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Show REMINISCENCE OF A FREIGHTER. 47 iously of this nonsensical habit in a fight we had with the Indians at Big Springs, down on the Platte. I was known to my associates as 'Yank Smith,' and if I had fallen there my people would never have known what became of me. During the fight I vowed to myself that if I came out of that alive I would reveal my real name. When it was over I forgot all about it, and to this day those old associates remember me as 'Yank Smith.' " We were camped at Big Springs, resting our stock after an all night's drive to get out of the reach of the military post, having slipped by in the night. The order of General Pope, then in command of the department, required all trains to be composed of not less than forty men, well armed, and to avoid being held to await others to make our crowd answer the 'regulation' size, we made it a practice to steal by in the night when the guard was having his dream of home, or his game of poker with the landlord at the ranch hard by. The party was composed of old White, his three sons, Dick Robinson and myself; Sim White was down at the river watering a mule, his father, the two other sons and Dick Robinson were playing poker under the wagon. I was looking on. Sim halloed to us that Indians were coming. " Looking away to the bluffs, a mile to the south, we saw them coming, and from the dust they made there seemed to be at the very least a million of them, and every Indian ten feet high. Old White looked out from under the wagon and satisfied himself they were sure enough after us. "He turned his cards carefully face downwards, and said to the boys, 'don't disturb that hand; we will have it out after we get through with the redskins.' |
