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Show MEMBER OP NEBEKER" POoSE ! DE8CRIBESJNDIAN EIGhTj Declares Situation at Bluff Is Critical; Indians Scattered in Hills Make Concerted Attack by Deputies Difficult. (By a member of Marshal Nebeker's posse.) BLUFF, Utah, Feb. 22. With Old Polk, the Piute leader, and his son. Hatch, still at large and In- 1 dians scattered all around, another' pitched baitle, worse than the one fought here yesterday. Is expected momentarily. mo-mentarily. Marshal Nebeker of Salt Lake amd the posse are bending their efforts to locate Polk and Hatch, behoving that with their capture or death the uprising will be quickly quick-ly put down. One white man, Joo Aiken, hi ; dead and another, Jose Cordova, ia shot through the lung; two Indians are dead and at If ast two Injured. Five Indians and a Mexican, who has betn living with the Indians in their camp here, are prisoners, pris-oners, handcuffed and shackled, and held , under guard. The situation here Is critical. In spite j ot reinforcements the posse is in need of I ail tiie help it can get. as these Indians, are on the warpath and determined to , kill all the whlti they can becore thoy i give up their own lives or liberty. A troop of twenty-five Indian police from the Navajo reservation at fclhiprock, N". M., is on the way here, and expected lo arrive some lime tonight. In the main, the posse has been on tho winning sloe, in the fighting so far, but there is not a man who has had more than a few min-liteH min-liteH of sleep since three, nights ago. The lnJ:ans have employed every trick known to them In their wild methods of warfare. Broken up into small groups aftpr the first attack, they have stationed themselves in the rocks around here and the pot'se memhers have been forced to be on guard every minute. Fighting Continues. Fighting has been going on here at intervals for nearly forty-eight hours. The nosse is divided Into squads stationed at various points around this little town, and wherever an Indian is seen concentrated concen-trated fire Is opened on the position. No fatalities have resulted today, so far as Is known, but there have been thousands cf shots exchanged by both sides. The Indians are as badly scattered as the posse, but they seem to be well armed and plentifully supplied with ammunition, replying In force to every attack, and in some instances opening Are on tho posse guards. j Fighting was kept up all night and to- i day, but. aside from the main engagement engage-ment vesterday, there has not been any mass fighting, the exchanges beiner skirmishes skir-mishes between sharpshooters of the two 1 sides. No attempt Is being made to deny that the Indians have proved stronger and more rebellious in their attitude than we ; , had reason to expect. It was believed i that after the first fight the Piutes rould 1 I be forced to surrender, but they are fight-trig fight-trig just as hard tonight as at any time,, land although seemingly they are not as numerous as at first, " they are .Inst as dangerous, and a constant guard Is being ; kept. Marshall Nebeker realizes that we are In for a long-drawn-out fight and ; that as long as there Is one Piute at large 1 attack Is to be expected. We have plenty, of ammunition, but orders have been Is- ; sued to save our supply as much as possl- i ble to provide against exhaustion before! additional supplies can be brought out ; to us. ( j Indians Cut Wires. j ! Telephonic communication has been lm- i possible during the greater part of tho j time we have been here. "Early in the ! fighting yesterday the Piutes, with more j cunning shan anybody had expected, cut the wires twice and phut us off from the outside world. Ve were in a desperate situation at one time. . with the Piutes hidden tn the rocks and shooting ut the j posse from all sides. A call f"r help was put through, however, before the wire went out, and, as a result, a party of seventeen men arrived here last night at midnight from irayson. Early this morning morn-ing another posse, from MonticeDo, consisting con-sisting of thirty men, came, and their arrival ar-rival gave some of the original posse an opportunity to get a few houis of much-needed much-needed sleep. Indian Agent Kurch. from Shtprock, N. M.. arrived during the night and brought the cheering news that the twenty-five Navajo Indian police had mounted mount-ed and were on their way here. A snowstorm snow-storm Is raging, and these men, who are expected hourly, will have to make one of the hardest rides In the history of the west to arrive here In lime. S. P. Thomas, deputy sheriff of Montezuma Monte-zuma county, and a party of guards left here this morning for Dolores, conveying the body of Joe Aiken, who was killed at the end of an hour of fighting yesterday morning by a bullet from the gun of Old Polk. A bullet from ihe chief's ritle bored him through the forehead as he aimed I lo kill Polk. This shot, which saved Old Polk from death, also enabled him to cs-I cs-I cape, and he has not been cornered since. Old Polk Missing. Old Polk and Hatch are believed to be with the main body of Indians, who are reported to have gathered tn force about three miles Eouth of here, on the San Juan river, evidently with the intention of making a final stand.