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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Little Mustache (D1ghaa’ Y1zh7), answered “As long as one is killed, it is better to kill the other one too, for if they are murdered, no one will ever know anything about it.” The Navajos withdrew a short distance from the camp, but as McNally approached, Hashkéneinii Biye’ began shooting at him with the newly acquired Winchester rifle. The prospector immediately tied all three horses he had together to form a standing breastwork, until all of the animals fell, mortally wounded. McNally lay behind his dead mounts and returned fire. Hashkéneinii Biye’ quickly used all eight cartridges in the rifle and decided that he and his companions needed to crawl as close as they could toward their victim then engage him with their pistols. Little Mustache came the closest, twenty-five feet from the barricade, before all the Indians began firing. When Little Mustache raised himself above a tuft of grass to see, the miner spotted him and shot him in the head; McNally’s bullet entered near his right eye and exited behind his ear. The wounded Indian jumped up and stumbled away. The others broke off the fight, secured their wounded friend, and brought him to a nearby hogan, where he could be warmed and cared for. They also sent word to Hashkéneinii’s camp to make the headman aware of the incident. Shortly after dark, Hashkéneinii arrived with a group of followers. He sent an observer to see if McNally had moved and if so, where. The scout eventually returned saying that the white man had left; he did not know when or in which direction, but McNally had definitely left. Father and son, along with a number of others in this group, took up the trail, lighting matches to follow the miner’s tracks. The next day it was over; they killed McNally. Pete reported that Slim Man buried Walcott; collected and burned the men’s blankets, saddles, and equipment (all covered with blood); and captured their two remaining horses, as well as two horses from the recent fracas at Mitchell’s ranch on the San Juan River. He accompanied the scout as far as Pete’s home in the Chinle Valley and planned to come to the agency with animals and equipment once the horses could travel again. Slim Man also made a statement of the events he witnessed. Riordan appreciated this testimony, which corroborated his judgment that these murders added to “scores of white men during the past ten years [who] have paid the penalty of daring to examine the country outside of this reservation with their lives.”14 Additional information trickled in. According to another Navajo scout with a less convincing report, Walcott was much more the aggressor: he spoke sharply to the Navajos, drew his gun first, and shot one of the Navajos who sat peacefully at the campfire. The scout also asserted that McNally was badly wounded before leaving his horse barricade and that other uninvolved Navajos found him dead. Despite his significant injury, Little Mustache remained alive.15 14 15 256 Riordan to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, April 22, 1884, Letters Received—Navajo Agency. “Report of Sam-Boo-ko-di,” April 19, 1884, Letters Received—Navajo Agency.