The Lieutenant then told him to form his men in line out on the road, saying:  “I will give you five minutes to prepare to die.”  He then turned to his riders and told him to relieve them of their arms, and they gave them up without a word of protest.  He then told them all to stand in a line and when the five minutes were up they must die.  During all this time their Captain was pleading for their lives and making all kinds of promises, but the Lieutenant turned a deaf ear to them, not even answering them.

When the five minutes were up the order was given, “Platoon No. 1, front face.  Make ready.  Take aim.  Fire.”  And all of the scoundrels fell at the first round, although some of them had to be shot the second time to get them out of their misery.

This being done they were taken about a hundred yards away and buried in the sand.

By that time it was daylight and Lieut.  Jackson made a detail of twenty-four men to assist George and I in driving the stock back to the Davis ranch.  The rest of the company returned to, headquarters, but went by way of the Davis ranch to assist in burying the bodies of the old gentleman and the two sons.  Lieut.  Jackson told me that when he arrived at the ranch and saw the dead bodies and heard the sad story of the wife and mother and of her daughters, he said it was more than he could stand.  He made a detail of six men to dig the graves and he returned to headquarters and moved the entire command down there and they all attended the funeral.

After the funeral was over Mrs. Davis called me to one side and said:  “There is one more favor I wish to ask of you before you leave” I asked her what it was.  She said as she was keeping a boarding-house she would have to keep travelers, and that she would like to have us leave a man to look after the stock until such time as she could get some one to work for her.  I told her that if the Lieutenant did not object I would leave a man with her that would take as much interest in the stock as if they were his own, and that she would find him a perfect gentleman at all times.

I called Lieut.  Jackson aside and mentioned the matter to him.  He told me to leave a man and that he would also detail a man to stay, which he did then and there.  I asked George Jones to stay, which he was willing to do.

Mrs. Davis asked us to send her a good, trusty man and she would pay him good wages, and she said she would write to her brother, who, when he came out, would close up her business there as quickly as possible, and they would return to the East.

Arriving at the fort and finding no idle men, Lieut.  Jackson wrote to San Francisco for a man, and in about three weeks he came, and he proved to be a good one, as Mrs. Davis told me several years afterwards.

It was nearly a month after we arrived at the fort before George Jones came.  The next day after he arrived he told me that he had just received a letter from his father, who was then living somewhere in the state of Illinois, and had written him to come home as he wanted to emigrate to Oregon the following spring, and wanted George to pilot the train across the plains and over the mountains to the country where big red apples and pretty girls were said to grow in such abundance.