Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 540 pages of information about Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains.

Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 540 pages of information about Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains.

While we were eating dinner, Jim said to me:  “Don’t you know them fellers didn’t think you’d ever come back?”

I asked him what fellows, and he said:  “Why, those scouts.  One of them told me you was the d—­est fool he ever saw in his life, to go out scouting alone in a strange country, and that the Pah-Utes would get you, sure.”

I said I did not think it worth while to ask those scouts anything about Indians or anything else, for I didn’t think they had been far enough from camp to learn anything themselves.

That afternoon when I was announced at the Colonel’s tent, I was met in a somewhat different manner by him to what I had been that noon, for he raised the front of the tent and said:  “Come right in Drannan, why do you hesitate?”

After having a social chat with him and rehearsing to some extent the fight which took place the night before between myself and the five Pah-Utes, he proposed to make me chief of his scouts.  He said:  “Now, Drannan, I will tell you what I wished to see you about.  I have five scouts besides you, and I am going to make you chief of all my scouts, and you can handle them to suit yourself.”

I told the Colonel that I did not desire any promotion whatever, for in the first place I would not be doing my self justice, and that it would not be doing justice to the other scouts, and I thought it would be of more benefit to both him and his other scouts, to go alone, as I had started out.

He asked me why I would prefer going alone.  My reply was that a person in that business could not be too cautious, and I did not know what kind of men he had, and just one careless move would spoil the plans of the best scout in the world.

The Colonel admitted that I was right, but insisted on selecting one man from his five scouts to assist me, saying:  “If he don’t suit you, after trying him two or three days, report to me, and you may select any one from my scouts that you like.”  And to this I consented.  I told him that I would be ready to start out the following morning, and if he had any orders to give me to give them now, as I would start very early.  He said that he had no orders to give, but that he had selected Charlie Meyers to accompany me; and he proved to be a good man and a good scout.

CHAPTER XI.

A lively battle with pah-Utes.—­Pinned to saddle with an arrow.—­ Some very good Indians.—­A stuttering captain.—­Beckwith opens his pass.

The next morning I ordered three days’ rations for two men, and Charlie Meyers desired to know if I was going to Salt Lake City or New York.  I told him I was going out hunting, and if I struck fresh signs of game I proposed tracking it to wherever it went.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.