log 
there are river iiieii who cut their boats loose at night, 
put a lantern on the roof and go to_ bed and sleep till 
sunrise without a qualm — on a falling river; that is, 
in windy weather, night traveling is the only way of 
avoiding “bank-doping” for days at a time. Had we 
not floated on this night, and made an eddy above town 
from which we worked down by main strength, the 
sandbar bay would have held us a week in the storm 
that followed. , r 
We remained at landings only long enough for the 
man to see if he could do any trade. After selling a 
“line,” he would drop down the river a mile at least, 
and usually around the next bend to pass the night. 
So we came to Salem Landing at last, and here we were 
caught by a cyclone — my second one— and as violent 
storms always are on the river, it was exceedingly in- 
teresting to us while it lasted. Raymond S. Spears. 
When the Indians Hunted Me. 
I PUT in twenty years on the Southwest frontier, most 
of it in hunting Indians. Once in a while, though, the 
Indians would change the programme and start to hunt 
me. This was one of those times. _ . 
Prior to i86i a large business wrs carried on driving 
cattle from the ranches about S.an AntoniO' and west of 
it across the plains to California, over what was called 
the old California trail. It led from the settlements up 
past where Fort Concho was aftervv^ard built ; there is a 
large town there now, San-something or other, I have 
never seen it, and have forgotten its name. 
From the Concho the trail continued on west through 
Canon Pass, then crossed the Pecos River at Horse Head 
Crossing and so on west to California. The war stopped 
all this, and the first attempt made to resume it was in 
the spring of 1867. r 1 u 
The first herd to cross here was met west of the Loncho 
by Indians. They got the cattle. The cowboys got into 
the cellar of an old stage ranch that had been burned 
long before by Indians. No more cattle were sent out 
just then, but we were sent up to old Fort Chadbourne 
to look after the Indians. Chadbourne had been a large 
frontier post before the war, it was one of the oldest on 
the frontier. Why it had ever been pik where it was I 
do not know. Oak Creek, on which it had been built, 
was dry six months in the year and the water in it dur- 
ing the other six months could not be used until the doc- 
tor had disinfected it with permanganate of potash, at 
least that is what he said it was, but he may have been 
stuffing me. I am no doctor, only a third-class lawyer, 
and I was continually asking que.stions of these collie 
graduates only to sometimes be given a lot of valuable 
information that I would afterward find to be of no 
value at all — it was of no value to me, anyhow. 
There were very good rivers in this country 
not one thousand miles away, on one of which 
the post might have been built; I should 
put it there ; but I was not an engineer. When I had 
a military road to build' — and I have had several of them 
—I built them without the aid of an engineer, only using 
picks, axes, and shovels, plows, ^ carts and army mules. 
The nearest approach to an engineer I had was an en- 
listed man that I found could use a surveyor s transit. 
He tried to teach me the use of it, but only partly suc- 
ceeded. I used him. 
If I ran the road against a swamp I did not know any 
better than to go around it; then keep on. An engineer 
would have gone straight across it if it took him a. year, 
with all the mules and carts in the country to do it. 
This post was in ruins now and we let it stay so, and 
built Fort Concho where this one should have been built 
in the first place. I helped to build it, but was not the 
engineer. Colonel Strang looked after that part of the 
job. I shoved a plane. I saw the site of one post, some 
years after this, on which some engineer had spent sev- 
eral thousand dollars before he found out that the sbring 
on which the post would have to depend for water ;only 
had water in it when it rained hard. This was Buffalo 
Springs, Tex. W^e took post at Fort Chadbourne, then 
were sent out on the North Concho River to camp. 
Here we escorted cattle across the plains. The different 
herds would be driven uo here, then when five or six 
herds that would aggregate about ten thousand head in 
all had been brought here, they would be started across. 
These herds were driven about fifteen miles a day if 
water could be found at the end of that drive. Often it 
could not; then if it were not too far to it they would 
keep on. If it were too far for one day’s march, they 
made a diy camp. 
The only water here would be found m ponds — water 
holes. Some would be dry, but we would know that 
in advance. On the march the herds would be kept close 
up, one behind the other, only the cook wagon of each 
herd being between them ; but they would be spread out 
on each side for a quarter of a mile or more. 
We generally rode on in advance, and I have been sent 
to ride around the herds, going down one side and up 
the other at a walk or trot, when it would take me nearly 
all day to do it, the herd being on the move all the time. 
