Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/229

Rh dead comrades and loaded the wounded into the ambulances and started for headquarters, arriving there about nine o'clock that night. Charlie Meyers had a wound in his arm that laid him up all summer, and I was not able to ride for two weeks; although I had the best of care.

From that time on I was known as the boy scout, and the next day after our return, Col. Elliott appointed me chief of scouts with rank and pay of captain, which was one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month. He also provided me with private quarters, my tent being pitched near his own, and notwithstanding that I was only a mere boy the other scouts all came to me for orders and counsel, and I often wondered why men who knew nothing of scouting nor the nature of Indians would stick themselves up as scouts.

Two weeks from the time I got wounded the Colonel asked me if I thought I was able to ride, saying that the news had just come to him that the Indians had attacked a train of emigrants, killed some of them and driven off their stock. This depredation he said had been committed in the Goose Creek mountain country about one hundred and twenty miles east of us. Col. Elliott said that he was going to send out a company of soldiers there, and if I felt able I might accompany them, which I did.

All being in readiness, I selected two scouts to assist me, and we pulled out, taking with us a pack-train with one month's provisions.

We had a rough and tedious trip, as not one of the entire crowd had been over the country and did not know a single watering place, so we had to go it blind, hit or