CHAPTER XIII

KILLED BY THE INDIANS

For the next few days we were all very busy. Tom was putting the finishing touches on our quarters, while Jack and I were doing the trapping, baiting, and skinning. I assisted Jack in trapping beaver and he helped me in killing buffalo and taking care of the wolfskins.

While working at these tasks we were riding the surrounding country, east and west, up and down the creek, and north and south in open prairie. At a distance of about three miles down the creek, on the north side, we found a series of connected sloughs leading off from the creek out into the prairie bottom, through which a string of little ponds ran for about a mile and then united with the main stream again.

These sloughs, bordered by a rank growth of rushes, made excellent feeding-grounds for water-fowl. It was easy here to procure all the ducks, geese, brant, and sand-hill cranes that we wished. On the prairie were plenty of antelope, with now and then a few deer and elk in the timber along the creek. Everywhere were seen bleached and bleaching buffalo bones--too common a feature of the landscape to attract more than a passing glance.

One day Jack and I had been killing some buffalo for wolf baits on the high prairie south of our camp. We had become separated by a couple of miles; each had killed his buffalo, and I had poisoned mine and started to Jack, who was waiting for me to prepare his buffalo for the wolves also. As I rode through a scattered lot of bones, where several animals seemed to have been killed together, I noticed among the lot a human skull. Looking more closely, I saw other human bones of the same skeleton and those of a horse, the hoofs of which, with the shoes still on, showed that it had not been an Indian's horse. Bones of wolves lay among the others.

Here, then, seemed the evidences of a past tragedy, and, wishing to have Jack come and help to read the signs, I rode out clear of this bone-yard, fired a shot from my rifle to attract his attention, and then began riding around in a circle--the usual signal in such cases--to call him to me.

He understood and galloped toward me. While he was coming I walked about among the relics, trying to solve the mystery of which these bones were the record. They had been somewhat scattered, by the wolves that had picked them, but their general lay indicated pretty clearly the relative situation of the man and animals at the time of their death. The bones had probably not been there more than about a year.

Although somewhat mixed and scattered, the general lay of the bones seemed to show the buffalo on one side, the horse on the other, and the man between them. The man's skull had a small bullet hole through it at the temples, which sufficiently indicated the immediate cause of his death; but whether this shot had come from an enemy or had been self-inflicted could not be determined by the signs.

While thus trying to interpret the indications, Jack reached me.

"Here, Jack, has been a man, horse, and buffalo killed," I said as he halted, "and from the looks of things, I think it happened about a year ago. Help me to read the signs. The horse was a white man's horse, for the hoofs, you see, have shoes on."

"That ain't sure proof," replied he, "for the horse might have been lately captured or stolen from the whites. But, hold on!" he exclaimed after a moment's survey of the bone-yard, as, stooping, he picked up what proved to be the lower jaw-bone of the human skull. "This settles it. This says he was a white man, for here's a gold plug in one tooth."

"Well, that settles one important point," I replied. "But how did the buffalo, man, and horse happen to die so close together?"

"Seems to me," said Jack, still walking about scrutinizing the relics, "it could have happened in only one or two ways. Either the man and his horse have been killed by a wounded bull, an' the bull then fell an' died with 'em, or--which is more likely--the man killed the buffalo an', while busy cutting some of the meat out, was corralled by Injuns. How do you read it?"

"The signs disprove your first proposition, Jack," I answered, "but confirm the second. If it had been an accident from a wounded bull there would be some such remains as the metallic parts of his gun or pistol, or buttons, spurs, buckles, and so forth; but you see there's not a thing of that kind to be seen. If he was killed by Indians they would have carried off all his and his horse's equipments; and I think that is what happened."

"I guess you're right," admitted Jack. "It must have been the work of Injuns."

Just then he stopped and picked up an old bleached buffalo shoulder-blade that seemed to have been carefully placed, flat side down, on top of the weather-whitened skull of the older set of bones. "Halloo! what's this?" he exclaimed excitedly as he began scanning the bone. "Here it is, Peck. This'll tell us something about it if we can only make out the writing. See if you can make it out."

On the flat side of the shoulder-blade was dimly pencilled a partially obliterated and nervously written inscription. It was without date, and yet enough of the wording was legible to enable us to make out the following message from the dead man:

The name seemed to be something like Kelton, Kelsey, or Kelley, and several of the other words were so imperfectly written that I had to guess them out. We guessed the name of the town to be Granby, Missouri.

