Transcript

Transcript for Davis, Albert Wesley, [Autobiography], Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Oct. 1926, 246 and ibid., Jan. 1927, 6-7

When we were ready to return, William B. Preston put me in charge of the teams. I waited a while for a company of Saints who were coming to the valley. Brother Miner G. Atwood, returning from a mission, was in charge of this company. We traveled together without much trouble until we got west of Laramie, about five hundred miles from any settlement. We camped one day at noon about twenty miles west of Laramie in a place called Cottonwood Hollow. Below the road in this hollow there was a thicket of brush and a spring of water. I took the mules that I was in charge of down to this spring to water them. As they had about finished drinking the cattle from the train began coming to the spring. Just at that time someone discovered Indians. I rode up to one of the teamsters and told him the Indians were coming. He dropped his bucket of water and ran for the camp. At that moment the Indians came into sight whooping and trying to stampede the cattle and get them away. As they did this I commenced the same and whooping and riding rapidly back and forth behind the cattle was able to get them on the dead run for the camp. Six Indians came into the herd and tried to turn the cattle away from the camp. I had on two navy revolvers and with them I commenced shooting at the Indians who were forced to leave the herd. They got one of my mules into the brush ahead of them but it broke away and came back into the herd again. Not one of our animals was lost. As I got the cattle into the camp someone called that the Indians were coming down the hollow from above the road. I immediately rode around and took up the hollow towards the Indians. When I got almost within pistol shot of them they saw me coming and wheeled around and rode down another hollow out of sight and we saw them no more.

Just as I got the cattle to the corral Miles [Park] Romney, brother of George Romney, came to meet me. As we met, I handed him my empty pistol and told him to load it as quickly as he could. Back in the road was a man who had been walking behind the company. The Indians which I drove out of the herd surrounded him and he broke through their horses and ran for camp, as he did so I saw that the Indians were shooting at him with arrows. One arrow with an iron spike went into his cheek bone and the spike clinched. In trying to pull it out the arrow was pulled off and the spike left in his cheek. He ran into camp and Miles Romney and a brother by the name of [Anders Wilhelm] Winberg, returning missionaries, got a pair of horse shoe pinchers and tried to pull the spike out. They could not. After things were quieted down these brethren came to me and wanted to know if I could get the spike out of the man's face. I said I would try to do so. We laid an ox yoke on the ground and had the man sit on it, then I said to Miles and Brother Winberg: "You take him by the head and hold him tight and I will do the pulling." I got hold of the spike with the pinchers and pulled with all the force I had and the spike came out. The man stood on his feet and taking me by the hand said "thank you" in broken English, for he was a convert from Denmark. We anointed him with oil and administered to him and he was soon well again. That night as we camped on the Platte River basin I lay under the wagon and got very little rest, fearing another attack by the Indians. After that we drove on and had no further trouble.

After we had traveled for a few days I said I would take the mule teams and go on ahead as I could travel faster than the company with ox teams, but Brother Miner G. Atwood said: "If you mountain boys leave us and the Indians come upon us we would not stand much show of getting away from them." So we concluded not to leave them. There was another missionary returning home with this company by the name of Swenson. He was shot through the arm and some of the immigrants were also wounded by the Indians, but no one was killed.

There was also in the company a woman who was quite stubborn. When she was asked to get out of the wagon and walk over the sand hills she became angry and sometimes started back on the road saying she wished the Indians would get her. At one time she acted this way and was back on the road some distance and the Indians did get her and carried her off. It was told me some years later that she jumped off the horse she was riding into the Platte River and was drowned.

If the Indians had succeeded in getting our cattle from us when they tried, we would have perished for we could not have moved our wagons. So if ever the Lord performed a miracle he surely did at that time. We arrived home without further trouble.