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

The fifth day out we struck the settlement, but did not cross the
Indian trail, which led me to think that the work was done by
Pimas and not Apaches.

When we arrived there no one could tell us how many Indians there were nor what they looked like, but when I came to find out the truth of the matter there had been no families massacred, nor had the two girls been taken prisoners, but there had been two boys killed that were herding stock.

We remained there one day in order to learn what we could in regard to the trouble and then struck the trail of the Indians and followed it two days, but it was so old that we gave it up, as it was then twelve days since the depredations were committed and we knew that the Indians were a long ways off by that time. We took a different route on our return, and the second day we saw a small band of Indians traveling toward the settlement, which we had left four days previous. We started in pursuit of them and struck their trail before it was dark. I was confident that they would camp at the first water they came to, which was about seven or eight miles from there, so we staked our horses out on good grass, sat down and ate our lunch while we waited for the clear moon to make its appearance and light us across the country where we might find the noble red men of the plains and entertain them for a while at least. We thought that it would take us about all night to track them up by the light of the moon, find their camp and play them just one little tune of "How came you so?"

About ten o'clock the moon arose, but we waited until it was two hours high, giving our horses a chance to fill up, after which we mounted and took the trail of the Pimas, which we had not great trouble in finding.

After we had followed the trail about seven miles we came to their horses, but could see no signs of any camp, and we at once made up our minds that the Indians were not far away, but that they had either built no fire or the fire had gone entirely out, for we could see no signs of any.

Dismounting, George took one man with him and I took one with me, leaving the other two with the horses, and started out in different directions to look for their camp. After wandering around about an hour I found where they were camped, and they were sound asleep and lying in a row but each one separate. We then returned to our horses and in a short time George came in. It was now getting high time that we were at work, for it was beginning to get daybreak, so after I had explained how they laid, five of us started for them, leaving one man with the horses. They were lying about two hundred and fifty yards from where we had stopped with our horses. We crawled up abreast until within ten feet of the Indians, and each scout drew both his revolvers, sprang to his feet, and I need not say that we made quick work of those redskins. Only one got to his feet, and he did not stand a second until there were three or four bullets in his body, but not one of us got a scratch in this fight.

Now the fun was over and we were not afraid to speak out, so we called out for the man that we left in charge of our horses to bring them over, and we gathered some wood and built a fire.

It had been several days since we had had fresh meat, but the Pimas had been kind enough to kill an antelope that day, and as they had only eaten of it once, we had a feast that morning, which we enjoyed very much.

We gathered up the guns and ammunition that belonged to the Indians, which, by the way, was the best armed lot of Indians I had ever seen. Each one of them had a good rifle and a Colt revolver, and one of them had the handsomest knife I ever saw. Had we not run on to them no doubt they would have done some devilment in the white settlement the following day. We reached headquarters in three days.

It was now time for the emigrants to begin to travel over the Butterfield route, and Lieut. Jackson started one company of cavalry across to the opposite side of the mountain some sixty miles away to protect the emigrants, and George Jones and I both accompanied them. We established our quarters about a half mile from the road at the foot of the mountains on the south side.