep the wolves and other wild animals from eating it up?" Jim said, "Yes, we will do that, and we will shoot some jack-rabbits and leave them with the dog, so he can have something to eat for a few days anyhow."
On the way over to the place where the body lay, we killed three rabbits and threw them to the dog, and he ate them as if he was nearly starved, and I have always thought that his master died of starvation, as he had no gun or pistol with which to kill anything to eat, and Jim thought that he must have got lost from some emigrant train and wandered around until he was too weak to go farther and lay down and died with no one but his faithful dog to watch over him in his last moments.
We covered him up with stones and brush the best we could and left him and the poor dog together, although we tried every way we could to tempt the animal away. The faithful dog would not leave his master's body. After trying persuasion until we saw it was no use, Jim said, "Let's put a rope around his neck and lead him off." I answered, "No, Jim, if he will not be coaxed away, it would not be right to force him to leave his dead master." Jim said, "It seems too bad to leave him to starve, but you are right, Will," and so we left him, and we never saw him again.
Saddened with the experience of the morning, we mounted our horses and struck for the trail. We had nothing more to disturb us for the next three days. About the middle of the afternoon of the third day we were riding along slowly, talking about where we should camp that night, when Jim happened to look off to the south, and he saw a band of Indians about a mile from us, and they were coming directly towards us, but we could not tell whether they had seen us or not. Jim said, "Let's put spurs to our horses and see if we can get away from them Red devils without a fight with them."
We put our horses to a run and had kept them going this gate for five or six miles when we came to the top of a little ridge, and in looking back we saw the Indians about a half a mile in the rear and coming as fast as their horses could carry them.
Jim said, "Will, we are in for it now, and we must find a place where we can defend ourselves."
At that moment I saw a little bunch of timber a few hundred yards ahead of us. I pointed to it and said to Jim, "Let's get in there and show them our war bonnet and scalps, and maybe that will save us from having a fight with the Red imps."
Jim laughed and said, "Why dog gone it, Will, I forgot all about your war bonnet. Sure, that will be the very thing to do."