Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/302

232 from the Indians. I called the other four together and told them if they would let me pick six horses from the band they might have the remainder. This being agreeable, the day following the horses were driven into the corral and I selected my six. Jones and Riley put in a good portion of the day in saddling and riding them to see whether they were broke or not, and we found them all to be fairly well broken to ride.

The next day I told the Colonel that I was ready to resign my position as chief of scouts, for you will have to appoint another man, and you had just as well do it first as last.

"No," said the Colonel, "when you are ready to start, I will give you a voucher for your pay up to that time, and when you get to San Francisco you can get your money."

We commenced making preparations to start, but did not let it be generally known until the day before starting, and then everybody wanted to write a letter to send out, and by the time we were ready to start we had a pack-horse loaded with mail.

The Colonel sent a long letter to his wife, and told me a lot of stuff to tell the other officers, of which I did not remember one-fourth.

Finally we were rigged up and ready to start, but we had a hard time to get away, for Dick Jones wanted me to tell Jim Johnson so and so. Another had some word to send to a friend, whose name I had never heard before, and never thought of after I was out of sight.

After shaking hands all around, and Col. Elliott telling me a lot of stuff to tell his wife and numerous other