Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/410

300 did not have to guard them or keep out a camp guard. I remained out in the hills, about three miles from camp, until dark, selecting a high point and with my glasses watching all over the country for Indians. The boys were all well pleased when I returned and told them there were no red-skins anywhere near, and that they all could lie down and sleep that night. They turned in early.

The next morning we broke camp early, and about eleven o'clock came on to four emigrant wagons returning from Pike's Peak. The Indians had stolen the horses.

There were sixteen men in the party and they had been there three days and had not been two miles away from camp. They made some kind of arrangement with the train we were with to haul their things to St. Joe, Missouri, and left their four wagons standing by the roadside.

We had no more trouble while with this train, and everything moved along nicely.

When we were near Pawnee Rock, where we were to leave the train, and some twenty miles from the Kiowa village, I met about thirty Kiowa Indians going out to run the buffalo near there. Of course they all knew me, and after shaking hands we stopped to await the arrival of the train. When it came in sight and the men saw the Indians all around me they thought I had been taken prisoner. They at once corralled their wagons for a fight, and all the talking Jim Bridger could do would not make them believe otherwise, until he rode out to where we were. When he told me this I thought to have a little sport with the boys before leaving the train, and I