It was six miles from here to the nearest water, so we had to drive that distance to find a place to camp.  We reached the camping ground a little before sunset.  After attending to the teams and stationing the guards for the night Cap’t.  Davis came to Jim and me and said, “The ladies want to give you a reception tonight.”

Jim said, “What for?” Davis replied, “Saving our lives from those horrible savages.”  Jim answered, “Why, durn it all, ain’t that what you are paying us for?  We just done our duty and no more, as we intend to do all the way to California.”

By this time there was a dozen women around us.  With the others was a middle-aged woman.  She said, “Now, you men with the buck-skin clothes, come and take supper with us.  It is now all ready.”

Jim said, “Come, Willie, let’s go and eat, for I am hungry and tired too.”

While we were eating supper, three or four young ladies came up to us and asked me if I didn’t want to dance.

“The boys are cleaning off the ground now, and I want you for my first pardner,” she said with a smile and a blush.  Jim said, “Will can’t dance anything but the scalp dance.”  One of the girls said, “What kind of a dance is that?”

Jim replied, “If the Indians had got some of your scalps this afternoon you would have known something about it by this time.”

Jim told them that when the Indians scalped a young girl, they took the scalp to their wigwam and then gave a dance to show the young squaws what a brave deed they had done, “and all you girls had better watch out that they don’t have some of your scalps to dance around before you get to California; but if you wish us to, Will and I will dance the scalp dance tonight, so you can see how it is done.”

When they had the ground all fixed for the dance, Jim and I took our handkerchiefs and put them on a couple of sticks, stuck the sticks into the ground and went through the Indian scalp dance, making all the hideous motions with jumps and screams, loud enough to start the hair from its roots, after which Jim explained to them this strange custom, telling them that if any of them was unfortunate enough to fall into the Indians’ hands this was the performance that would be had around their scalps.

The girls said with a shudder they had seen enough of that kind of dancing without the Indians showing them.  The lady who had invited us to supper said, “Now girls, you see what these men have done for us, they have saved our lives, and do you realize the obligation we are under to them?  Now let us do everything we can for their comfort until we reach California.”

And I must say I never saw more kind-hearted people than these men and women were to us all the way, on this long and dangerous journey.