The object in sending me was to see that everything 
was all right, or to give the alarm if the Indians should 
strike the herd. They might strike it miles in rear of 
the escort. . 
We took the cattle as far as the Horse Head Crossing 
on the Pecos River. Here a troop of the Ninth Cavalry 
(colored) took it farther west, or north, if it were going 
that way. Some of the herds went up to Fort Sumner, 
New Mexico. The Navajo Indians were there then, and 
these cattle were sent to feed them. The rest went to 
California eventually ; it took them two seasons to go there. 
A few miles short of the Florse Head Crossing is 
Canon Pass, and east of this for thirty miles there was 
no water. The cattle would be suffering now for it. The 
cattle could smell the water miles away at the river, and 
if let go would rush to it, plunge over the high banks, 
and nine out of every ten would drown. A great many 
were drowned in spite of what we could do to prevent it. 
The herds would be held at the Pass, then a few hun- 
dred at a time would be let go. They would rush across 
to the river, plunge in over the high banks if they did 
not happen to strike the ford, then fill theniselves with 
water and swim out, the cowboys being stationed above 
and below to direct them to the ford ; they could not get 
out anywhere else. It would take a whole day to get the 
. OREST AND STREAM. 
herd across^ in this way. We had taken one lot of cattle 
across the plains, and while waiting for the next drove 
to come up, I one morning asked permission to go hunt- 
ing on foot. 
' The officer in command, our first lieutenant, a brevet 
major, told me to take my horse and to keep a good 
lookout for Indians while out. I had an opinion of how 
many Indians I would be likely to meet here — we never 
had seen any ; but the major had a select assortment of 
opinions of his own, he would not want any of mine ; I 
did not offer any. 
I had been out an hour or more, had not seen any ante- 
lope, or Indians either. I was not looking for Indians, 
though, but could see them if they were here before I 
fell over them. I was a mile and a half from the river, 
but having gone south all the time, was still about oppo- 
site the ford. 
The prairie here was a succession of low rolls, each 
one a half mile or a mile beyond the last one, and I had 
j ust crossed out of the rolls when I saw a man that I 
did not need a glass to tell me was an Indian, ride over 
the roll in front of me, and halt a moment. He was over 
a quarter of a mile away, and I continued to ride for- 
ward slowly while I studied out my plan of campaign. 
I might ride that Indian down before he got home, he 
had a number of miles to go before he got there, and one 
of him was not at all dangerous. These Indians did not 
have the latest style of breech-loader. I had. This one 
probably had only a bow and arrow ; he might have an 
old muzzle-loading ififle, ,he might as well not have it, 
though, if he kept on running, and he would if I took 
after him. But then I might charge into a hornets’ nest 
behind that roll. The Indian had hardly come all the 
way. from Arizona all by himself; he had come from 
there I knew, and his friends might be behind there now, 
having only sent him out to get me to charge him. I 
would not do it just yet, there would be plenty of time 
later on, let him mozey down behind me until I get him 
nearer the ford and far enough away from the roll to 
overtake him, and far enough on this side of it to have 
time to go home if too many of his friends came. I 
ought to know nearly as much about strategy by this 
time as an Apache does. Without seeming to see my 
Indian at all I turned around and rode slowly toward 
the ford, keeping a good loogout over my shoulder, so as 
not to let him get in close enough to send me any arrows 
before I turned the Colt lose on. him. 
I kept on at a walk, the Indian took up a slow trot. 
“Make that trot a gallop,” I said tO' myself, dragging my 
pistol holster in front of me, “come within good range of 
this pistol. I want to see if I can hit you.” 
At last I thought he must be close enough and was 
about to draw my pistol and meet him, when I saw half 
a dozen or more Indians come riding, all in a bunch, over 
the long roll he had come over. They halted a moment 
as they came in sight of me and sat there still in a bunch. 
Some of our recognized authorities on Indians tell us 
that the Indians always march in single file, one behind 
the other, one ahead of the. other; it don’t make any dif- 
ference which so long as they get in that file and stay 
there. And they will stay there; you could not get them 
to travel any other way if you paid them for it. This is 
according to Fennimore Cooper. He knew Indians from 
away back. His Indians always marched that way to 
avoid knocking down trees, but there were no trees here 
tO' knock down, so^ my Indians had come here in a bunch. 
