My story of the Indian troubles of that period will necessarily be much in the nature of a personal narrative. At the time hostilities began, I was little more than eighteen years old, and as fond of excitement and adventure as boys at that age usually are. I had a part in many of the occurrences which I shall mention, and was personally familiar with the details of most of the others.
About the 20th of June, 1864, word reached Colorado City that a day or two previously, the Hungate family, living on Running Creek about forty miles northeast of Colorado City, had been murdered by the Indians. The father and mother had been shot down and mutilated with horrible brutality, and the children who had tried to escape had been pursued and killed, so that not one of the family was left alive. This news made the people of Colorado City, and the settlers along the Fountain and on the Divide, very uneasy, and of course, after that, they were constantly on the lookout, not knowing where the savages might next appear. Two or three weeks after the murder of the Hungate family, some cattle herders came into Colorado City late one evening and told of having seen near Austin's Bluff, a half a dozen mounted Indians who seemed to be acting mysteriously. Following the killing of the Hungate family, and other acts of hostility at various places on the plains, this was indeed alarming news. Consequently, early the following morning an armed party went to the place where the Indians had been seen, found their trail, and followed it. In this way it was discovered that, some time during the previous night, the Indians had been on the hill that overlooks Colorado City on the north, and that the trail from that point led into the mountains. The direction from which these Indians came, their mysterious movements after they were discovered, taken in connection with the recent acts of hostility, and the knowledge that the tribes of the plains had been attempting during the previous winter to make a coalition for the purpose of annihilating the settlements along the eastern base of the mountains, seemed convincing proof that this band was here for no good purpose.
At that time I was living with my father on the west side of Camp Creek, about half-way between Colorado City and the Garden of the Gods. I had been in town during the forenoon and had heard the alarming news, and as a result, after that father and I kept a sharp lookout for the savages. However, the day passed without anything further having been seen or heard of them. Shortly after sundown, my brothers Edgar and Frank, who were small boys, brought our cattle in from the neighborhood of the Garden of the Gods, and while I was helping to drive them into the corral adjacent to our house, I happened to look up the valley of Camp Creek, and there, about three-quarters of a mile away, I saw six mounted Indians leading an extra horse. They were going easterly along the old Indian trail, which I have heretofore described, that ran just south of the Garden of the Gods. As soon as I saw these Indians, I was sure that they were the party which had been trailed into Colorado City the night before. Without delay I strapped on a revolver, took my gun, and rode to Colorado City as fast as my pony could travel, to report what I had seen. The people had been greatly agitated during the day and, consequently, the news I brought caused much excitement.