h our work
until it was finished, especially as we only had twenty men and everyone
was badly needed in the work ahead of us, so we did not think we could
spare a man to return home after grub. So we swallowed our buffalo meat
day after day and kept the horses moving.

They were now pretty well worked down, and we proceeded to work them
toward a place where we could begin to rope them. There were now only a
few stallions left in the herd as we had shot nearly all of them, and
the others were too tired to cause us any trouble. We had now been out
of grub over three weeks except buffalo meat and such other game as we
could bring down with our guns. Our fears that the cook and mess wagon
had been captured by the Indians proved well founded, as we about this
time met an outfit who had seen the place where the cook was killed.
They said the surroundings indicated that quite a large band had
surprised the cook and driver, but that they had put up a brave fight as
evidenced by the large number of empty rifle and revolver shells
scattered around. Our first impulse after hearing this was to start in
pursuit of the red skins and get revenge, but calmer judgment showed
that such a course would be useless, because the Indians had a couple of
weeks start of us and we did not know what tribe had committed the
offense as there were so many Indians in that part of the country and in
the Indian territory, and besides our horses were in no shape to chase
Indians, so much to our regret our comrades had to go unrevenged at
least for the present, but we all swore to make the Indians pay dearly,
especially the guilty ones, if it were possible to discover who they
were. We continued to work the mustangs back and forth, and in thirty
days from the time we started out we had about sixty head hemmed up in
Yellow Fox Canyon and were roping and riding them. They were not hard to
handle as they were so poor some of them could hardly walk. This was not
to be wondered at, as we had kept them on the go for the past thirty
days, never once giving them a moment's rest day or night, and in that
time they had very little to eat and no sleep. After roping and riding
them all we got them together and headed for home.

Arriving at the ranch the mustangs were allowed to eat all they wanted
and were roped and ridden until they were fairly well broken, when they
were turned out with the other ranch horses. They proved good saddle
horses, but as soon as they we