It was a moment of breathless excitement.  We heard the tramp, tramp of the horses coming on towards us, but as yet they and their riders were concealed from our view.  I confess I trembled violently, not exactly with fear, although I expected that a few moments would see us all scalped by our savage assailants.  It was the suddenness of the danger which startled me, and made my heart throb violently; but at that moment, just as I was reproaching myself with the want of courage, a terrific yell rung through the air at a short distance from us, and forty or fifty warlike Indians appeared in sight.  My whole frame was nerved in an instant, and when a shower of arrows flew amongst us, I was the first man to answer it with a rifle-shot, which brought one of the foremost Indians off his horse to the ground.  I instantly reloaded, but in the meanwhile the rifles of my companions had been doing good service.  We had taken up our position behind a row of willow trees which skirted the banks of a narrow stream, and here we were protected in a great measure from the arrows of our assailants, which were in most cases turned aside by the branches.  A second volley of rifle-shots soon followed the first; and while we were reloading, and the smoke had slightly cleared away, I could see that we had spread consternation in the ranks of the Indian warriors, and that they were gathering up their wounded preparatory to retreating.  I had my eye on one old man, who had just leapt from his horse.  My finger was on the trigger, when I saw him coolly advance, and, taking one of his wounded companions, who had been shot though the leg, in his arms, place him on a horse, then mounting his own, and catching hold of the other animal’s bridle, gallop off at full speed.  Although I knew full well that if the fortune of the day had gone against us, these savages would not have spared a single man of our party, still I could not find it in my heart to fire on the old chief, and he therefore carried off his wounded comrade in safety.

In a few minutes the hill-sides were clear, and when we emerged from our shelter, all that was visible of the troop of warriors was three of them weltering in their blood, a bow or two, and some empty quivers, and a few scattered feathers and tomahawks, lying on the ground.  One by one, we gradually stole up to the top of the mound from whence I first beheld the approach of the enemy, when, finding that they were retreating at full speed in an opposite direction to the camp, we determined to proceed thither at once, fully prepared to find both Story and Jose murdered.  On our arrival, however, the former coolly advanced to meet us, and, in answer to our questions, stated that while he was superintending the proper browning of our venison, and Jose was filling the cans with water, he saw several of our horses scampering off, being in fact driven by three or four Indians on horseback.  “So quickly,” said he, “was the movement effected, that before I could lay hold of