Early Pioneer Days in Texas
Chapter I
Early Times in Texas
Friends, early pioneers and settlers and a few remaining schoolmates of our log cabin school days: I write these lines in commemoration of the days of long ago; the days that were spent in preparation for the glorious results which have come to Texas and her people. The younger generation cannot know nor understand the dangers, nor the inconveniences, that beset us in the early days; neither can they comprehend how tedious was the slow and labored journeys we had to make to go from place to place. Now it is an easy task to travel two or three hundred miles a day, and at little cost, but in those days when we had to pick our way through vast country expanses and find our road the best we could as we went along, it was a tedious and expensive journey, both because of expenditure of energy and of means as well.
I have thought it would be a benefit to humanity, a testimony to the self-sacrifice of the fathers, and a monument to the virtues and bravery of those noble men who blazed the trail to make Texas habitable, to record some of the early ex- periences, episodes and primitive modes of life in the early days of Texas.
When my father left old Tennessee to come to Texas, it wasn't in one of those wagons that run smoothly along the road, with springs to take away the jar off the bed, but one of those old-fashioned kind that jerked and jolted at every step the oxen took. That was the kind that brought the families out here. Nor were there so many of them that the dangers and loneliness was removed. Prairie schooners were as scarce then as the ships on the open sea, and every outfit had to carry enough grub and camping equipment to keep them until they could locate in the country to which they hoped to make their home. Along the line of their journey there were no stores, nor stations, where they could stop and stock up and what little they could get to eat or drink they had to depend on what they had with them, augmented with what they could pick up on their way. Just a few miles a day is all they could hope to make with their patient ox teams, and it was then considered a long journey to travel what we can now do on the train in a few hours.
Of course, all the pioneers didn't come in ox wagons. Some of them came with a pack on horseback; some only had a blanket, a pot and a skillet, a sack of flour and a little salt, coffee and bacon, depending on the game they could kill for food. Lying down on the ground wrapped only in a blanket when they were ready to sleep. Those who had wagons, usually carried camp outfits with them and would pitch their tents for the women and children.
The way was beset with countless difficulties, such as fording creeks and rivers, making their way through brush and briar and timber and uninhabited country and the ever present dangers from the marauding, thieving and treacherous Indian. It can be said for the Indian that he was always watching to rob the defenseless pioneer and he would lie in wait to surround and capture the weaker camps and steal their belongings, or, if in larger numbers would catch the campers unawares, kill the men and rob them of their horses and cattle and carry off captives their women and children. If some of the sticks and stones on Texas prairies could testify to the things the Indians did in the early days it would make one's blood boil with indigation, and while I shall try to tell some of the experiences under my personal observation I cannot begin to tell any fractional part of the horrors and atrocities that were perpetrated on the brave and hardy settlers who first came to habitate on this noble land of ours, this, the Lone Star State of Texas.
Our first houses were on the old original primitive style pole cabins with the cracks chinked with split out timber, daubed with clay, mortar, and sometimes boards pinned on same with wooden pins there being no nails then covered with boards held securely in place by weight poles. Clap board doors hung on wooden hinges, the old string latch, the string of which always hung on the outside, which was always free and more than welcome for anybody to enter and partake of the generosity and hospitality of the inmates. The chimneys were of sticks and dirt; wide fire places, around which encounters of brave, dangerous, heroic, daring deeds were rehearsed, where anecdotes were told and the latest news from home rehearsed, or where some traveler stopped to tell of the happenings in some distant part of interest, the happy group would sit around eager to hear it. Good, hearty meals were always enjoyed. The houses had split out puncheon floors when there were any kind at all. Stools on which were placed dressed buffalo robes or bear skins constituted the seats. The tableware and cooking utensils consisted of a coffee pot, frying pan, old-fashioned ovens, skillet and lids, and in the absence of these the old time hoecake and ash- cakes were baked around the fire. Gourds or tin cups were used to drink out of wooden pails; and when there were not bowie knives and wooden forks to use they generously sopped the pan and feasted and fared sumptuously by using nature's own wild production. Bedsteads were made in one corner of the cabin by placing the ends of two poles in large augur holes in the poles of the wall and the other ends in one upright pole log, and narrow strips of rawhide corded across and on this were placed dressed skins of buffalo, bear or deer skins with the hair left on. When they did not have this kind they slept on buffalo robes or bear skins on the floor.
