his herds from the
organized bands of white cattle thieves that infested the cattle country
in those days. It was about this time that I hired to Bill Montgomery
for a time to assist in taking a band of nine hundred head of horses to
Dodge City. The journey out was without incident, on arriving at Dodge
City we sold the horses for a good price returning to the old ranch in
Arizona by the way of the old lone and lonesome Dodge City trail. While
en route home on this trail we had a sharp fight with the Indians. When
I saw them coming I shouted to my companions, "We will battle them to
hell!" Soon we heard their yells as they charged us at full speed. We
met them with a hot fire from our Winchesters, but as they were in such
large numbers we saw that we could not stop them that way and it soon
developed into a hand to hand fight. My saddle horse was shot from under
me; at about the same time my partner James Holley was killed, shot
through the heart. I caught Holley's horse and continued the fight until
it became evident that the Indians were too much for us, then it became
a question of running or being scalped. We thought it best to run as we
did not think we could very well spare any hair at that particular time,
any way we mostly preferred to have our hair cut in the regular way by a
competent barber, not that the Indians would charge us too much, they
would have probably done the job for nothing, but we didn't want to
trouble them, and we did not grudge the price of a hair cut any way, so
we put spurs to our horses and they soon carried us out of danger.
Nearly every one of us were wounded in this fight but Holley was the
only man killed on our side though a few of the Indians were made better
as the result of it. We heard afterwards that Holley was scalped and his
body filled with arrows by the red devils. This was only one of the many
similar fights we were constantly having with the Indians and the cattle
thieves of that part of the country. They were so common that it was not
considered worth mentioning except when we lost a man, as on this
occasion. This was the only trouble we had on this trip of any
importance and we soon arrived at the Montgomery ranch in Texas where
after a few days rest with the boys, resting up, I made tracks in the
direction of my own crib in Arizona.

CHAPTER X.

WE MAKE A TRIP TO NEBRASKA. THE HOLE IN THE WALL COUNTRY. A LITTLE
SHOOTING SCRAPE. CATTLE ON THE TRAIL AND THE WAY TO H