now in trouble, and said that they could not go on
putting up their hay with the corpses lying around. Robinson told them
to hitch up and follow the Hugoton party away. They did this, and after
a while I was left lying there in the half-moonlight, with the dead
bodies of my friends for company.

"After the party had been gone about twenty minutes, I found I could get
on my feet, although I was very weak. At first, I went and examined
Wilcox, Cross, and Hubbard, and found they were quite dead. Their belts
and guns were gone. Then I went to get my horse. It was hard for me to
get into the saddle, and it has always seemed to me providential that I
could do so at all. My horse was very wild and difficult to mount under
ordinary circumstances. Now, it seemed to me that he knew my plight. It
is certain that at that time and afterwards he was perfectly quiet and
gentle, even when I laboriously tried to get into the saddle.

"At a little distance, there was a buffalo wallow, with some filthy
water in it. I led my horse here, lay down in the water, and drank a
little of it. After that I rode about fifteen or sixteen miles along a
trail, not fully knowing where I was going. In the morning, I met
constable Herman Cann, of Voorhees, who had been told by the Haas party
of the foregoing facts. Of course, we might expect a Hugoton 'posse' at
any time. As a matter of fact, the same crowd who did the killing
(fifteen of them, as I afterwards learned), after taking the haymakers
back toward the State of Kansas, returned on their hunt for one of
Short's men, who they supposed was still in that locality. It was
probably not later than one or two o'clock in the morning when they
found me gone.

"Our butchers now again sat down on the ground near the bodies of their
victims, and they seem to have enjoyed themselves. There was talk that
some beer bottles were emptied and left near the heads of their victims
as markers, but whether this was deliberately done I cannot say.

"Constable Cann later hid me in the middle of a cornfield. This, no
doubt, saved my life, for the Hugoton scouts were soon down there the
next morning, having discovered that one of the victims had come to
life. Woodsdale had sent out two wagons with ice to bring in the bodies
of the dead men, but these Hugoton scouts met them and made them ride
through Hugoton, so that the assembled citizens of that town might see
the corpses. The county attorney, William O'Connor, made