They used sleds drawn by oxen until they could make their old-time native wagons. The war whoop of the Indian, screams of the panthers, and howling of wolves on every side was heard. The clothing consisted of dressed deer skin, hunting shirt, pants, vest, leggins, moccasins and coon skin cap.
Later on more substantial hewed log cabins and other and better necessaries and conveniences were used. Progress upward and onward with enterprise has ever characterized our Texas people. Our first plows were rudely constructed, being made of scraps and bits of iron with a good portion of wood to complete. Our harness for horses was rawhide, and yokes and log chains for oxen. Grass of the finest quality, also an abundance of cane, was the only thing necessary for the stock after being worked or used in any way. Our good women, without which our big world would be a blank and a failure, were always first and foremost in every good deed and act. When she steered the craft, progress was rapid and sure; the hum of the spinning wheel, the bang, bang of the loom, the old-time carding, warping, reeling and coloring of the good old-time cloth; the washing, ironing, mending, housekeeping, milking, churning and thousands of other things too numerous to mention hardships and dangers endured that this, our glorious and grand Lone Star Texas homeland State might be settled and developed by the progressive, the true, the enterprising and the brave. All these and more should be commemorated and ever be as a memorial unto her who has ever proved faithful and true. God bless the women. Our Texas would never have attained to what it has had it not been for them.
A pioneer family by the name of Yeary settled south of where Honey Grove is now located. The family was composed of the old man, a grown daughter and two small children, and they had a good, faithful old negro man. They broke a small patch of ground with oxen, fenced it with old- fashioned fence made with rails on one side and good brush fence on the other side. The patch was right on the edge of the famous Journigan thicket, a dense tangle of briars, vines and brush thorns. In this brush innumerable wild animals, like panthers, bears, wild cats, wolves, etc., and an abundance of game, made their nests there.
Old man Yeary built him a log cabin with the assistance of his negro servant and roofed it with split boards held in place by heavy poles. In those days there were no nails. For bedding, dressed hides of buffalo, bears, deers, panthers and wolves were used. Stools were used for chairs and the cooking utensils consisted of skillets and frying pans; gourds were used for dippers and pails for carrying water were home-made. Even their clothing was made at home, usually from the hides of animals, and sometimes cloth was sent in from the East.
While hoeing the corn one day they were startled by the frequency of what sounded like gobbling turkeys and hooting owls; it became so noticeable that the negro became alarmed and fearing the approach of the wily treachery of the Indians, he urged the old man to retreat to the cabin. The old man told him to keep on hoeing the corn, himself believing the sounds were from the gobblers and owls, but as they reached the end of the row, near to the thicket, a blood-curdling yell of the treacherous Indian warned them, and the savages rushed on them, and shot their arrows at these two defenseless men, many of the arrows penetrating the bodies of Yeary and his faithful darky. Yeary was not dead, but he lay as though he was, playing possum to deceive the Indians. The old darkey, before he fell, said : "Massa, I done made one Injun wall his eye." He had crushed an Indian's skull in a hand-to-hand battle with his eye-hoe. The Indians pounced on their bodies, and one big Indian cut a scalp, running his knife rapidly around and putting his foot on Yeary's head, gave it a jerk, and took a piece of scalp about as big as a silver dollar.
Seeing the woman and children passing the woodpile, they ran yelling toward the house. The woman picked up an ax as she ran toward the house and closed the door in time to escape. The Indians battered at the door, and when they put their heads in the door she chopped off the head, and two of them were beheaded.
