Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/430

318 train, telling them to keep about half a mile from it and at the first sight of Indians to get to the train as quick as possible and report to Jim Bridger, who would signal me at once by firing two shots in quick succession, otherwise there was to be no shooting in the train during the time we were in a hostile country.

All went smoothly until the fifth day. We were then on the north side of the South Platte and my new assistant scouts were beginning by this time--or at least some of them were--to be anxious for a little sport with the Indians.

I had told them the day before that they might expect to see Indians at any time now, as we were then in the Sioux country.

The morning of the fifth day I started two scouts ahead of the train, telling them to keep about two miles ahead of the wagons, two to drop behind the train and two south, and to keep on the highest ground they could find. Taking the other two with me I struck out north of the road, this being where I most expected to find Indians. After riding five or six miles we came up on to a high point where I took out my glasses and made a survey of the surrounding country. I saw a large band of Indians traveling almost parallel with the wagon road and moving in the same direction the train was going. I should judge them to have been about ten miles away. Anyway, they were so far that I could not tell their number, but I thought there were in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty in the band.

I showed them to my associates by allowing them to look through my glasses. I then showed them a route