on them
would be at daybreak, and for us all to be mounted on our horses. You
and your men make the attack, and me and my scouts make a dash for their
horses and cut them loose and run them off out of the Indians' reach.
Now Capt., I am satisfied that this fight will be no child's play,
but will be a nasty little fight, but if we can get the Indians on a
stampede and keep them from getting to their horses, I think we can run
them down and get the most of them."

The Capt. told the men that they had better not go to sleep that night.

"If we sit around the fire here until three or four o'clock in the
morning, you will all get over your scare and feel more like fighting."

One of the boys laughed and said, "It don't affect me in that way, Capt.
The more I study about a bad scrape that I expect to get into, the more
nervous it makes me."

Capt. McKee answered, "Perhaps you will fight better when you are
nervous than you would if you were cool. Anyway, we will take the
chances."

We sat around the fire and told stories and smoked until about one
o'clock in the morning, and then we saddled our horses and pulled out
for the Indian camp and arrived there in good time to look around and
see if we could take any advantage of the Indians in the coming fight.

The Capt. selected the place to make the attack and told his men that he
and they would sit on their horses and watch for the first Indian to get
up, and as soon as the first Indian attempted to get up, they must make
the charge, and every man must do all the shouting he could, "for," said
the Capt. "if we can get the Indians stampeded once, we will have as
good a thing as we want."

I told my scouts, that we would cut the horses loose and turn them in
the opposite direction from the one the Capt. was making the charge, and
I told the men to cut the horses loose as fast as they came to them, and
to pay no attention to the Indians unless they saw them coming towards
the horses, but if the Indians, one or many, seemed likely to get to the
horses, to pull their pistols and shoot them down before they caught
the horses, "for," I said, "every horse we drive away will be equal to
killing an Indian, for it will be putting him in the way of the other
boy's bullets."

We did not have to wait long before the sound of the guns and the yells
of the men as they made the attack on the half-awake Indians reached us,
and the din that the two noises made was something dreadful to l