f but one occasion when we were engaged in a fight
with them when our escort killed any of the attacking
savages; it was about two miles from Little Coon Creek
Station, where they surrounded the coach and commenced
hostilities. In the fight one officer and one enlisted man
were wounded. The escort chased the band for several miles,
killed nine of them, and got their horses.

CHAPTER X. CHARLES BENT.

Almost immediately after the ratification of the purchase of New Mexico
by the United States under the stipulations of the "Guadalupe-Hidalgo
Treaty," the Utes, one of the most powerful tribes of mountain
Indians, inaugurated a bloody and relentless war against the civilized
inhabitants of the Territory. It was accompanied by all the horrible
atrocities which mark the tactics of savage hatred toward the white
race. It continued for several years with more or less severity; its
record a chapter of history whose pages are deluged with blood, until
finally the Indians were subdued by the power of the military.

Along the line of the Santa Fe Trail, they were frequently in
conjunction with the Apaches, and their depredations and atrocities
were very numerous; they attacked fearlessly freight caravans,
private expeditions, and overland stage-coaches, robbing and murdering
indiscriminately.

In January, 1847, the mail and passenger stage left Independence,
Missouri, for Santa Fe on one of its regular trips across the plains. It
had its full complement of passengers, among whom were a Mr. White and
family, consisting of his wife, one child, and a coloured nurse.

Day after day the lumbering Concord coach rolled on, with nothing to
disturb the monotony of the vast prairies, until it had left them far
behind and crossed the Range into New Mexico. Just about dawn, as the
unsuspecting travellers were entering the "canyon of the Canadian,"[30]
and probably waking up from their long night's sleep, a band of Indians,
with blood-curdling yells and their terrific war-whoop, rode down upon
them.

In that lonely and rock-sheltered gorge a party of the hostile savages,
led by "White Wolf," a chief of the Apaches, had been awaiting the
arrival of the coach from the East; the very hour it was due was well
known to them, and they had secreted themselves there the night before
so as to be on hand should it reach their chosen ambush a little before
the schedule time.