The savages finally withdrew with two of their number killed, and the woman went and dragged the old man into the house, cut the arrows out of his body, dressed his wounds, and he finally recovered, but the old man was the worst scared man, father said, he ever saw. The negro was killed.
On another occasion, near this same place, there were two families, if my memory serves me right, one of them was named Cameron, the other I have forgotten. These families camped for a while, but finally built a strong log cabin with loop holes to place their guns if they should be attacked by the Indians. Around the house they built a high, strong fence as an added protection. The women, one day, seeing the approach of the blood-thirsty Indians, rushed to their husbands, who were herding a small bunch of horses and cattle a short distance from their rudely constructed fort, but the Indians were on them, and a short, fierce battle ensued. The men were killed and scalped. Several of the Indians were killed. The women had, in the meantime, reached the fort, and after slaying the men, the Indians made a rush for the fort to kill the women and children. The women were good shots, 'and the Indians were disappointed, for as they scaled the fence the women, with determined and steady aim, killed the Indians one by one, as they got over the fence, until the Indians, finding they had a dangerous task, hastened from the scene of danger.
The poor, disconsolate widows, after the retirement of the savages, were bewildered and borne down by sorrow, but their bereavement increased when they heard the howling and screaming of the wild animals approaching towards where the bodies of the fathers and husbands lay dead, in their scent for flesh and blood. Says one of the women to the other: "I will take my two children and defend the bodies while you go up the bed of Bois d'Arc Creek until you come to the trail made in crossing the creek, then follow this trail until you reach Throgmorton's, our only neighbor. Tell them of our disaster and ask them to come and help us." Each woman took the part thus arranged, and as the woman followed the trail she was attacked by the bear dogs of Throgmorton, who rushed toward the woman with great fury. The brave little woman, in her fright, climbed a tree to get out of reach of the vicious dogs, and remained there till the old man, hearing the noise, grabbed his gun and calling his boys, anticipated what he thought was the approach of the Indians, and cautiously crept to where the dogs were barking. Soon they heard the cry of the woman, and fearing the Indians had captured a woman, they hastened to where she was, and seeing her in the tree, asked her why she was there. She related the experience of the night before, and begged him to come and help them. Of course, the old man told her that his life, and the lives of his sons, would be given to protect them if necessary, and urged her to go and stay with his folks until they could go and help her friends, but she said, "No, I'll go with you and help my dear friend and children to bury the bodies of our dead husbands."
When they arrived at the desolate homestead, they found the bodies of the men laying in their own blood, and the lonely, brave woman and little children standing guard over the bodies, keeping off the hungry animals with her apron in hand. The bodies of the dead men were wrapped in sheets and buried in a deep grave near the fort, to sleep until the resurrection morn. History does not record braver nor more heroic deeds, nor greater sacrifices, than does the deeds and sacrifices of the pioneers of the men and women who first settled Texas.
There was a family of hard-working, industrious people came to Texas when school houses were very few and far between. They had been used to hardships and came prepared to forego the disadvantages and the dangers and inconveniences of pioneer days, to build a home and settle a country where Indians roved in wild and blood- thirsty pusuit of greed and gain using treachery, subtlety and cunning in their murderous pursuit of the defenseless, and scalping and killing men, women and children.
This family built a little log cabin and had a few head of horses and cattle and two bright little tow-headed boys who were the delight of their parents whose childhood days were spent in ignorance of the dangers that confronts the pioneer in a territory infested by the blood-thirsty savage. My father says the family's name was Cox, and one night the war-whoops of the Indians went abroad and the homes of the settlers were set on fire, their cattle stolen and the defenseless women and children killed and scalped or stolen. These two boys of the Cox family were taken in one of these raids and carried away by the Indians when they were mere children. The anguish of the parents cannot be expressed in words. Searching parties were organized to go after them. My father was one of this party and he has told me of many experiences he had in his dealings with the savages. Many of his brave comrades were forced to kill Indians and fight many a fierce battle, both by day and by night, and often were the struggles a life and death occasion. The sneaking Indians would crawl and skulk around the camps and try to steal the horses that were lariated where they could eat the nutritious grasses, almost under the white man's eyes. On one occasion at Old Warren, on Red River, two of the party were on guard, while the remainder slept, resting from the toil and troubles incident to their warfare with the ever pestilent Indian. These two guards were stationed in a peculiar position, having perched upon an unfinished log stable. Suddenly the bear dogs began a fearful barking, the horses snorted and neighed, and became very restless, running backwards and forwards in the lots, or around and around the post to which they were lariated. This was, to the minds of the two pickets, an indication of the proximity of the Indians. The two guards moved over on the poles that had been set for the loft of the stable, and in doing so, lost their balance, came tumbling down in one great crash men, guns, poles and all. Picking up their bruised and bleeding bodies, they rushed to their sleeping comrades, warning them of the Indians' approach, who, when awakened from their slumbers, found the imprint of the moccassined feet of the Indians that had run for their lives from the places where they had intended to steal the horses. Father always said the only thing that saved those horses from being stolen was the noise of the falling roof and men on the stable.
Four years elapsed before the Cox boys were found and returned to their parents. They were bought from the Indians by a government agent in trading, and restored to their home. The parents rejoiced exceedingly, but not for long, for when they found the dead restored to life, imagine if you can the bitterness of feeling to find that their boys had adopted the savage life and preferred to cast their lot with the Indians. So the boys ran away and joined with the savages and never returned again. They were better suited with the savage life than the life of the pioneer and settler.
The early settlers used to gather round the camp fires, and it was always in order to tell tales of Indian fighters and fighters of wild animals. Sometimes some of the party would rehearse their own experiences of previous danger and hardships. In one of these gatherings a trial was held. Some vicious wolves had chewed the rawhide lariats that held the horses and had driven the horses away. The charge was made that the wolves had been trained by the Indians to sever the lariat so the Indians could capture the horses, as they came where they were secretly hidden from the much feared white man. The judge and jury, after hearing the case, agreed that it was true that the Indians had trained the wolves to gnaw the lariat so they could steal the white man's horses. The finding of the court was that not only did the Indians feloniously engage the wolf to aid them, but rewarded the wolves with generous supplies of fresh bear, buffalo and deer meat, and thus making an ally for Heap Big Scalp Taker Indian. Thus did the treacherous Indians to the white man in the early days.
Times have changed since then. No longer does the wily savage live off the toil of the brawny arm of the cultivator and home builder, nor is his ally the wolf permitted to roam abroad a menace to the home and faithful heart that helped to build the home and prepare the ground so it may be fruitful, but in its stead I fear there are some other enemies in the land where our forefather's blood was spilled that coming generations may have peace and comfort. These enemies do not slay defenseless women and children, or unarmed men, by stealth and cunning, nor take their scalps as did the treacherous Indians, but, does not some of the heartless gambling exchanges, with their trained wolves, go forth seeking to devour the toiling millions of hard working men, women and children by crowding the prices high on what they buy, and lessening the value of what the labor produces ? Is not our civilization a farce when these enemies price and sell a million more bales of cotton than the world produces, living off profits that never exist, while the producer ekes out a mere existence, unappreciated and unthanked ?
In this scene of plutocratic, aristocratic, grafting oppression the Son of Man will come again He who scourged the money changers; He will bring to account the men who make money their god. The rich man who has gained by ill-gotten ways, will realize too late the utter folly of in- dulgences in avaricious extortion from the hard- earned toiler, and will, like the rich man being in torment, long for the comfort of the drop of water and the opportunity of warning those dear to him deluded with the view that success and honor comes in gain and wealth.
