W. J. WILSON'S NARRATIVE

In the spring of 1867 I bought a bunch of cattle on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, started up the river with them and fell in with Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. They had had some trouble with the Indians, and we considered it safer to all travel together. We went on to the Pecos River on the old Butterfield trail. It never failed to rain on us every day until we reached Horsehead Crossing. The night we arrived at this crossing the cattle stampeded and all got away. Next morning we started to round them up. After hunting for three days we still had about 300 head of our big cattle missing. The rain had made all of the trails look old and we couldn't tell a new trail from an old one. We concluded to go back to China Pond and take a circle from there and try to cut the cattle off. China Pond was about twenty-five miles back on the trail. So seven

W. J. WILSON
of us, made up from different cattle outfits, went back, and when we reached China Pond we decided to go east, and many miles out we found the trail of our cattle, and the signs showed that Indians had captured them and were driving them to their camp up the river. They had evidently expected us to come down the river looking for the cattle, and they did not discover us until we were within a hundred and fifty yards of them. Seeing we were greatly outnumbered, and as it was about sundown, we decided to turn back and go to our camp, which we did, arriving there the next day.

When I returned from this cow-hunt, Mr. Loving asked me to go to Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, with him. We had a verbal contract with the people who were feeding the Indians there, and we wanted to hold that contract. The distance to Ft. Sumner was about 250 miles, and we were supposed to travel at night and lay up in the daytime so the Indians would not attack us.

The second day of our journey we stopped on a stream we called Black River, and stayed there two or three hours, rested up our horses, then concluded to go on to the point of a mountain where the road ran between the mountain and the river, and stay there that night. As we neared this mountain we discovered several Indians. They saw us about the same time, and we knew we were in for trouble, but we reached the river all right, and I picked out a little mound next to the river where I could see all around me, except one little spot where the polecat brush had grown up about three feet high, and that brush obscured my view of the river for a distance of about 100 yards. I told Mr. Loving if he would stay down at that little clump of bushes and keep the Indians from crawling up on us from the river I would keep them off from above. These Indians had increased in numbers until there were over a hundred of the red rascals. I think they had been hunting south of the river and were going back to their old ground.

After staying in the brush a little while Mr. Loving came to where I was, and I urged him to go back there and prevent the Indians from coming in on us from the river. He started back down there carrying a pair of holster pistols over his left arm. The bushes were about forty yards from where I was standing, and I kept my eyes on this spot for I knew if a demonstration was made from that direction the Indians would charge us from the hill. When Mr. Loving had almost reached the bushes an Indian rose up and I shot him, but not before he had fired on Mr. Loving. The Indian's shot went through Loving's holsters, passed through his wrist and entered his side. He came running back to me, tossed his gun to me and said he was killed and for me to do the best I could. The Indians at this time made a desperate charge, and after I had emptied my five-shooting Yarger, I picked up Mr. Loving's gun and continued firing. There was some brush, only a few inches high, not very far from There I was, and the Indians would run to it, crawl on their bellies, and I could not see them. I managed to get Mr. Loving down to the river and concealed him in a sandy depression, where the smart weeds grew about two feet high and laid down beside him. The Indians knew we were down there somewhere, and used all sorts of ruses to find our exact location. They would shoot their arrows up and some came very near striking us. Finally an Indian with a long lance came crawling along parting the weeds with his lance as he came, and just about the time I had determined to pull the trigger, he scared up a big rattlesnake. The snake came out rattling, looking back at the Indian, and coiled up right near us. The Indian, who still had not seen us, evidently got scared at the rattlesnake and turned back.

We lay there until night. Mr. Loving's wounds had thrown him into a high fever, and I managed to bring up some water from the river in his boot, which seemed to relieve him somewhat. About midnight the moon went down, but the Indians were still around us. We could hear them on all sides. Mr. Loving begged me to leave him and make my escape so I could tell his folks what had become of him. He said he felt sure he could not last until morning, and if I stayed there I would be killed too. He insisted that I take his gun, as it used metallic cartridges and I could carry it through the water and not dampen the powder. Leaving with him all of my pistols and my rifle, I took his gun and with a handclasp told him goodbye, and started to the river. The river was quite sandy and difficult to swim in, so I had to pull off all of my clothes except my hat, shirt and breeches. The gun nearly drowned me, and I decided to get along without it, so I got out and leaned it up against the bank of the river, under the water, where the Indians would not find it. Then I went down the river about a hundred yards, and saw an Indian sitting on his horse out in the river, with the water almost over the horse's back. He was sitting there splashing the water with his foot, just playing. I got under some smart weeds and drifted by until I got far enough below the Indian where I could get out. Then I made a three days' march barefooted. Everything in that country had stickers in it. On my way I picked up the small end of a tepee pole which I used for a walking stick. The last night of this painful journey the wolves followed me all night. I would give out, just like a horse, and lay down in the road and drop off to sleep and when I would awaken the wolves would be all around me, snapping and snarling. I would take up that stick, knock the wolves away, get started again and the wolves would follow behind. I kept that up until daylight, when the wolves quit me. About 12 o'clock on that last day I crossed a little mountain and knew the boys ought to be right in there somewhere with the cattle. I found a little place, a sort of cave, that afforded protection from the sun, and I could go no further. After a short time the boys came along with the cattle and found me.

Charles Goodnight took a party of about fourteen men and pulled out to see about Mr. Loving. After riding about twenty-four hours they came to the spot where I had left him, but he was not there. They supposed the Indians had killed him and thrown his body into the river. They found the gun I had concealed in the water, and came back to camp.

About two weeks after this we met a party coming from Ft. Sumner and they told us Loving was at Ft. Sumner. The bullet which had penetrated his side did not prove fatal and the next night after I had left him he got into the river and drifted by the Indians as I had done, crawled out and lay in the weeds all the next day. The following night he made his way to the road where it struck the river, hoping to find somebody traveling that way. He remained there for five days, being without anything to eat for seven days. Finally some Mexicans came along and he hired them to take him to Ft. Sumner and I believe he would have fully recovered if the doctor at that point had been a competent surgeon. But that doctor had never amputated any limbs and did not want to undertake such work. When we heard Mr. Loving was at Ft. Sumner, Mr. Goodnight and I hastened there. As soon as we beheld his condition we realized the arm would have to be amputated. The doctor was trying to cure it without cutting it off. Goodnight started a man to Santa Fe after a surgeon, but before he could get back mortification set in, and we were satisfied something had to be done at once and we prevailed upon the doctor to cut off the affected limb. But too late. Mortification went into his body and killed him. Thus ended the career of one of the best men I ever knew. Mr. Goodnight had the body of Mr. Loving prepared for the long journey and carried it to Weatherford, Texas, where interment was made with Masonic honors.