s near the divide and those near their outlets; still, the work
is very heavy, the crossings being wide and deep. Any attempt to
improve the line would only result in throwing it northward to the
divide, coinciding with your preliminary line of 1867. At the end of
the work, Friday, I obtain a grade of sixty-three feet per mile for
six thousand and one hundred feet with extremely heavy work on
straight lines. Saturday morning we made one and a half miles further
and were obliged to abandon the line for the day. On seventeen miles
of this work we obtain average per mile:

Excavation 5,500 cubic yards.
Embankment 9,600 cubic yards.
Total per mile 15,100 cubic yards.

I have suggested in the transit notes a change for three or four
miles, which will save considerable work and improve the alignment
materially.

On Saturday morning while looking up the line about two miles ahead of
the party, I was attacked by ten mounted Indians who came out of a
ravine and were very close before I discovered them. My horse was
wounded by a pistol ball in the hip at the first start, but I was able
to dodge them and was gaining enough distance to enable me to dismount
and fight them on foot, when another party, about forty in number cut
me off in front and surrounded me, leaving as I supposed, no chance of
escape.

Shooting down the nearest as they closed in, my horse, though wounded
in four places and drenched in blood, carried me bravely and broke
through their line, they closing up in my rear. One having a fast
horse closed in with me as mine stumbled and partially fell. He
emptied his revolver at me, but without other effect than to tear my
clothes, then striking me on the head with his lance-staff told me in
good English to "come off," which, under the circumstances, I did not
feel justified in doing. Having him then in good range, I placed my
gun against his side and fired, shooting him diagonally through the
body and dismounting him.

Feeling my horse giving away I threw myself from the saddle and
catching the nearest Indian as he turned disabled him so that he fell
to the ground in a short distance.

They were now all scattering under whip and spur, having turned the
moment I leaped from my horse. I had now come in sight of the party
and observed a fresh band endeavoring to cut off the level party and
back flagman.

Mr. Morton (rear flag) finding his pony too much excited to be managed
jumped off