CHAPTER X.
CHALLENGE TO BATTLE.
We divided our long train into two parts, leaving a short space between the sections. Mr. Wood's two wagons headed the forward part. Toward the close of the day on which this change of arrangement was made, the forward section turned off the road a short distance before stopping to make camp, and the rear section passed slightly beyond the first, left the road and halted, so that a double camp was formed, with the two sections thus placed for the night in relative positions the reverse of the order they had maintained during the day.
At night-fall, when supper was over and everything at rest, we saw three horsemen going westward on the emigrant road. When they were opposite the Maxwell, or forward, camp, as the train sections had been placed, these men turned from the road and came toward us. We soon recognized them as our late guests on the way: he of the big hat and his two companions.
Riding into our camp, one of them remarked that they now observed the change made in arrangement of our train, explaining that they had intended to call on the Englishman, whose place had been in the lead. They apologized for their mistake. The first speaker added that they had heard it stated that this English gentleman had charged one of their number with being in company with the Indians who killed his wife, at the time of the tragedy, a few days before.
He of the big, brown hat then assumed the role of spokesman, and said:
"I understand that he indicated me, by description; and if that man says I was with the Indians who killed his wife, I will kill him. Let him say it, and I will shoot him down like a dog, that he is. I am here to demand of him if he said it."
Another of the three said, in a tone of conciliation:
"We are honest men. We came out here from Stockton, California, where we live, to meet the emigrants as they come over from the States. We buy their weak and disabled stock, such as cannot finish the trip to the Coast; take the animals onto range that we know of, and in the fall, when they are recuperated, we drive them in for the California market."
The man under the large hat resumed: