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Show FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. 153 suade our companions to stop, tie up and go back with us and creep on to the robbers, believing- we could sur-prise and whip them. This we could not prevail on them to do. We continued on some few miles, coming to the creek bank where it was so steep that we could not cross. This forced us to go down toward the road, which we finally struck. I now became for the first time thoroughly fright-ened. During the whole scene that I have been describ-ing, I had never felt much fear. While I was untying the rope the balls came so thick that the flesh on my ribs twitched a little. Moore says he could not help dodging when the bullets flew so thick and close. Dafney laughed and asked if he thought he could dodge them. It would have been an easy matter for the robbers to have come on and got to the crossing ahead of us, and ambushed us, as the brush was thick on each side of the road. This I fully realized and insisted that we should not take the road, but to no purpose. The others felt that we had got clear and that it would be best to keep on to the next ranch, some forty miles distant. This we reached about sunrise. Moore and I rode all night bareback, most of the time on a hard trot. We arrived at Zan Hicklin's on the Green Horn river early in the morning. Hicklin was an old acquaint-ance and treated us kindly, furnishing us with saddles and blankets, and such provisions as we could take. We stayed with him three days before we were able to travel on, being so sore from our bareback feat. The night after our arrival Hicklin sent back a man to where we were robbed. The man reported finding the wagon all right, with a sack of bacon and some horse feed ; also the dead mules and some parts of the |