I call to mind an old man and his wife, who, by rigid economy and self-sacrfice and thrift, accumulated means enough to send one of their boys to college. The boy was glad to be free from what he considered the drudgery of clearing new ground and building fences, digging up stumps and escaping the heavy burdens incident to the making of a home such as pioneers built in early days, and such as are being built by honest men today. This young man wanted a safe, secure and easy way of making his way as do so many of our young dudes and dudesses, who acquire an education usually at enormous cost of the self-sacrificing parents, failing as so many do to appreciate the privileges that have been made possible by these dear ones at home. After this young man had been at college a couple of years the folks at home concluded they would examine their investment, so they hitched up the ox team and took a five days' journey over the rough roads to see their son in the closing exhibition at school, feeling sure he would be pleased to show them what he could do and be glad to welcome them after all they had done for him. When they camped and visited him in the college ground, imagine their feelings when he scorned his folks his own mother and father, his own brothers and sisters turning to his college chums and professors, declaring he did not know them.
The poor old father was a very practical man, and did not propose to return on his long journey home without first having an understanding; so he said to the mother, and other children: Follow me. The family marched into the hallway, and when the bell resounded for the gathering of the classes, and the young man came in, they all with one accord proceeded to give him such a trouncing as he deserved. Of course there was a scene, and the father was arrested, fined and forced to make a mortgage to pay it, but the young man was tamed and ready to return to the family home and take up his duties with humility; ready to do his share of the work, and properly considered what he owed to those who were of his own blood.
In the early pioneer days, when rawhide and hickory switches were used in those days there were no wires to tie wagon beds, harness and plows together, many a time I have gone, when a small boy, with father into the woods where we had several hundred, long snouted, long tusked, back windsplitter hogs and he would catch the young pigs to mark them where the old mamma sow had left them in their snug little beds in the high cane brakes on leaves and grass. The little pigs would squeal, and you should see the rush of the vicious herd of swine as they would come in defense of their litter. In order to escape from them we were often compelled to climb a tree or use some decoy or strategy to induce them away so they would do us no injury. Many of our dogs have been killed and mutilated in rounding up hogs by their long tusks; even panthers, bears, wolves and wild-cats have been whipped by these hogs. When father wanted to kill one of these fat hogs for the family and the negroes we had quite a number of negroes he would catch the hog when he was apart from the herd with a twisted hickory withe, tie in cut place in hog's snout, and then to our old horse, Selim's tail, and tell me to hit Old Selim, and the horse would drag the hog by his tail without any apparent inconvenience or injury to the faithful old family horse. The hogs kept fat in those days, as there was always plenty of persimmons, hawes, grapes, pecans, hickory-nuts, walnuts, etc. There was no scarcity of hog meat, lard and plenty of venison, turkey, bear, buffalo, beef, mutton and goat meat and prairie chicken, quail and fish; also plenty of wild honey. We used to make candles from tallow and beeswax in the winter from which we got our lights. Our beef hides were tanned at the Red Oak Bark Ooze Tan Yards of Uncle Farrow Medlin. We made our shoes from the leather tanned by Mr. Green, and the leather was also used for making harness and bridles.
Our mothers and sisters learned to card, spin and weave. The fleece from the sheep and the homespun cloth would wear and keep us warm under all conditions. We did not have the fashions of the day, but it was the fine wool from the sheep woven, spun and carded by the hands of true and noble womanhood mothers and sisters of men whose lives have made the world better for their living, and whose sacrifices and labors have left a heritage that gold cannot buy, nor could it have been obtained in any other way.
Father's first plow was made on the bull tongue shovel order at least a dozen pieces of scrapiron, old horse shoes and wagon bed irons were used to make it, and the plow stock was chopped by hand, as well as the double and single-trees, from felled trees. Before we had our tanneries we used to make our harness and lariat ropes and halters out of rawhide and hickory withes, and rawhide strips were used to hold the wagon beds and plows together. We had no wire then, and had to invent a way to fasten things together with an easier acquired tie. The virgin soil of the prairies yielded to the magic touch of the plow drawn by the patient oxen, and in time the corn sprang up and fed the family and later, enough abundance for the cattle.
