he night Jim and I talked the
matter over together; and we decided that after I put out the scouts in
the morning I would take ten men all mounted on horses and keeping about
five miles ahead of the train, and if we found the bodies I should set
the men I had with me to work digging graves, and I should turn back and
report to Jim what we had found, and the condition we found them in.

As soon as possible the next morning the men I had selected and myself
pulled out. We had made eight or nine miles when we found the bodies we
were looking for. They were all laying near together, around what had
been their camp fire, and all of them were scalped.

There was nothing about them to indicate that they had made any effort
to protect themselves. Every one of the heads was split, showing they
had been tomahawked, proving what the two survivors had told us about
the suddenness of the attack to be correct. We found their wagons nearly
empty. The covers had been torn off, the most of the bedding was gone
and some of their clothing. The eatables such as bacon and flour and
dried fruit was laying on the ground. I told the men I thought the best
way to bury them would be to dig one large grave and put them all into
it, and they seemed to be of the same mind. After helping to select a
spot for the grave, I left them and rode back to meet the train and
report our find. I told Jim all about the condition of things at the
dead men's camp, at which he said, "I guess we had better stop there a
couple of hours, which will give us time to bury the dead, and we can
reach our camping ground before night."

On reaching the place Jim corralled the train, and he then went to all
the families and told them that two hours was as long as we should stop
there. I said, "I will take a stroll around through the brush and see if
I can find some of their cattle."

I hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile when I found twelve head of
their oxen. When I drove them back to the wagons, the two men said they
were just half of the original number. They yoked them up and hooked
them to two of the wagons and took what they wanted of the provisions
and clothes and left the rest laying on the ground. As we were about to
leave Jim said, "It is too dog goned bad to leave all that grub for the
Coyotes to eat. That meat and flour will be worth fifty cents a pound
when you get to California."

Then several of the men and women commenced to gather up the stuff, the