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

Finally the time was set to start, which was the first of June.

Before starting this time I had an understanding with Col. Elliott regarding the stock that might be captured by the scouts; he agreeing to let the scouts take the stock captured by them and divide it equally among themselves.

After having started, the Colonel was undecided as to where he would cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At that time there was no map of the country between California, Oregon and Nevada, but finally he decided to cross over the Beckwith Pass. After we had crossed the mountains we turned north, crossing the Truckee river where Reno now stands. From here we traveled across the sagebrush plain to Honey Lake.

So far we had no trouble with Indians, and the command stopped to let the horses rest a few days.

While lying there Col. Elliott requested me to take four other scouts and go north four days to prospect for water and grass, for this was now a strange country to all of us.

My companions were John Reilly, Fred Miller, John Boyd and George Jones, of whom there will be more said later on, and who were my companions the rest of the summer, or, as long as I was able to scout. Altogether there were twelve scouts in my company.

In the evening of the second day of our trip we camped at a nice little spring. We got into camp just at sundown, and having seen considerable Indian sign during the day, I had the boys stake their horses near the camp, and I took a look around on the ridges to see if there were any camp-fires in that part of the country. I was gone for about three hours, and the boys got quite uneasy while I was away. I only saw one Indian camp, which was northeast of our camp, and not having discovered it until after dark I was unable to tell just how far it was away. On my return I told the boys that we would have to stand guard that night, each one taking a turn of two hours, and as soon as supper was over we put the fire out so as not to give the redskins any advantage in that way. The next morning we got breakfast, and as soon as it was light George Jones and I went to the nearest ridge to look for Indians. I saw them just breaking camp, and they were about two miles away. That day we had to travel very cautiously, being in an entirely new country and knowing it to be full of hostile Indians.

That night we camped on a small stream which afterwards we found to be a tributary of McCloud's river. From what we had seen, there appeared to be plenty of water and grass, and from the Indian sign we had seen, they appeared to be in large bands, so we concluded to return to the command. The first day on our return trip, just about noon, as we were looking for a place to stop for lunch, we were discovered by about twenty Indians. The red devils made for us, and their war-whoops sounded as though they were bloodthirsty. They came pell-mell over the hills and hollows in hot pursuit of us, and I tell you things looked a little blue; only five of us and at least twenty Indians, and no telling how many there would be in a short time.

I told the boys that we would give them a round, anyway; and I had four men that were not afraid to face an Indian even in a hand-to- hand fight, if necessary; and then one feels more brave when he knows that he has got companions who will stay with him till the last dog is hung.

We rode to the top of the ridge, stopped and drew our revolvers, and when they were close enough we fired two shots apiece in succession and then put spurs to our horses and ran nearly a mile, when, on looking back, we saw that we were outriding them. We rode a mile further to the next ridge, just dropped over out of sight, and stopped and reloaded the empty chambers of our revolvers.