Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains / An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West

by William F. Drannan

After being out about two weeks, and all having enough of hunting, they thought, to last them a year—as they had killed more or less deer, and one of them had killed an elk—and time being about up for the tug to come after us, we pulled up camp and started for the bay, arriving there on the 19th. The tug arrived on the 20th, about noon.

We reached San Francisco that evening, about dark, unloaded our baggage and meat, hired a man to watch it that night and we saddled up and rode out to the Fort.

The following morning I returned to the city, hired a team and took our baggage, as well as the meat we had killed, back to the Fort.

I was hailed several times while passing through the city by parties who wished to buy my mammoth elk horns, but I would not sell them, having already given them to Col. Elliott.

I stayed around the city until the middle of February, not knowing what to do to kill time, and loafing is the hardest work I ever did.

About this time Col. Elliott received orders to go out into southeastern Oregon, as soon as the weather would permit, and establish a fort at Klamath Lake. As soon as he received these orders he came to the city and hunted me up, and wanted me to go with him, at the same time insisting strongly on my joining his command; saying: "If you will enlist I am sure I can bring enough influence to bear to procure a Lieutenant's commission for you."

I told him emphatically that I would not enlist, as I intended to be a free man all the days of my life, "And when I scout for you," I said, "if I fail to do my duty, or shirk in the least, all you have to do is to say so, and I will quit then and there, and at the same time if you ask anything that I consider unreasonable, I will quit you cold."

The Colonel, however, accepted me as an independent scout.

I requested him to procure some one that was familiar with that country to go along as guide, but he told me that I would be around the city, and would have a better chance to find a suitable person than he would, and requested me to find a man and he would be satisfied with the selection.

During my stay in the city I saw a great many men who claimed to know all about that country, and who were anxious for the trip, but when I would question them they did not know any more about the country than I did, and I had never been in that region.