Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/227

Rh and I asked him why he did not draw his sabre and cut them down. He said he had no orders to do so.

To that I did not reply, but I thought this a queer way of fighting Indians, when a soldier had to stop in the midst of a battle, fold his arms and stand there to be shot down while waiting orders to draw his sabre. A moment later they received orders to use their sabres, and they went to hewing the Indians down.

I saw an Indian with two or three feathers in his hair, and I took him to be the war chief. He was coming direct for me with bow and arrow in hand, and I made a desperate rush for him and made a strike at him with my knife, but he threw up his arm and knocked off my lick, at the same time a measly redskin shot me through the calf of my leg, pinning me to the mochila of my saddle.

The mochila is a large covering for a saddle made of very heavy leather and comes low on the horse's side, thereby affording great protection to horses in cases like this. This shield is of Spanish origin, but they were used by all mountaineers as well as Mexicans.

I was leaning over when the arrow struck me and pinned me to the saddle, so that I could not straighten up, for I was almost on the side of the horse when I received the arrow.

Capt. Mills, seeing the predicament I was in, came to my rescue and cut the war chief down with his sabre, just in time to save me from getting another arrow.

The Captain pulled the arrow out of my leg, which had a very large spear made of hoop iron, and it tore a bad hole in my leg when he pulled it out. By this time