Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1892-04-09

an old log cabin, or rather series nj
cabins. with dirt roofs, which for some
reason the Indians had left unburned.
We thought we knew why afterward.
1.-The colonel decided TO stable all
the horses there; for though we hadn't
seer an Indian thatday, we knew they
were watching US, and feared a STAN
pede.
THAT done for, and our bareback
and coffee with it, the guard was
| doubled, and orders issued that no one
should 60 near the cabins under any
pretext for fear some one might leave
a door open. Our horses nee gone,
the Indians could have pcnned MS in
and picked us off ar their leisure, or
starved us off. for that matter, and
saved their ammunition.
The men went into caup a hundred
or more yards away, down by the
river,
81, with IN Indian scout, was sta
toned TO reinforce the guard on n
knoll commanding the barred door of
the stockade, We might incidentally
have furnished a fine target there
against the sky for some bcggarly
Sioux, 50 we set 10 work with our
knives, and with a prairie dog hole as
a basis, followed out a pit large
enough to hold us if we doubled up
enough, As we lay there. the breeze
sprang up from the mountains cool and
fresh, bringing the thought of snow,
drifts into that beastly hole.
But it was light there. An Indian
smeared with Il stratum Of red and yell
low ochre, which rather retards per-
spiration, is not an agreeable subject,
even with ONE veilings Of purifying
atmosphere around him. But in that
hole,
Then, to make it worse, the horses
of the settlement had evidently been
corralled there, and the refuse and
straw we lay in, in the damp night air
from the river, was very like what we
have here noW.
But we lay still enough, while a
groggy-lookiug noon came up and
turned everything dark along the ridge.
Between us and the stockade it was
impossible to see anything. Half a
regiment could have crawled up that
and we never seen them.
suddenly, as we lay there trying to
fit our elbows into the angles Of that
hole, a light flashed out over the rise.
and some one whiStling and swinging a
lantern walked leisurely toward the
stockade door. He made a mighty
noise about it.
I'm afraid that ragged heapoi bones
the hin and the grave-iike hole we
were in had unneryed me a trihc. Any.
how ! thought had never heard any.
thing so cheering and homelike 20 that
whistling. 1t made me think of times
when ! used to 90 out to the birn at
when ! was a kid; it was 50 boy
ish and awkward
Its some boy afraid of the dark, ]
whispered,
My companion grunted. 'yeN Injun
whustle,'
That was so; they never do.
But what the dickens is the young
fool doing there, disobeying orders? I
believe I'll scare him a bit | Nhis.
pered; and with that | whipped up my
rifle and fired at random over bis head.
The light dropped and we heard a
scurrying OF feet in the deaf grass,
was taken up and prolonged in
the camp as the men staggered out OF
their sleep, with a rattle of strel scab-
bards on bootlegs, c%ursing and STUN
bling over each other in the darkness.
''Whcn the excitement wa. all over
and the men that had got up cursing
because there was an attack had
thrown themselves down again cursipg
because there was none, my companion
Good shot; break um light,
he said, and squatted down in his hole
again.
There was no more disturbance
Shat night.
In the morning they found an In.
dian in his war paint dead by the
stockade door. He was tall, very tall.
ms he lay on his face in a black pool of
blood where he fell, a shattered lantern