After we went into camp I rode to the top of a high hill about a mile away to look for Indian camp fires.  I was soon convinced that there were no Indians near us and started back to camp.  I had got within a quarter of a mile of the camp when I saw two men sitting on a log just ahead of me; I rode up to them, and when I spoke to them I recognized them as two of the eleven that left us with the four wagons at Fort Kerney.  I said to them, “Men, what are you doing here, and where are your teams and the rest of the men who went with you?”

They answered, “The rest of the men are all dead, killed by the Indians night before last; we made our escape by running off in the dark, and we haven’t had a bite to eat since supper that night, and in fact we did not have much supper then, for the savages came on us when we were eating.”

I said, “What became of your wagons and teams?”

They said they did not know what became of them, for they made their escape as soon as the Indians came upon them; that they ran a little ways and stopped and listened to the cries of the others as long as there were any left, and then wandering around through the woods ever since, not knowing where they were or what would become of them, and they continued, “We sat down here because we were so weak we could go no further.”

One then asked where the rest of the train was.  I replied, pointing, “It is about a quarter of a mile over there.”

At that, one said to the other, “Let’s go and get something to eat.”  I showed them the way to the train, and as they were intimately acquainted with some of the emigrants they soon had their hunger appeased.

While they were eating, they told us their experience.  Three or four miles before they camped for the night they saw the Indians.  There were at least seventy-five of them.  They were on the north side of the road.  They would come close to the road and then disappear again.

“We tried to get near to talk to them, but they ran away as if they were afraid of us.  When we camped that evening there were about twenty-five of them on a hill not more than a hundred and fifty yards from us.  Two of the men started to go up to them, but they ran away, and that was the last we saw of them, and so we made up our minds that they had gone, and we thought no more about them.  It was good and dark when we sat down to supper, and how so many of them came upon us without making any noise is a mystery to us.  The first thing we knew, the whole number we had first seen was upon us, and of all the noise, the yells and whoops we ever heard, they made the worst.  If they had come up out of the ground, we would not have been more surprised, and the arrows were flying in every direction.  As it happened we two were sitting a little away from the rest of the men eating our supper, and at their first yell we jumped up and made for the nearest brush; our guns were all in the wagons, and the Indians were between us and the wagons, so we had no way to defend ourselves.  We went a little ways into the brush, and then we looked back and saw the Indians using their tomahawks on the men we had left, and in a few minutes all the noise was over and we supposed all the nine were killed.”