On a damp, cold night in the early part of the year it was a night of fog a band of redskins crept slowly over the wet prairies. They did not walk with even stride like men, but followed like a shrunken shadow brooding over a dark and dismal swamp. It was significant. They were hunched of shoulder, heavy legged. They were alive, but did not want to appear so. They were after the white man's horses and the white man's cattle, and would willingly kill the white man and his women and children if he could steal what the white man had. The love of life was only for themselves, and a wild beast was more to them than was the life of the brave men and women who came to develop a barren waste and build homes and enterprises that would leave posterity a heritage to be proud of. The Indian wanted to destroy; the white man came to build.
The watchful bear dogs were the first to scent the encroaching redskins and set up a howl that warned the camp of settlers. The Indians paid no heed to the howling dogs, but answered in many places with sounds like hooting owls. A sentry on watch heard the commotion of the dogs and listened intently, fearful lest the Indians may be coming near, but all he could hear was the hooting of the owls. The man halted at the opening to the stockade a protecting guard to retard the Indians from attack and listened more intently. The dogs were by this time frantic, jumping in their fury and making a rush as though they scented wolves. The sentry was nonplussed. He could not see any indication of any danger, and could not understand why the dogs were so furious. His comrades had toiled so hard all day he did not want to disturb them, so he endeavored to pacify the dogs, but they would not be quieted. Finally he concluded he would let one of the dogs loose and let him go out of the stockade, thinking it was some animal prowling about the stockade fence. When he opened the entrance to the stockade the dog rushed to the opening, but would not go outside, and when all the dogs were turned loose they, too, rushed to the opening, set up a growl and barking, but would not go any further. This puzzled the man on watch, so he hastily closed and fastened the huge door and proceeded to awaken the men in the camp, and told them of the peculiar action of the dogs. The men determined that it was safest to prepare for the worst, and so they got everything in readiness for a fierce battle.
The stockade was well constructed of split logs, set perpendicularly with the split side on the outside and standing about ten feet in height, and tops pointed in the shape of an inverted V. Inside this was braced and held in place by doweled and dovetailed poles, one end being buried in the ground, the other end holding up the fence. It was quite a formidable protection against the prowling wild beasts, as well as a defense against the savages. The pioneers had built loop holes, doubly protected at strategic places along the stockade for the purpose of defending themselves from marauding Indians. Inside the stockade was the corral where they kept their horses and a few head of cattle, sheep, poultry, dogs, etc., and to one side was built some two or three log cabins where the settlers dwelt. It had taken these brave, determined men a long time to build this little settlement, and it had been the rendezvous of everyone for miles around whenever there was danger of any Indian uprising, so that Indians had begun to recognize it as a great stronghold for the white man, and had also learned to fear to approach it lest they might lose their lives, for many an Indian had gone to the happy hunting grounds because he crawled too close to this fort.
On this particular night a large band of warriors had determined to attack the fort under the protection of darkness, expecting to corne upon the settlers unawares, capture the horses and cattle, kill the men and women and burn their homes and stockade. When the man on watch aroused the sleeping men and women, and boys, and recited his experiences, every one became alert for action, ready to make the marauders, whatever or whoever they were, pay dearly for the charge on their home. In the party was an experienced Indian fighter, who had been in several campaigns against the encroachment of the blood-thirsty savage, and he offered to reconnoiter and ascertain what it was that had so frightened the dogs and caused such alarm. So he crept out of an opening at the rear of the stockade, and as he did so the owls began a hooting in several different places surrounding the stockade. The Indian fighter knew at once by these calls that the Indians had gathered in great numbers, and concluded that it was to be a battle to the finish. Hastily returning to the settlement he told them what his conclusions were, and they immediately made preparations for a siege, having a presentment that the Indians meant to destroy them if they could. The Indian fighter urged that they get all the water they could in the utensils they had, prepared to battle against fire. The weather was in their favor, as the night was damp and foggy, and he had hopes that they would be able to prevent a conflagration, as he felt that if they could keep the stockade from being burnt down they would have a good chance to defend themselves against the Indians.
