We all took good aim and each of us brought down his Indian, but we did not have time to load before the others were upon us, and it ended in a hand-to-hand fight, besides it got to where each man had to look out for himself.
One of the Indians came straight for me and dealt me a desperate blow with his tomahawk, but I threw up my left hand and received a severe cut in my wrist—the mark of which I carry to this day—at the same time I struck him with my knife and almost cut him in two As he was falling he threw his tomahawk at me with all the vengeance in him, but missed my head and struck a rock just behind me. I sprang at once and picked it up.
Mr. Hughes was fighting one of the Indians; the other two had attacked Johnnie West, who was on his back with his head against the bank of the wash-out, and they were trying to get a chance to deal him a blow, but he was kicking at them with both feet and was striking so fast with his knife that they had not yet been able to get a lick in on him.
They were so busily engaged with Johnnie that I sprang at once, unseen by them, and buried the tomahawk so deep in the head of one of them that I was unable, for the moment, to recover it. As soon as my Indian was out of the way, Johnnie was on his feet, quick as the twinkling of an eye, and stabbed the remaining one through the heart with his hunting-knife.
In the meantime Mr. Hughes was having a hard fight with his Indian. He succeeded in killing the red fiend but got badly used up. He had a severe wound in the shoulder, also one in the thigh. I received a cut in the wrist, and Johnnie West did not get a severe wound, in fact but little more than a scratch.
The fight and flight being now ended, we went a few rods to a little clump of pine trees, where Mr. Hughes dropped down and said: "Boys, there's no use of talking, I can't go any further; I think I have done my last trappin' and Injun fightin'."
I gathered some limbs and chunks and started a fire, while Johnnie pulled Mr. Hughes' moccasins off and bathed his feet and legs with cold water. They were swollen almost to twice their usual size.
The fire being started, Johnnie proposed that we lie down and take a nap and a rest before starting out to hunt for meat, saying it was impossible for him to stand on his feet any longer. "My legs," said he, "are swollen clear to my body." I was too hungry to sleep, so I proposed that Johnnie stay and care for Mr. Hughes and I would take my gun and go out and kill some game, which was plentiful in this part of the country. I had not gone more than a quarter of a mile when I looked up the ridge and saw a small deer coming down almost in the direction of where I stood, and never before in my life had I cast my eyes on a living animal that pleased me so much as did that one I waited until he was in gunshot and fired. It ran about one hundred yards in the direction of camp and fell dead I dressed it, cut off its head and carried it to camp, and it was all I could do to get along with it in my half-famished condition.
I found Hughes and West both sound asleep by the fire It was not long before I had some of the venison cooked, and I had it fashionably rare, at that. After I had wakened my companions and we had broiled and eaten venison for a time, Johnnie and I rolled some logs together and gathered pine knots and made a good fire. Then we broiled more venison and ate again, until we got sleepy and fell over by the side of the fire, lost to ourselves and Indians. During the night we all woke up again, cooked and ate as long as we could keep our eyes open, and by sun-up next morning there was not enough of that little deer left to feed a cat.
We found ourselves very sore and stiff from the effects of our run, but Mr. Hughes thought we were about one hundred miles nearer Taos than when we started, as we had been running most of the time in that direction, and this was some consolation.