Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/472

356 Just as it was getting dark, two of the Indians crawled up to within thirty feet of my rock pen. I was watching them, and just as they rose up to fire I fired and brought one of them to the ground, thereby making another good Apache. The other one ran away, and it being somewhat dark, I did not get him.

This made the fifth Indian I had killed since I had been in my little rock pen and I had fired eleven shots. After it was good and dark I made up my mind that I would get out of there sometime during the night, for to remain there till the morrow only meant death, and I might as well lose my life in trying to get away that night as to remain there and be killed the next day. I felt sure they had a guard around me, but 1 made up my mind to make a desperate effort, to get away. I crawled to where my dead horse was laying, which was only a few feet from my rock house, cut the latigo, removed my

I was always loaded and ready for them.