Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/207

Rh and that they were looking for emigrants, and in case they did not see any such that day, they would no doubt go to water that night.

I laid there on the hill watching their movements and trying to devise some plan by which I could capture them then.

Could I only have had Jim with me, how easy it would have been to follow them to their camp that night, kill and scalp them and capture their horses.

In those days an independent scout was entitled to all the stock captured of the enemy by him.

I watched the Indians until they got to the emigrant trail, where they stopped and held a council, apparently in doubt as to which way they should go. After parleying for some five minutes they struck out on the trail. I watched them for about two miles, then they passed over a low range of hills and were out of sight.

I now mounted Mexico and rode as fast as I could, not directly after them, but as near as I could to keep out of their sight; and at the same time I felt confident that should they discover me, that there was not an Indian pony in that whole country that could catch Mexico, either in a short or long distance.

After riding some five miles or so, I dismounted and tied my horse to a sagebrush, and climbed to the top of the highest hill between me and where I supposed them to be. I discovered them about a mile away, and they were just leaving the trail, riding up a ravine that led to the north. They dismounted and put their ponies out to grass. There also appeared to be a little meadow where they stopped, and I concluded there must be water there,