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Show c q • p % I THE mmm Kims She Story of an Old Winchester that Won Second Prise in the Contest by Jordan Bean Bridger, Carbon County, Montana Prom " The Winchester Herald" Published by the Winchester Arms Repeating Co. New Have&, Conn, The Winchester of which I am writing is a 44- 40 Model 73 with a set hair trigger-( the only one I ever saw)* King's improvement Pat. Men. 29, 1866, Oct. 16th, 1860. Gun No. 1897, octagon barrel. My father bought this rifle at the Sutler1 s store at Fort Reynolds on the Korth Canadian River, Indian Territory, in February, 1874. He paid $ 65. for i t. We defended ourselves against the Indians and killed buffalo along the trail from the Indian Territory to the Dolores River, Colorado, in 1875. In 1881 the Ute Indians gave the settlers of Colorado so much trouble that the cowboys organised a band with Bill Dawson as leader. We followed the Indians fifteen days and the morning of the 15th of June we overtook them on the west side of La salle fountain, Utah. Y/ e fought two days, ten of the boys being killed, Dan Willis, Jimmie Heaton, Jack Galloway, Tom Click, Hiram Melville, the two V/ ilson boys and two Tartar boys. Three were wounded,, Harg Eskridge was shot in the foot, Jimmie Hall was shot in the leg and I was shot in the head and left for dead. But about four o* clock in the afternoon I came to and crawled into some brush and as soon as i t got dark I crawled to water, about three miles up the side of the Mountain, but I never let go of my r i f l e . At daybreak the boys found me, and Ed Summers put me on his horse. Bd walked and carried my gun. His gun was in the scabbard on the saddle* Most of the boys had V/ inchesters. The name of the leader of the Ute Indians was Tosh- a- wa and we never knew how many we killed of the Indians, as they took their dead and woun ded on their travels. V/ Q o n l y f o u n d ^ Q B u c k s Q ^ o n Q squaw dead." Some of the boys followed them for about ten miles and they said there were lots of bloody rags along the trail and where they would stop to let the wounded rest there were great puddles of blood. In 1884 I left Colorado and came to the Rosebud River, Llontana, with a pack outfit, but I had my Winchester with me and I s t i l l have i t , and |