Our winter quarters being thus completed, Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes set out one morning for the cache, intending to return that same evening.  Before starting they told me to go out some time during the day and kill a small deer, that I would be able to carry to camp, and have a good lot of it cooked for supper, as they would be very hungry when they returned that night.  They started sometime before daylight, and I stayed around the cabin, clearing things up and cutting wood, until about ten o’clock, then cleaned up my rifle and started out to kill the deer.  It was an easy matter to find one, for they were as thick in that country as sheep on a mutton farm.  But, boy-like, I wandered off up the canyon about two miles before I found a deer that just suited me, and I wanted to see the country, anyway.

At last I found a little deer that I thought about the right thing and I killed and dressed it—­or rather undressed it—­threw it on my shoulder and pulled for camp.

Instead of going the way I had come, I climbed out on the ridge to avoid the down timber, that was so thick in the creek bottom.  When I was near the top of the ridge, I looked off a short distance and saw three Indians, on foot, going down the ridge in the direction of our dug-out.

I had often heard Uncle Kit tell how the Indians robbed the camps of trappers and that they invariably burned the cabins.

As soon as I got sight of the Indians, I dropped back over the ridge, for, luckily, they had not got sight of me.  In a few seconds I did some powerful thinking, and I came to the conclusion that it would never do to let them find our dug-out, for while it would hardly burn, they might carry off our bedding, or destroy it.  So I crawled up to a log, took good aim at the leader and fired, striking him just under the arm, bringing him down.  The other two dropped to their knees, and looked all around, and I suppose the only thing that saved me was the wind was coming from them to me and blew the smoke from my gun down the canyon, so that they did not see where the shot came from.

I heard Uncle Kit tell of lying on his back and loading his rifle, when in a close place, so I did likewise and crawled up to my log again.  The remaining two Indians, having looked all around and seeing no one, had got on their feet again, and were standing with bow and arrow in hand, each having a quiver full of arrows on his back, and if they had got sight of me that would have been the last of Young Kit.  But I took aim at one of them and fired, with the same result as before.  As my second Indian fell, the third one started back up the ridge, in the direction from which they had come, and if I ever saw an Indian do tall sprinting, that one did.  I watched him until he was out of sight, and then loaded my gun, shouldered my deer and went to where the two Indians were lying.  They were both as dead as dried herring.

I had never seen an Indian scalped, but had often heard how it was done, so I pulled my hunting-knife and took their top-nots, and again started for the dug-out, a great hunter and Indian fighter, in my own estimation.