Date: July 22 1915

Newspaper published in: Graham

The Texas Frontier

(continued from last week)

Pinachume, the war chief of the Comanches, who had been at the Camp Cooper
agency in Texas, rushed upon father whose rifle was yet loaded. Father
leveled his gun and as he came to the belt of the chief he fired. The chief
clasped his abdomen with both hands and pitched back into the ravine from
whence he had come, it only being a few feet away. This for a moment checked
the Indians and father and the boys got closer together. As father and the
boys would aim their gun or pistol at an Indian he would jump side-wise back
and forth to keep the aim from being so good, and as one after another of
them would try to rush upon them with their knives, as they would change the
aim of the pistol from one to another. In this manner one had been trying to
get to Jim, and he kept him jumping until tired when another made a dash for
him. The one that had become tired stopped to watch the result of the other,
when Like fired a load of buckshot into his left side just above the hip at
a distance of about thirty feet. The Indian tore his shirt, placed the
fingers of both hands in the bullet holes, walked deliberately away to a
small patch of live oak brush, lay down and died. Jim shot the other in the
stomach with the six-shooter at a distance of about ten feet, when he also
struck a bee line for the live oak thicket where he died too.

By this time the Indians became weary and seeing none of the whites so
disabled as not to be able to fight and father and the boys now being
between them and their bows and arrows in the branch, they were forced to
run leaving their dead and wounded. After they had gotten off some distance
and stopped running, Jim said to Like, 3Give me a cap and I will kill that
Indian if I die in a minute,2 referring to the one that was walking
leisurely up the hill. Like gave him the cap, he recapped his gun, which was
uncapped by the spike of the arrow that struck him in the eye-brow, he,
being in the act of shooting when the arrow him him and caused his gun to
fail to fire. He took deliberate aim at the Indian and at the track of the
gun the Indian staggered and fell to rise no mire.

About this time Like remarked 3Let us run and try to get home as soon as
possible for I fear the Indians have already been there and killed the
family for the one that George shot had Emmett1s gun, or one just like it.2
Father told them he could not run that he was shot through the foot and
could scarcely walk and could not run. However, they hastened home as fast
as father could walk, but the Indians had reinforced, taken the advantage of
the ground and waylaid them again at the creek, some three hundred yards
from the house, but Chester, my brother, and myself had turned the horses
out to graze, the sun having shone brightly and the snow melting freely, the
horses had crossed the creek and fahter and the boys attempted to drive them
back. When the horses got near the creek where the Indians were they got
scared at the Indians and ran up the creek to the wagon crossing, which
prevented them from having another encounter with the Indians. Father and
the boys followed the horses and came on to the house. Father told us we
must catch water from the melting snow as it would not do for us to go to
the creek for water that day, so we caught all the water we needed from the
melting snow. The Indians came near the house where they stopped in a pecan
grove and briar thicket and there barked like dogs that had something treed;
but we knew full well it was the Indians for there were no neighbors or dogs
nearer than four miles away and that across the Brazos river.

After having washed the blood from Jim1s face, George held his head and Like
took a pair of shoemaker1s pincers and made three hard pulls at the spike
trying to extract it from Jim1s head but could not move it. The Indians came
in sight of the house several times during the day, but kept out of gunshot
distance.

They surrounded the house that night and would bark like dogs, hoot like
owls, and gobble like turkeys. Some of us stood guard all night. Chester and
myself being the youngest we went on guard about half past two in the
morning, the family thinking there was less danger then then in the earlier
part of the night. About four o1clock we heard a large bell rattle as if the
ox had gotten up and shook himself. Immediately thereafter the owls began to
hoot on every side of the house near by, then the bell started traveling up
the creek and on the south side of the creek, we lived on the north side. As
we listened to the bell as it traveled up the creek, the owls soon began to
hoot and go in the same direction that the bell was going. We then awoke
farther and the boys and told them the Indians had left. We listened to the
bell and hooting of the owls until we could hear the owls no more on account
of the distance, but we could hear the bell for several miles as the night
was cold and still.

Written by R.E. Tackitt