The Indians only stopped long enough on that hill to 
deploy skirmishers. They were going to run me down. 
They did not send a trumpeter to tell me so, but I felt 
it in my bones that they were, and now I suddenly re- 
membered that the major had told me tO' look for In- 
dians. I had better go in and tell him I had found some 
before I forgot it. 
I never wore spurs for this horse, he did not need 
any. If I wanted him to run I told him about it and he 
would run all day. Leaning forward I let the reins slack, 
then digging my heels into his flanks yelled “Git !” and 
he got. I did not hold a watch on him while he was 
making that mile, I thbugljt, though, that he made it in 
a minute. He must have taken longer than that, but he 
did not take an hour. The river at the ford was about 
thirty feet wide, too wide to jump, but it was only a 
foot deep, and without slacking up we plowed through it, 
and landed thirty seconds later in camp. I told the 
major that I had a few Indians out there, but they were 
too many for one man to bring in. 
He yelled, “Saddle up! Be in a hurry now I” 
They hurried, but it would take them some minutes tO' 
get the saddle on, and give the Indians lots of time to get 
away. I did not expect to find many out there by the 
time we had got out. As soon as they had seen the horse 
and I plow through that river they would go on a scout 
and not stop long enough to draw any rations, either. 
We had about forty men here — enough men to eat up all 
the Indians I had out there if the Indians would only 
wait. That is what these men got their $16 a month, 
board and clothes and do your own washing for, to eat 
up Indians or tell each other how fast they could do it 
if we brought along our Indians. 
We got out at last to where I had left the Indians, but 
the Indians had also left. The major halted here, then 
sent me off on the right and sent a sergeant off on the 
left to see if we could find any signs of a trail. I found 
no trail, but did find five arrows that an Indian had 
spilled while charging on me or when he was sallying 
on the center after I had got clear off. I got the arrows 
and sent them by mail to a museum at home with a de- 
scription of where they had been found, and the name 
of the tribe they belonged to. The points on them told 
me that the arrows belonged to- Apaches. I did not know 
Avhich band of x\paches then, but found out later on that 
they were the Qiiraqua Apaches. This was in 1867, 
Years after, on April 23, 1882, I had the honor to meet 
them again, but I did all the chasing this time, or helped 
to do it. We had six troops after them, Gen. George A. 
Forsythe, our lieutenant-colonel, being in command. 
,We chased them into Horseshoe Canon, on the line 
between New Mexico and Arizona, killed a few of them- 
there, then chased them south across the Sierra Madre 
Mountains into old Mexico-, then on down through 
Sonora, and while busy getting away from us the Indians 
ran on top of a big command of the Mexican cavalry and 
infantry almost before they saw it. They were too busy 
keeping ahead of us — we were only an hour or two be- 
hind them — to see much of anything ahead of them. 
[Aug. s, 1905. 
The Mexicans killed some and captured the rest and 
lining up the men shot them, then took the squaws and 
children home with them. We got there before the shoot- 
ing began and left before it began also, the Mexican 
officer in deference to us postponed it. These Mexicans 
had lost their doctor in the fight; we had two, a regular 
and a contract surgeon, and they fixed up the wmunded 
Mexicans. I went into their camp with the young con- 
tract .surgeon to carry fliis “tool box,” as he called it, and 
help him to hunt for balls and to cut off any legs or arms 
that needed cutting off. We found none that needed it, 
much to the doctor’s disappointment. He was in the 
habit of telling me that he would rather cut a man’s leg 
or arm off than eat. If I had a leg or arm to be taken 
off I would want him to do it; he was a good surgeon, 
but a poor shot on the wing. 
The Mexican major in command was badly wounded 
and we fixed him up. Seeing that there were several 
boys among those prisoners, and knowing that the males 
would be shot, and finding that this major and I be- 
longed to the same society, I put in an appeal to him 
to save the boys. Lie said he would not shoot them, but 
would shoot the men. 
“You have my permission to shoot the men, and begin 
it right now,” I told him. “These men have been trying 
to shoot me for years.” But I . am forgetting all about 
the time that they tried to- shoot me at the Concho. The 
major took a survey of the country and then said to me: 
“Those Indians must have missed you by about an 
inch, did they not?” 
“No, sir ; t’ney missed me by half a mile. I ride a horse 
that is not run dowm by an Indian pony every day.” 
