to protect him until we were off the rocky ground.  The Indians held their distance all the way down the hill, not stopping to reload their When we were at the foot of the hill the three of us that were mounted, in order to give George Jones a chance to ascend the hill, turned and gave them another volley.  Here I fired three shots and got two Indians and then spurred up by the side of George and gave him a chance to jump on behind me, which he did.  Just as we raised to the top of the hill we met the command, who had heard our firing and came to our relief, and they met the Indians face to face.  At this the Indians changed their minds very suddenly, and it is useless to say that they were on the back track much quicker than I could tell it.  The soldiers went in hot pursuit of them and got nine of their number.  From there we struck off in a south-westerly direction, thinking that when we struck the main road we might run on to some emigrants en-route for California.

We struck the main road fifty miles south of the Lieutenant’s quarters.  Here we laid over two days, thinking that there might be an emigrant train come along that we could escort through to headquarters, this part of the road being in the heart of the Apache country, and the most dangerous for emigrants from the fact that it is all a timber country and over mountains which, in places, are very rocky, thereby giving the Indians all advantage over the emigrants.

The evening of the second day, just as we were sitting down to supper, I received a message from Lieut.  Jackson for George Jones and myself to come to headquarters at once, but he did not state why he required our presence there.  As soon as supper was over we started.  The dispatch bearer thought it was at least sixty miles, but we had supposed it was not more than fifty, each of us having two saddle horses.

At one place on the road the cayotes turned loose, and it sounded as if there must have been a hundred, all barking at once, and George Jones remarked:  “Above all things that I have dreaded while in this business is being shot down and left on the plains for my bones to be picked up by those sneaking wolves, and now Cap, I will make this agreement with you; in case that either of us happen to be killed, which is liable to happen any day, the surviving one is to see that the other is buried if in the bounds of possibility.”

I said:  “George, we will shake hands on that,” which we did, and I added:  “You can also rest assured that if ever you are shot down while in company with me, no Indian will ever scalp you as long as I have the strength to stand over your body, nor shall the cayotes ever pick your bones if I live long enough to see that you are buried,” and the reader will see later on that I kept my promise.

CHAPTER XLI.

We locate A small band of red butchers and send them to the happy hunting grounds.—­Emigrants mistake us for Indians.—­George Jones wounded.