Slade, although rough at times and always a dangerous character—­having killed many a man—­was always kind to me.  During the two years that I worked for him as pony express-rider and stage-driver, he never spoke an angry word to me.

As I was leaving Horse Creek one day, a party of fifteen Indians “jumped me” in a sand ravine about a mile west of the station.  They fired at me repeatedly, but missed their mark.  I was mounted on a roan California horse—­the fleetest steed I had.  Putting spurs and whip to him, and lying flat on his back, I kept straight on for Sweetwater Bridge—­eleven miles distant—­instead of trying to turn back to Horse Creek.  The Indians came on in hot pursuit, but my horse soon got away from them, and ran into the station two miles ahead of them.  The stock-tender had been killed there that morning, and all the stock had been driven off by the Indians, and as I was therefore unable to change horses, I continued on to Ploutz’s Station—­twelve miles further—­thus making twenty-four miles straight run with one horse.  I told the people at Ploutz’s what had happened at Sweetwater Bridge, and with a fresh horse went on and finished the trip without any further adventure.

[Illustration:  ATTACK ON STAGE COACH.]

About the middle of September the Indians became very troublesome on the line of the stage road along the Sweetwater.  Between Split Rock and Three Crossings they robbed a stage, killed the driver and two passengers, and badly wounded Lieut.  Flowers, the assistant division agent.  The red-skinned thieves also drove off the stock from the different stations, and were continually lying in wait for the passing stages and pony express-riders, so that we had to take many desperate chances in running the gauntlet.

The Indians had now become so bad and had stolen so much stock that it was decided to stop the pony express for at least six weeks, and to run the stages but occasionally during that period; in fact, it would have been almost impossible to have run the enterprise much longer without restocking the line.

While we were thus nearly all lying idle, a party was organized to go out and search for stolen stock.  This party was composed of stage-drivers, express-riders, stock-tenders, and ranchmen—­forty of them altogether—­and they were well-armed and well-mounted.  They were mostly men who had undergone all kinds of hardships and braved every danger, and they were ready and anxious to “tackle” any number of Indians.  Wild Bill (who had been driving stage on the road and had recently come down to our division) was elected captain of the company.

It was supposed that the stolen stock had been taken to the head of Powder River and vicinity, and the party, of which I was a member, started out for that section in high hopes of success.