“It’s lucky you rode him to-day.” Then to the men : 
“Here after this you men do all your hunting in large 
parties. I didn’t want these Indians chasing you all over 
the country. Some of you are not riding race horses.” 
I was not riding one, either, but he was several re- 
moves from being a cart horse. I rode him a few weeks 
afterward across this same country 140 miles in twenty 
hours when I was going for a doctor to- cut a cowboy’s 
arm off. He had sent a charge of buckshot into it when 
climbing up on top of a wagon, and drawing his shotgun 
after him. It is the approved way to- carry a shotgun, 
but I have always found it a safer plan to carry it by the 
stock ; then if it does go off the other fellow gets the 
buckshot and the coroner can tell me that it was an acci- 
dent. Cabia Blanco. 
The Lost Girl. 
I AM a rough old miner, and in the fall of 1893, rvhen 
owing to the hard times, all the mines in Peon county, 
Mich., had shut down, right after the terrible accident 
at the Mansfield, where the Michigamie River had come 
tumbling down into the mines, drowning twenty-eight 
of my mates like rats in their holes, and from which 
fate I narrowly escaped, I was feeling blue and sad 
and wondering what I should do to keep the wolf from 
the door. I ran across my friend, Miles Graham, son 
of a Hudson Bay trapper. Miles had followed hunting 
and trapping all his life. He invited me to join him. 
“Come with me this winter,” he said, “I can make good 
use of you, and by spring you will be a trapper. I have 
traps and enough money to fit us out, and have located 
a fine trapping ground; and when the season is over, 
we will each have a pot of money.” The next day 
we bought our outfit and started. We had a fine 
winter’s work, and lots of sport, besides a fair roll of 
money to divide when we took up the traps in April. 
To amuse ourselves we told each other tales, incidents 
and adventures in the evenings over our camp-fire. 
One of these was a story of a lost girl. It is strictly 
true, the names and locality only being changed, and 
I tell it as nearly as I can in Graham’s own words. 
“Some years ago,” he said, “the wolves were pretty 
thick on Blank River, Mich. I thought I would put 
in the winter poisoning and trapping them for the 
bounty and their pelts. Early in the fall, I bought from 
an Indian a birch canoe, loaded it down with traps 
and supplies for the winter, worked myself up stream 
three or four days, and came on fine ground with 
plenty of wolf sign. I built a snug, warm shanty and 
got down to business. One day I was out setting bait 
and traps, when I saw a young woman standing on a 
log. You may guess my surprise when I had thought 
that no human being except an Indian was nearer than 
forty miles. I knew at once by her clothes — almost 
all torn from her body — that she was lost. I stalked 
her as carefully as I would a deer, and when I was 
about a rod from her, I said as gently as I could, 
‘Madam, do not be frightened, I am a friend.’ She 
jerked her arms above her head, screamed and ran. 
Jack, would you believe it, she ran faster than I could. 
I saw that she was getting away from me, so I set 
the dog on her, not to bite, but to get in front and 
bother her, so I could catch her. Then she fainted. 
I raised hervtenderly in my arm,s — poor girl, she was 
no burden, only skin and bones — and carried her to 
-camp, and forced a few drops of whiskey and water 
-down her throat. When she revived, I saw that she had 
lost her reason. I tied her to my bed, so she couRl not 
run away, while I shot some patridges to make soup. 
I gave the soup to ffer, feeding her as you would a 
baby. I gave her only a little at a time for two days 
before I would let her eat her fill. In the meantime I 
made her some clothes out of my blankets, and tried 
all I could to give her strength to bear the trip down 
river. After a day or two she seemed to have the same 
affection for me that a dog has for his master, and 
would follow me like a dog. In about a week I 
judged her strong enough to stand the journey, but her 
mind was entirely gone. I started with her in the 
canoe, and in the afternoon of the second day hailed 
the first settler, asking him if any girl had been lost 
during the past month. ‘Yes. Cy Johns.on lost his 
Lilia about three weeks ago, and the wolves ate her.’ 
“ ‘No, this is she here in the canoe, and I wish you 
would go to the settlement and tell her folks to come 
to the point above where I will camp, as she is out of 
her mind.’ 
“I had hard work to keep Lilia in the canoe, as she 
was afraid of the settler and his voice. In the even- 
ing her father and friends came, but Lilia did not 
know them, but crouched and cowered at my feet for 
protection. Finally her father said they had sent for 
