While we were eating dinner, Jim said to me: “Don’t you know them fellers didn’t think you’d ever come back?”
I asked him what fellows, and he said: “Why, those scouts. One of them told me you was the d—est fool he ever saw in his life, to go out scouting alone in a strange country, and that the Pah-Utes would get you, sure.”
I said I did not think it worth while to ask those scouts anything about Indians or anything else, for I didn’t think they had been far enough from camp to learn anything themselves.
That afternoon when I was announced at the Colonel’s tent, I was met in a somewhat different manner by him to what I had been that noon, for he raised the front of the tent and said: “Come right in Drannan, why do you hesitate?”
After having a social chat with him and rehearsing to some extent the fight which took place the night before between myself and the five Pah-Utes, he proposed to make me chief of his scouts. He said: “Now, Drannan, I will tell you what I wished to see you about. I have five scouts besides you, and I am going to make you chief of all my scouts, and you can handle them to suit yourself.”
I told the Colonel that I did not desire any promotion whatever, for in the first place I would not be doing my self justice, and that it would not be doing justice to the other scouts, and I thought it would be of more benefit to both him and his other scouts, to go alone, as I had started out.
He asked me why I would prefer going alone. My reply was that a person in that business could not be too cautious, and I did not know what kind of men he had, and just one careless move would spoil the plans of the best scout in the world.
The Colonel admitted that I was right, but insisted on selecting one man from his five scouts to assist me, saying: “If he don’t suit you, after trying him two or three days, report to me, and you may select any one from my scouts that you like.” And to this I consented. I told him that I would be ready to start out the following morning, and if he had any orders to give me to give them now, as I would start very early. He said that he had no orders to give, but that he had selected Charlie Meyers to accompany me; and he proved to be a good man and a good scout.
CHAPTER XI.
A lively battle with pah-Utes.—Pinned to saddle with an arrow.— Some very good Indians.—A stuttering captain.—Beckwith opens his pass.
The next morning I ordered three days’ rations for two men, and Charlie Meyers desired to know if I was going to Salt Lake City or New York. I told him I was going out hunting, and if I struck fresh signs of game I proposed tracking it to wherever it went.