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We all of us had mighty good ponies, but Thorp had a team and wagon, which he was driving for Colonel Boone. "We had went into camp on Pawnee Bottom airly in the afternoon, and I told the boys to look out for Ingins for I knowed ef we was to have any trouble with them it would be somewhere in that vicinity. But we didn't see a darned redskin that night, nor the sign of one.
The trade in them furs was a paying business, for the little army of us fellows called trappers. They ain't any of 'em left now, no mor'n the animals we used to hunt. We had to move about from place to place, just as if we was so many Ingins.
"Thorpe, who was hit in the arm with an arrow, couldn't do much but nuss his wound; so him and the Mexicans stood guard, a looking out for Ingins, as we didn't know but what the cusses might come back and make another raid on us, though we really didn't expect they would have the gall to bother us any more least not the same outfit what had fought us the day before.
Sometimes we'd construct little cabins in the timber, or a dugout where the game was plenty, where we'd stay maybe for a month or two, and once in a while though not often a whole year. "The Ingins was our mortal enemies; they'd get a scalp from our fellows occasionally, but for every one they had of ours we had a dozen of theirs.
Before I could finish saying to Thorpe, 'Them mules smells Ingins, half a dozen or more of the darned cusses dashed out of the timber, yelling and shaking their robes, which, of course, waked up the whole camp. Me and Thorpe sent a couple of shots after them, that scattered the devils for a minute; but we hadn't hit nary one, because it was too dark yet to draw a bead on them.
"It was on the night of the fourth day after they had left Saw Log, and had rid a long distance was more than a hundred miles on their journey when she determined to try and light out. The whole camp was fast asleep, for the Ingins was monstrous tired.
'Wishing'll do no good; there's only one chance I see, and that ain't no chance at all. All, including the boy, eagerly looked up to hear the explanation. 'Some distance from hyar is some timbers, and in thar the reds have left their animals. Ef we start on a run for the timbers, git thar ahead of the Ingins, mount thar hosses and put, thar'll be some chance.
We had no trouble with the Ingins going back across the plains; we seen lots, to be sure, hanging on our trail, but they never attacked us; we was too strong for them. "'Bout the last of September we reached Bent's Old Fort, on the Arkansas, where the Santa Fe Trail crosses the river into New Mexico, and we camped there the night we got to it.
The few Ingins what wasn't killed fought like devils, but as we was getting the best of 'em every second they turned tail and ran.
"While Al was performing his two-Ingin act, a great light burst into the cabin, and by the time he had choked his enemies to death, he saw, while the Ingins outside gave a terrible yell of exultation, that they had fired the place. "'Damn 'em, shouted Bill, as he pitched the corpse of the chief from the gap where Rube had set him.
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