by
another band and things were getting pretty hot with them. Then the wire
went open, caused as I supposed by your fire, but now it seems as if
Baird is probably up against it as well. A train load of troops will
come through in a short while to try and get beyond the Indians and cut
them off. If you are able, I wish you would flag them and go over to
Clear Creek and report from there. Disconnect and take your instrument
and leave the line cut through. A line man will be sent out from here in
the morning. Everything is tied up on the road, and you can tell the C.
& E. there's nothing ahead of them, but to run carefully, keeping a
sharp lookout for torn up track and burned trestles."

My experiences had been so exciting and the smoke in my lungs so
painful, that I was ready to drop from fatigue; but then I thought of
poor Fred Baird and his family, and I said I'd go. The troop train came
in presently and I boarded her. It did my heart good to ride on that
engine with "Daddy" Blake at the throttle, and think that four hundred
big husky American regulars were trailing along behind, waiting for
something to turn up and just aching for a crack at the red men.

It was now about three o'clock, and just as the first rays of early dawn
illumined the horizon, we came in sight of Clear Creek. There was a dull
red glow against the sky, that told only too well what we should find.
The place had not been as well protected as Blue Field, and the
slaughter was something fearful. The depot was nothing but a smoldering
mass of ruins, and but a short distance away we came upon the bodies of
Baird, his wife and two children, shot to pieces, stripped, horribly
mutilated and scalped. It was sickening, and shortly after, when the
troop train pulled out for Chiquito, the sense of loneliness was
oppressing. A few people had escaped by hiding in obscure places and
when they came out they went to work and buried the dead. I finally
succeeded in getting a wire through and then, despite the heat, I slept.

The next day the troops corralled the Indians, gave them a good licking
and sent them back to their old reservations. And yet in face of just
such incidents as these, there are people who say that poor Lo can be
civilized.

A construction gang came out and started to re-build, and the company
offered me a good day office if I would remain, but Nay! Nay! I had had
all I wanted of Arizona, and I went back to Texas, thankful that I had a
whole