OCR Text |
Show 70 INDIAN DEPREDATIONS ting posture. He made no sound, but reached out his arms in an appealing manner towards his as-sailants. Gunnison, in his several years of exploring in the west, had endeavored to impress upon the red men that he was their friend. In his conduct to-wards them he was uniformly kind and upright, and it was this fact that probably prompted the captain to extend his arms, possibly, with the hope of mercy. Mareer said he did not know, until he saw the captain partly rise from the ground, that he was with the party. Moshoquop was not present or he might, possibly, have given Gunnison a chance to recover from his wounds. As it was, the Indians hesitated, the captain's mute appeal seemed to stir some latent feeling, or strike a stranger cord in their savage natures. But while standing there undecided " Jirri- my Knights, " the renegade Indian, came up, discharged his gun into Captain Gunnison ' s body which settled slowly back upon the sward, and one of the bravest and best spirits joined his comrades in the mysterious beyond. During the afternoon of the day of the tragedy, one of the fugitives staggered into the camp of Cap-tain Morris and told the story of the attack, and stated that all but himself were slain. In a few min-utes the two who had escaped on horses arrived and corroborated the story of the massacre. Hurriedly mounting, the Morris party rode down the river. Darkness coming on, they dismount-ed in the vicinty of their lifeless comrades, and hold-ing their horses by the bridles, kept vigil throughout the long night which was rendered more dismal by the howling of the wolves which had begun the work |