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He could outswim any horse I ever saw, but I drowned him in the Washita two weeks later. Yes, tangled his feet in some vines in a sunken treetop, and the poor fellow's light went out. My own candle came near being snuffed. I never felt so bad over a little thing since I burned my new red topboots when I was a kid, as in drownding that horse.
"And the guide?" "He gave out on the Cimarron and I came on alone." "And Custer? Did he strike Black Kettle?" "We found his camp the evening of the 26th, and attacked at daybreak the next morning. There were more Indians with him than we expected to find between two and three thousand, warriors from all the southern tribes. Their tepees were set up for ten miles along the Washita.
On his cross examination Commodore Truxton added "that he was very intimate with Colonel Burr; that in their conversations there appeared to be no reserve; that he never heard Colonel Burr speak of a division of the Union; that Burr said his Mexican expedition would be beneficial to the United States; that, so far from doubting Burr's intention to settle the Washita lands, he was astonished at hearing he had different views, which accounts were contained in newspapers received from the western country."
Preserving a southerly course, along the eastern foot of the hills, the Washita enters the State nearly a hundred miles west of the Mississippi, but the westerly trend of the great river reduces this distance until the waters meet.
In a few moments the camp was as quiet as a country village on Sunday, excepting the occasional howling of a hungry wolf down in the timbered recesses of the Washita, or the crackling and sputtering of the signal fires on the hilltops. In a few days afterward, we were camping on Hackberry Creek, in the Indian Territory.
In bringing the prisoners back, Elliott was in turn attacked on the open prairie by a large number of savages from farther down the Washita, who by this time were swarming to the aid of Black Kettle's village.
Custer was ready to start by the 23d, and he was then instructed to march north to where the trail had been seen near Beaver Creek and follow it on the back track, for, being convinced that the war party had come from the Washita, I felt certain that this plan would lead directly to the villages.
They were finally rescued from the savages by General Custer, under the following circumstances: Custer, who was advancing with his column of invincible cavalrymen the famous Seventh United States in search of the two unfortunate women, had arrived near the head waters of one of the tributaries of the Washita, and, with only his guide and interpreter, was far in advance of the column, when, on reaching the summit of an isolated bluff, they suddenly saw a village of the Kiowas, which turned out to be that of Kicking Bird, whose handsome lodge was easily distinguishable from the rest.
I received the first news of Custer's fight on the Washita on the morning of November 29. It was brought to me by one of his white scouts, "California Joe," a noted character, who had been experiencing the ups and downs of pioneer life ever since crossing the Plains in 1849.
We were talking briskly together as we drew near the Washita River, and imagined ourselves the only travelers in that vicinity. In a lull in the conversation we were somewhat startled by the sound of music, evidently not far away. We checked our horses and listened, while the music continued. "What can all that mean?" asked I. "Blast my old shoes if I know," said one of the party.
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