Part 44 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Ma.s.sACRE OF THE DAVIS FAMILY.--A HARD RIDE AND SWIFT RETRIBUTION.

--A PITIFUL STORY.--BURIAL OF THE DEAD.--I AM SICK OF THE BUSINESS.

We remained here for some weeks yet, piloting and escorting emigrants through the mountains, but having very few sc.r.a.ps with the Indians. When the emigrants quit coming and our provisions had run very low, we made preparations to return to Fort Yuma. But to make sure that no more of the crawling trains would be winding along that way this season, myself and another scout, with two days' rations, started on a little scurry eastward. But a tour of four days developed no further sign of emigrants or Indians, so the scout and I returned to find the command all ready to start.

We were just about taking up the line of march for Yuma when a teamster on his way to Phoenix with a load of freight, drifted into camp and informed us to our horror, that the Indians had attacked the Davis ranch, killed the old man and his two sons, treated the old mother and the two daughters shamefully, and then pillaged the place and drove off all the stock.

I had no sooner ridden into camp that night than an orderly came and took my horse and said: ”Lieut. Jackson wishes to see you at his tent immediately.” I knew that there was something very unusual the matter or he would not have called me to his quarters until I had had my supper. On approaching his tent I saw that he was much excited. He told me what was up, and said it was strange the Indians would come down there that season of the year and commit such depredations as that. After he had laid the whole matter before me just as he had it from the teamster, he said: ”Send the very best men you have on their trail.” I told him I would go myself and take George and two other men with me.

I was convinced before finis.h.i.+ng my talk with him that it was not the Indians that had committed the depredation, but that I kept to myself.

Just as I walked out of the Lieutenant's tent I met George and told him that we had a long night's ride before us, to pick out two of the best men we had, also to take the best horses--we had, and to change my saddle to Black Bess from the horse that I had been riding that day. I also gave orders to have everything in readiness by the time I was through supper, which did not take long, although I was very hungry. The boys were all on hand by the time I was through eating, and we mounted and rode away for the Davis ranch. The way we had to go to reach the ranch was about twenty miles down grade and inclined to be sandy all the way. We were all well mounted and we scarcely broke a gallop until we reached the Davis place.

A pitiful sight was there. The old lady and her three daughters had carried the old gentleman and two boys into the house and laid them out on benches in the best manner possible, and to say that it was a heart-rending scene does not begin to express it.

When I stepped into the house Mrs. Davis pointed to the dead bodies and said: ”Captain, if you will avenge their death I will be a friend to you as long as I live.” I told her that I would do all I could, that I was in a great hurry to get on the trail of the perpetrators, and I would like her to give me all the information she could relative to the matter.

She then led the way into a private room and related the whole circ.u.mstance, telling me how the Indians had come there, decoyed her husband and two sons to the barn and there shot them down, then rushed to the house, and before the inmate had time to shut and bar the door, came into the house, caught and tied her to the bed post, and then disgraced her three daughters in her presence.

Then they gathered up all the horses and cattle about the ranch and drove them across the desert.

In the direction she said they had started it was eighty-four miles to water, but I did not believe for a moment that they would attempt to cross the desert in that direction.

After I had gained all the information I could, I said: ”Mrs.

Davis, those were not Indians, but Greasers or Mexicans, and I will capture them before twenty-four hours if I live.”

I started one man back to camp to tell Lieut. Jackson to take the trail direct for Aw-wa-col-i-enthy, which in English means hot water, (Agua Caliente).

Lieut. Jackson had become over anxious as soon as we left and had started after us with one company of cavalry. My messenger met him five miles from the Davis ranch, and there he turned in the direction of Agua Caliente.

In starting out from the ranch I took the trail of the stock, and after we had gone quite a distance I called George to my side and told him it was not Indians we were following, but a crowd of cut- throat Greasers, and we didn't want to have a fight with them until the soldiers arrived if we could help it, but that we would fight them before we would allow them to escape.

I had never told George until now what all they had done, and when I related to him the whole affair he said: ”We will not allow one of them to escape.” We could see that they were turning in the direction of Agua Caliente and had made this circuit merely to throw any one off that might attempt to follow.

This was what I thought when I dispatched the Lieutenant to come to Hot Springs.

It was twenty-seven miles straight through on the road from the Davis ranch to Agua Caliente, but the way we went that night we supposed it was about forty miles, making sixty miles that we had to ride that night, while the soldiers if they started direct from camp would only have to travel thirty-five miles.

Finally the trail made a direct turn for Agua Caliente and I again ”telegraphed” the Lieutenant to hurry up with all possible speed and try to reach the place before daylight, my object being to catch them in camp, as our horses would be too tired to run them down after they were mounted on fresh horses.

My second messenger did not see the Lieutenant at all on the road, for unbeknown to me he had started from headquarters soon after we did, and after having met my first courier, had pushed on with all possible haste.

When George and I were within a mile and a half of Agua Caliente we met some of the stock feeding leisurely along the direction of their old range. We examined them closely and found that they were the Davis stock.

We had not gone much farther until Black Bess raised her head, stuck her ears forward and commenced sniffing the air. I told George to watch her, and he said: ”We must be near them.” So we dismounted, took off our spurs, picketed our horses, and started cautiously towards their camp.

When we were within three hundred yards we could see the glimmer of their fires that had not entirely gone out, evidence that they had not gone to bed till late. We crawled so near that we could see the outlines of the fiends lying around the few coals that were yet smoldering. Now and then a chunk would blaze up as if to show the exact positions of the murderers.