Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/691

Rh When we were at the foot of the hill the three of us that were mounted, in order to give George Jones a chance to ascend the hill, turned and gave them another volley. Here I fired three shots and got two Indians and then spurred up by the side of George and gave him a chance to jump on behind me, which he did. Just as we raised to the top of the hill we met the command, who had heard our firing and came to our relief, and they met the Indians face to face. At this the Indians changed their minds very suddenly, and it is useless to say that they were on the back track much quicker than I could tell it. The soldiers went in hot pursuit of them and got nine of their number. From there we struck off in a south-westerly direction, thinking that when we struck the main road we might run on to some emigrants en- route for California.

We struck the main road fifty miles south of the Lieutenant's quarters. Here we laid over two days, thinking that there might be an emigrant train come along that we could escort through to headquarters, this part of the road being in the heart of the Apache country, and the most dangerous for emigrants from the fact that it is all a timber country and over mountains which, in places, are very rocky, thereby giving the Indians all advantage over the emigrants.

The evening of the second day, just as we were sitting down to supper, I received a message from Lieut. Jackson for George Jones and myself to come to headquarters at once, but he did not state why he required our presence there. As soon as supper was over we started. The dispatch bearer thought it was at least