As I finished rendering my interpretation of the inscription Jack said, as he devoutly crossed himself:

"'God help me!' the poor fellow said, an' no doubt the Good Man took pity on him an' let him in at the gate, for the good Book do tell us that he never was known to go back on such a prayer as that. Well, he must have hurted some of them Injuns in the row. It would be a satisfaction to find some sign that he got away with some of 'em; so let's mount an' take a circuit 'round over the prairie for two or three hundred yards out an' see if we can find anything."

We did so and were rewarded by finding the bones of two small horses, probably Indian ponies that the man had shot in defending his position.

"That's some satisfaction," said Jack as we returned, "for it's more'n likely that he killed some of the Injuns, too. Well, what'll we do with these things?" pointing to the skull, jaw-bone, and buffalo shoulder-blade.

"I was thinking of taking them back to camp with us," I replied, "to see what Tom will say."

"Just what I was thinkin'," said Jack, dismounting and preparing to tie the skull and jawbone to his saddle. "I'll carry these an' you can carry the shoulder-blade. You'd better carry it in your hand, an' be careful of it so's not to rub out the writin' any more, for it's hard enough to make out as it is."

Of course Tom was interested in the memorials we brought and asked us many questions about the signs we had found.

After giving him time to study the problem out, I asked:

"Well, Tom, what do you make of it?"

"It's my guess," he replied deliberately, holding the skull up before him as though reading its history, "that this man was a wolf hunter, like ourselves, an' if so there'll be more of this affair to be discovered hereabouts. He had killed that buffalo for wolf bait, 'cause if he'd been after meat he'd 'a' killed a younger one, or a cow, for you say the bones showed it was a big bull. A man wouldn't be so far away from the Santa Fé road huntin' buffalo without he had a camp in this neighborhood. If he had a camp he's had a pardner or two, an' what must have become of them? Their camp must have been somewheres along the creek, not far from here. Have either of you seen any signs of such a layout in your rambles up or down the creek?"

"No," I answered, "but, then, neither of us has been more than about three miles up or down."

"Well, after this, when you go up or down the creek make your trips extend a little farther each time till you've covered at least ten or twelve miles each way; an' by keeping your eyes peeled you may be able to find some remains of a hunter's camp or some sign that'll give us something more about this. This man came to his death about as you an' Jack guessed it; that is, while getting ready to poison his buffalo for wolf bait the Injuns came onto him an' surrounded him."

"I think," I interrupted him to say, "that he had probably already poisoned the buffalo, for I noticed the bones of several wolves there, which would go to show that the wolves had died from eating the poisoned meat of the buffalo."

"Well, yes--likely," returned Tom. "He put up a good fight, though, from what you say, an' seems to have been a man that's had some previous experience in that line. Did you notice any bullet hole in his horse's skull?"

"No. I looked for that, but there was no sign that the horse had been shot in the head; but he might have been shot elsewhere."

"'Tain't likely," replied the old man thoughtfully, "for you say the horse's bones show that he died close to the buffalo, an' the man in between 'em, as his bones show an' the writing on the shoulder-blade says. He must have cut its throat. How far off from the man's bones was the bones of the Injun ponies that you found?"

"About three hundred yards," I replied.

"Well, he must have had a Sharp's rifle,[D] for a muzzle-loader wouldn't kill that far. But he's had a navy pistol, too, for this shot he give himself was a navy ball."

And taking a navy bullet out of his pocket, Tom showed us that it would just fit the hole in the skull.

"He's been right-handed, too," continued the old man, "for the ball went in on the right side an' come out on the left. You see, the little hole is clean-cut on the right side but bigger an' ragged on the left where it come out. That tells where it went in an' where it come out. When he wrote that note on the old shoulder-blade he's been getting nervous, or maybe weak from loss of blood. It's a pity, though, that he didn't set down his name an' the town where he come from a little plainer so's we could write to his folks an' let 'em know what become of him. But, like many another poor devil that's been wiped out by Injuns, his people'll never know where, when, or how he died.

"Well," continued the old man after a pause, "I b'lieve I'll ride over to the fort to-morrow; an' get our mail an' come back next day, an' I guess I'll just take them things along," pointing to the bones, "an' maybe some o' the folks over there can tell me somethin' more about this affair. If anybody knows anything about it French Dave'll know, for he's been among the Injuns a good deal an' would be likely to have heard something about it."