Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/206

148 The Indians having their backs toward me, I was confident they had not seen me. They were heading for the emigrant trail, that being what we called the wagon road across the plains in those days.

I rode around the point of a hill and tied my horse in a washout where he would be hid from view, climbed up the top of the hill and saw five warriors, riding direct for the trail. After watching them for a short time I hurried back to my horse, mounted him and rode as fast as Mexico could conveniently carry me over this sagebrush country--about a quarter of a mile in an opposite direction to which the Indians were traveling. Riding up to the head of a little ravine, where I could tie my horse in a place where he would not be discovered by the redskins, I dismounted, tied my horse and crawled up through the sagebrush to the top of the hill, where I could watch the movements of the Indians.

This was a rolling country, low hills covered with a heavy growth of sagebrush, and not a tree of any description to be seen anywhere.

I had discovered my game, but how to capture it was what puzzled me.

The reader can have a faint idea of the situation of a young man in a strange country and a sandy, sagebrush plain, who did not know where to find either water or grass. If I returned to headquarters they would escape me, and this being my first time out in the scouting business, I could not afford to let them get away. So, after holding a private council with myself, I decided these Indians were spies, who were scouting for a large party of Indians that were somewhere in this part of the country,