Still there were solely 5 of us and an opportunity bullet or two would possibly make the percentages towards us determined. Still we have been besieged by over a hundred Indians and those odds have been heavy as even Bob admitted. I gave one hundred dollars as a reward to Locker’s two boys who had helped us from start to finish most eagerly. All the Texans gave their names solemnly as witnesses, and Rossiter swore he would draw up the doc. Nobody took the struggle severely: whipping Greasers was nothing to brag about; however Rossiter thought that a declare should be made against the Mexican Government for raiding United States territory: stated he was going to draw up the papers and ship them to the State District Attorney at Austin. Years afterwards Bent whom I met by likelihood, informed me that Rossiter had obtained forty thousand dollars on that declare. He told the Mexican leader, who said he was Don Luis, a son of Don José, that if he stayed any longer he would most likely be arrested and put in prison for raiding American territory and threatening folks.
In 5 minutes one or two of the Mexicans had been killed and several other wounded; half a dozen horses had gone down; it was perfectly evident that the eight or ten of us had been greater than a match for the twenty Mexicans, for except Don Luis none of them scorned to have any stomach for the work, and Luis acquired a bullet through his arm in the first five minutes. One wild evening Indians, who wore sheets and had smeared their fingers with phosphorus, stampeded the cattle and although the boys did wonders we lost nearly a thousand head and a few hundred horses all of them damaged in carefully. One evening we seen a big increase in the force of Indians besieging us: one chief too on a pie-bald mustang appeared to be urging a right away assault and soon we found among the “braves” stealing down the creek to outflank us, while a hundred others streamed previous us at four hundred yards’ distance firing wildly. Locker it turned out had one other herd some distance to the east from which he may draw three or 4 herdsmen. Locker sent him after the youthful boy to round up as many Texans as posible however earlier than they could be collected, a bunch of greasers, twenty or so, in quantity, rode up and demanded the return of the cattle.
We took three weeks to get our bunch of cattle into situation and so began driving North in July. Three days later we started to maneuver our cattle eastward to rejoin Reece and Dell. We have been attacked at nightfall and daybreak three or four days operating and the half wild cattle began to get very scarey. Fighting, nevertheless, has a big component of likelihood in it and as luck would have it just when Bent appeared most certain of winning, one in every of Charlie’s wild swings caught him on the purpose of the jaw and to our amazement he went, down like a log and couldn’t be dropped at for some ten minutes. Bob and that i started shifting the cattle on leaving Bent with Locker to conclude the negotiations. The idea of punishing the Mexicans for getting shot attempting to recapture their very own cattle appealed to us Americans as something intensely humorous. In three hours we reached the scrub-oak wooden and the bay or bight in it the place Bob mentioned the cattle can be safe; for nothing may get by way of scrub-oak and as quickly as we had pushed the cattle deep into the bay and introduced our wagon to the centre, on the arc of the bight, so to speak, no Indians might stampede the cattle without blotting us out first.
The little man padded Blue Devil’s hooves with some outdated garments he minimize up and insisted on main her away spherical the bight and far to the south, and i verily believe beyond the Indian camp. Accordingly I brought up Blue Devil at once, took some pounds of jerked beef with me and a goat-water pores and skin I had bought in Taos; a girth and stirrups rapidly turned a blanket right into a makeshift, light saddle and I was prepared. I spent every night within the saddle and most of the day, though the accursed fever was shaking me. Can he save her? Talking it over we came to the conclusion that one man ought to ride to Fort Dodge for help and I was selected because the lightest save Bob and altogether the worst shot besides being the only man who would actually discover his way. Bob and that i went under the creek banks to cease the flankers while Bent and Charlie and Jo introduced down a couple of horse and man and taught the band of Indians that a direct attack would surely cost them many lives.