- An attempt to dislodse them will be made, but when it has not been decided. They are In a good position among the high rorka and able to put up a hard fight, but with our constantly con-stantly increasing strength, the posse members believe they can be overwhelmed. Marfahal Nebeker, who has proved himself him-self a strong man and as wise In Indian methods of warfare as the Piutes themselves, them-selves, probably will wait until the Indian police arrive before he orders an assault on the Piute position. Considering that they have been in the midst of a battle and in Imminent danger : of destruction, the people of this town have shown remarkable courage. Thoy ! have done everything In their power to i nld the posse and have made the members ; as comfortable as possible. The Flutes could not have picked a better bet-ter place to make, their stand against the government than I hey have at Bluff. The town, nearly 100 miles from a railroad Btatlon, is situated in a flat on the Pan Juan river, almost completely surrounded by rocks which roll away until they reach the mountains. There are about 100 peo- i pie here, and there is only one street in the town. Old Polk and his gang know the country well, and they had been prepared for our arrival. For a long time the people hero I liave been fearing that the Piutes would raid the town when tney heard the posse was coming, and the arrival of the party, followed so quickly by battle, was hailed as a deliverance. The residents have every confidence In the ability of the posse to subdue the Piutes, and look upon It only as a question of time- The members mem-bers of the pos.se also feel confident of ultlmale success, but there will be a better feeling when Old Polk is captured. Marshal Mar-shal Nebeker does not want to kill any of the Flutes unless he has to, believing that most of them are simply following the lead of Old Polk. Trip to Grayson. No man with this expedition who lives to tell ahout it ever will furget the trip or the fighting. The posse broke camp Saturday morning morn-ing on McCracken mesa and pushed on through nuid and snow to Grayson, Utah, arriving there at '1 o'clock that afternoon. We met Marshal Nebeker at Grayson and at. ft o'clock that night he called a meet-.lig meet-.lig of the posse and ordered it to proceed pro-ceed to Bluff as soon as possible and surround the Piutes at dawn. Fresh horses were obtained and at II o'clock that night the po?se rode out of Grayson in a blinding snowstorm. Good progress was made, regardless of the snow, unt 11 the posse was within ten miles of Bluff, when a, cold rain, driven by a terrific wind, caused a stop of thirty minutes. go Impenetratable was the darkness it was Impossible to discern a horse and rider at a distance of twenty feet. The road was entirely hlotter out and only the instinct of the horses and keen observation ob-servation of ' the frontiersmen kept the members of tho posse from falling headlong head-long over cliffs or wandering at random. Several old pioneers In the party declared de-clared It was the worst nlgut they ever had experienced. Reach Cow Canyon. With the first light of dawn the party reached Cow canyon and descended It immediately, riding two abreast. A constant con-stant lookout was kept here, for a few-Indians few-Indians stationed on top of the high bluffs on either side of the canyon could annihilate an armv of men with little difficulty. dif-ficulty. Mancos Jim, who was believed to be a member of the Polk-Hatch gang, has proved himself the white man's friend. During the firing, when the battle started yesterday morning, he came Into town crying and begged tha t the squaws and children be saved, and was assured that specific orders had been given to leave them unharmed, as well as all other non-combatants. non-combatants. Mancos Jim also requested that he and Dutchy, another prominent Ute, be allowed al-lowed to enter the Piute camp and beg them to surrender. The request was granted, and soon after they left on horseback carrying a flag of truce. However, How-ever, the conference was not successful, as the renegades refused to converse with the peacemaker and sent him back to town with the message, "We die. Tell how we fight until die." |