It was long past midnight before the Indians began any demonstration. The first real manifestation was made by a groaning as though someone was in great bodily pain a plan the Indians hoped would cause some of the settlers to come out and investigate; and in fact, one of the men who heard it suggested that it might be some poor fellow being attacked by a panther. The Indian fighter warned them and told them it was but a ruse of the Indians to get them to open the stockade gate so they could rush in and slay them.
Finding their ruse unavailing, they then sent a runner up the poles to peer over, but it was so dark that he could not see, and finally, climbing over, dropped on The other side in the corral. In doing so he dropped on some sticks, and the Indian fighter rushed to the place, returning in a few minutes with a bowie knife dripping with blood, remarking as he came: "There's one less devil to fight." For over an hour the camp remained in absolute quiet the women were huddled together with the children, and the men listening with keen, open ears for any movement that might occur. All were praying for the daylight, that they might see what was going on about them. Suddenly one of the dogs rushed toward the stockade wall, barking furiously and snapping his jaws as though he had seen an enemy. The Indian fighter followed closely as he could, just in time to see two dusky shadows straightening themselves up. Instantly his pistols spoke and two dead Indians lay in their tracks. As soon as the pistol shots were heard a score of arrows lit in the corral, but fortunately no one was hurt. "Get under cover," yelled the Indian fighter. Scarcely had the words escaped his lips when another shower of arrows fell in the corral, and two or three had barbs of fire. These barbs did no injury, however, but they lit up in their progress the pointed tops of the stockade posts, so the settlers could see the heads of peering Indians, and they took advantage of this to take a shot at the heads above the posts. Just how many heads they hit was never known, for the Indian does not leave his dead if he can possibly get them away.
Gradually the day began to dawn, and the settler could see the Indians whenever they tried to put their heads over, and as rapidly as they did, a bullet would knock it down. Several efforts were made by the Indians to set fire to the stockade, but these efforts were fruitless, and the Indians were unable to accomplish their purpose. Finally the settlers were able to see, the day being well up, and they gathered in their little forts where they had made their port holes and picking out their foes, made sad havoc among them with their guns. The chief, a dangerous fellow, seeing they were at such great disadvantage, gave an order to his followers and they hastily withdrew. The men were for following after them, but again the Indian fighter warned them, and told them the Indians would lay in wait for them all day, and perhaps several days, hoping to slay them one by one.
A prayer of thankfulness went up from the besieged men and women for deliverance from those bloodthirsty demons who had thirsted for the life-blood of these brave, determined men and women.
The Indian fighter went out cautiously to reconnoiter, and returned in a little while, telling them the Indians had been badly beaten several of their number were slain and quite a few wounded. He told also that he had found a broken wagon only a short distance from the stockade, not over a mile or a mile and a half away, and a white man and his wife slain, the horses and all his belongings stolen. The poor man's eye-balls, gouged from their sockets, had been turned wrong side out, and his ears cut off and pinned to his nose with sharp sticks, and a little farther away lay the poor woman and her babe shamefully and horribly mutilated.
From the tracks of the hostile Indians there were some thirty who retreated, and probably the attacking party numbered forty to fifty before the fight began. With thankful hearts the settlers gave thanks to God for deliverance from such hellish fiends, whose lust for gain was so intense that no ties of sentiment or feeling gave them the slightest thought of mercy whose desire was only to slay, to destroy while the noble pioneers sought not to destroy, but to build and make the barren land blossom and give strength and health to the nation. Verily, God goes with the righteous, and His hand will be upheld in danger.
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