number, especially when
fortified by those immense white covered prairie schooners in corral
formation. On they came in single file, their blood-curdling war whoop
enough to weaken the bravest. Closer they came, bedecked in war-paint
and feathers, their chief in the lead resembling the devil incarnate
with all his aids bent on exterminating as brave a band of freighters
as ever crossed the plains. Nearer they came, their ponies on a dead
run, the left leg over the back, the right under and interlocking the
left, firing from the opposite side of them, ducking their heads,
encircling the camp and yelling like demons. Their racket, together
with the yelping of their mongrel dogs and the snorting and
bellowing of the cattle, made it an unspeakable hell. Every man stood
to his gun, and from between the wagons, at the command of the wagon
boss, poured forth with lightning rapidity his leaden messengers of
death. For about an hour they made it very interesting for us. It was
almost impossible to hit one as they kept circling the camp, drawing
nearer with each circle made. How many were killed we did not know as
they carried them off, but from the number of riderless ponies, a
dozen or more must have been dispatched to their happy hunting
grounds. During the fight a portion of them bore down on the poor
pilgrims' camp, in plain sight, and massacred all, running off their
cattle and such of their outfit as they wanted.

[Illustration: MASSACRE OF EMIGRANTS]

SAVAGES IN THEIR GLORY

Mothers with babes at their sides and with uplifted, clasped hands,
implored the cruel warriors for mercy, but it was like pouring water
on the desert sands. Crazed by thirst for blood and the scalps of the
whites, they knew no mercy. The hatchet-like tomahawk glittering in
the evening twilight, held with a vice-like grip in the hand of a
cowardly savage, came down at last with such force as to crush through
skull and brain, and all was over. We were powerless to render
assistance. The scene was heartrending. The depredations of these
savages is too revolting to relate, and after completing their hellish
work, they sneaked back as they came, keeping up their sickening yell
until distance drowned it entirely. Few days passed that they were not
seen as evening approached, and after dark we were able to know that
they were in the vicinity, watching their opportunity to surprise us
at early morning, by signal arrows of fire shot into the heavens to