Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/550

422

We traveled very slowly and cautiously, and at the foot of the mountains, one hundred and fifty miles from Fort Yuma, we met a freight train from Santa Fe loaded with flour and bacon, principally, bound for Tombstone, Arizona. This train was owned by a man named Pritchett; but he was generally known as "Nick in the Woods." His party had had a fight with the Indians in the mountains the third day before we met him, and he had lost several mules killed and two of his teamsters were wounded. He informed us that the mountains were swarming with Indians, so the Lieutenant sent one company ahead of the command, George Jones and I going as scouts.

The advance company was under command of an orderly sergeant, who was instructed that if we met no Indians before reaching our old quarters we were to stay there until the command came up. On the third evening, just as our company was going into camp, and Jones and I were taking a survey from the hill near by, we saw a band of Indians coming leisurely along and evidently bound for the same camp ground that the soldiers were.