|
|
Libraries Home | Mobile | My Account | Renew Items | Sitemap | Help |
|
Select a method to view the page:
|
460
cluster of white brush. The Indians passed uncomfortably close to us on their way to some other place, as the settlement was not molested that night. They confined their raids mostly to stealing of stock, such as horses and mules. However, they did not hesitate in "lifting a scalp" if chance offered. Some time later Indians appeared at night and made a raid on our settlement, taking with them a number of horses, and happened to lose one of their own —a little dun pony. We took up this pony and fed him so that he was soon nice and fat. One evening we took him out to graze near the house, and had gone back some 300 yards when we saw a bunch of redskins leading away our fat little pony, and we lost no time in hiding. We found the cut hobble next morning about ten feet from where we had left the horse, and I guess the Indians had watched us and waited long enough for us to leave and then took the animal. That very night the Indians stole horses all over the settlement. They also visited a place belonging to Nic Haby. He had his horses and mules in a pen and was guarding them, hiding behind a large live oak tree. Early in the night he noticed his horses becoming restless, and directly an Indian appeared above the fence and jumped into the corral among the horses. Nic Haby was a good shot and the Indian found it out. The following morning a neighbor of Haby's came over to tell Haby his trouble with Indians and the loss of horses he had sustained, when he espied the dead Indian. He drew his dirk and plunged it into the redskin's body, exclaiming : "That is the son-of-a-gun; he stole my horses." They put a rope around the Indian's head and dragged him up on the mountain, turning him over to the mercies of the buzzards and hogs. They accorded him the same burial that the redskins gave their white victims. For a long time thereafter nobody would eat pork.
After I was large, or old enough to work out, I started freighting, my first trip being with a two-horse wagon