frey's" was another body of Indians. They were all mounted and
armed; I could not run away; I was in a vice apparently.

I looked towards the river, and observing some islands in it, my
plan was instantly formed. If I could only reach the river, I would
swim out and get behind one of the islands. And the river being
high and turbid, with a quicksand bottom, I did not believe they
would venture to come after me. (I had learned to swim when a boy,
and that now was my means of salvation.) I started for the river as
soon as the last Indian had passed me, "double quick," but as I
started, I glanced towards the west, and, to my dismay, saw the
other party coming back at a distance of four or five hundred rods
from me, and I had at least two hundred rods to make to reach the
river. They had got through with their chase of the two men. They
had killed one of them and also his horse (I buried his body the
next day). The other man being mounted on a trained racer, as I
afterwards learned, managed by hard running to escape and reach the
station.

At a certain angle bearing back towards "Godfrey's," I started for
the river, and the Indians turned to run in between me and the
river. But providence interposed again. Within one minute from the
time of my fall, the Indians stopped the coach, shooting one of the
horses to do it; and this drew the attention of the other party
away from me to the coach, being drawn (I suppose) by motives of
plunder on seeing the coach stopped. I have since learned that they
do not divide the plunder in any civilized way, but what an Indian
gets his hands on is his. But for this circumstance, they must have
got between me and the river. Finding that I had actually gained
the river-bank, I determined not to go in at once, but the rather
to get as far away as possible, while the Indians were engaged in
plundering the coach, knowing it would take them some minutes to do
that. I had no hope of running away, but slipping off my boots, I
began a rapid walk up the river-bank, all the while glancing back
at the Indians, expecting momentarily that they would start for me.
Thus I got nearly a mile away, when I noticed two men in the road,
a little ahead of me. I stopped as soon as I saw them, feeling sure
that they were Indians who had been sent to that point to prevent
my