AN ADVENTURE WITH INDIANS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 62, 17 April 1869, Page 6

AN ADVENTURE WITH INDIANS.

(From " Cassel's Magazine," for January.) "You remember the paragraph, then," he said. "Distinctly," I replied. "I had every reason to do so. You wrote me on the first of July saying you were going to cross the continent from California to the States in the course often or twelve days, arid from that time I heard nothing ■ of you till three v oaths ago, when I got your second letter, announcing your intended return home. The dates tallied ; you were silent — an unusual thing for you — and 1 feared the worst, though I tried to hope otherwise. I was afraid that my old friend was to be numbered among the four persons who were killed by the Indians, and whose names, as far as I, could discover, were never published. Tor I felt sure that if you had only been wounded you would have taken means to let me know what had happened." " Ah ! " he answered, as if thinking aloud ; " Yea, it was on the thirteenth — the thirteenth of July. But there (rousing himself), you've read all about it — never mind repeating the story." But I did mind, and I told him so. And after a great deal of trouble, I succeeded in extracting from him the following narrative of the Indian attack which was made on the United States overland mail coach, while passing through the territory of Colorado, in July, 1867.. It was a glorious day, he said, and we were spanking along at the rate of fourteen miles an hour upon the hard road that winds among the lowermost slopes of the Eocky Mountains on the Kansas side. We had a team of six horses, splendid fellows to go, the beat, perhaps, that we had picked up anywhere on the journey from.- California. Thei;e were seventeen passengers, most of us inside: and, as the Indians were known to be hostile, there was a guard of eight United States soldiers armed with muskets on the roof of the coach. So that, with the driver and conductor, we made up a party of twenty-seven. We had no lady among us, and it was well we had not. Wo were mostly | men in the prime of life, returning after a fruitless attempt to make our fortune in the gold territory. Besides the arms borne by the soldiers, we each of us carried a revolver, some of us two or three. lam afraid we were a rather noisy party. The air was bracing, and invigorating, and we were, in the best of spirits — singing snatches of old songs, roaring out the choruses to the first tune that came to hand, and greeting every ' good thing ' that was said with shouts of laughter that made us hoarse. A running fire of chaff was kept up between the p'Bsengers inside and the soldiers on the roof, and the driver and conductor joined con amore in the fray. The only silent man of the party was the sergeant in charge of the guard, who sat upon the box-seat, looking grim and immovable as a mummy. Suddenly, his voice rang out clearly above the din — " Look to your arms, men ! Out with your Rhooters, gents ! " " What for, captain ? " asked one of the insides — a New Yorker — poking his head out of the window, and screwing his body round to get a sight of the person he was addressing. " Only because the Injins are out," replied the old man imperturbably, looking to the lock of his musket the while. "Whar?" " Everywhar I " " Snakes ! " And the head was withdrawn.

It was perfectly true. The "Injins" were out, and they were " everywhere." We were careering alone a part of the Toad which runs between two long low mounts,"" over the crowns of which, about a mile off, mounted Indians were pouring down upon us in every direction.

There was little time, for deliberation ; but a hasty council of war was held nevertheless. The main question to be decided was whether we should stop the coach, and, turning it into a kind of fortification, defy the attack ; or whether, looking upon discretion as the better part of valour, we- should lash the Horses into their highest speed, and fight flying. In the latter case, whoever fell wounded from the coach, must be left to his fate ; in the former we might be overwhelmed by numbers, and not a man.be left to tell the tale. The Indians themselves solved our difficulty. They poured down upon I us on horseback and on foot in swarms : to make a stand-would haye been madness. So, " Yap, hallo ! " And away we went at racehorse speed, followed by the dusky hordes that were gradually closing in upon us on every hand, except on the road that lay straight before us. Their yells were appalling, the glare of their eyes terrible, and the merciless expression of their countenances diabolical. They were gaining on us, too. Truly, we were out-dis-tancing the swarms of them that were on foot, But their horsemen were some hundreds strong, and were receiving constant reinforcements. Their horses, moreover, if not adhlally fleeter than ours, had fewer incumbrances, and, as we felt assured, could maintain the race for a longer period. Still we plunged on, the old coach rocking from side to side, and the horses foaming with sweat. " ', " "'

At last we were so far overtaken that the foremost Indians came within range of our fire-arms.

" Every man take sure aim at one redskin and — kill him," cried the old sergeant, pausing before the words "kill him," to suit thfc action to the word, which he did.

A score of reports followed the crack of the old man's riiic, and a half-dozen or more of tho foremost redskins fell over. Still they poured on. Bullets seemed "to make no impression upon them. They saw that our horses were becoming winded, and with wild yells of defiance they rushed into the leaden spray as if it had been a shower of rain.

At length they came within arrow rangq of us, and with a delirious howl of delight which I shall never forget, they sent into us a flight of weapons, which we afterwards" discovered had been poisonpd. One of the-soldiera, struck in the forehead, was caug-ht as he, was falling over the side of the c-o"ach, and hauled back again in the throes of death; another pierced in ihe breast, fell backward to the ground, and was quickly handed away by the hindmost horsemen tg their dusky comrades on foot ; a passenger close beliind me was slain where he stood by •an arrow which whuzed past my own ear as I stood firing at the window, and crushed into his skull; the conductor received his death blow, and fell to the ground to bo carried off in triumph and scalped. Seven besides these were wounded and died before the journey was over. All this havoc was the result of the one flight of arrows, and still the demon warriors rode on yelling and shooting. Wo brought down a few of them with our bullets, but their numbers were so great and their movements so swift that there seemed to be no diminution in the crowd by which we were smv rounded.

" Tell you what it is," said tho old sergeant, who had been loading and firing, and reloading and firing with unshaken, gravity the whole time, " these red-skins 11 be the death 0' us if we don't do spmethin'. The horses^ are gettin' winded, and I don't like the' look o' things. I've heard a great bang sometimes frightens Indians. Let's hold hard and shoot together." It was a difficult manoeuvre to execute. When you are under fire there is a tendency to keep on firing whether it be wise or not. However, we managed to do it. The whole of us, having loaded, waited for the word. It was given, and we fired.

I firmly believe, to this hour, that every shot told. Erom a dozen to twenty red-skins rud horses fell at that one discharge. It was our last throw and we won it. Whether we killed the chief or not I cannot tell ; I knew not which was chief, but certain it was, that no sooner was our volley fired, and its effects seen, than the whole body of Indians fell into the rear and we saw no more of them during the journey.

But we did not owe our safety to that. It was bad generalship on the part of our assailants that preserved us. If they had had the sense to shoot the horses instead of devoting the whole of their attention to the men not one of us could have escaped.