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Show - ; "l ; , , . -- L. J -v. v - . , ;, . .. : ' f ' s- X ' ' v", j 'is- s ' ' - ! 'I ! ' N v - - , 1 - - ' ' ! " . - ' j r-1 x s n s n i x , - - f S: , SS-:: -;- v v.,- v.: - ' . : :.. .-. v . -- . .- ...... , i ; v." ' & ." ...- . v. .. ,. f ... S ' :.x vv f ' " ' I. ': . -:...... i-y . : . ...... ; . , N - , i i . . V - : e - , ' " THE CHARGE ON ADOBE WALLS (From the Painting by J. N. Marchand) :--Cv. . V : . J n r - v - E I "A -I I X Silly Dixon Pe-oh-rite r .- : . i II - I 1 1 1 fi o I 1 -.1 4 e Chief I 4 - 11 Quanoh 1 s t . , ie f ; the saloon, who were already awake and dressed, to the windows with their big buffalo guns In their hands. "We were scarcely Inside before the Indiana had surrounded all the buildings and shot out every window pane," Billy Dixon says. "For the first half hour the Indians were reckless and daring enough to ride up and strike the doora with the butts of their guns." And Andrew Johnson John-son has recorded how the savages backed their horses up against the doors of the buildings and tried to push them In, showing a willingness willing-ness to fight at close quarters almost unparalleled unpar-alleled In Indian warfare." But the steady fire of the buffalo hunters soon discouraged this and after beating off several attacks, the white men had a chance to take stock of their losses. Strange to say, there were only three. The two Shadier boys, asleep In their wagon outside the stockade, had heen killed and scalped. Their big Newfoundland dog had evidently put up a fight, for lie was also killed and "scalped" a piece of hide having been cut from his side. Billy Tyler, one of the defenders of the Leonard and Myers store, was killed early in the fighting and except for liome minor wounds these were the'only casualties. Time after time the Indians charged, but as their ponies were knocked down by the heavy slugs of lead from the buffalo guns and more and more of their warriors were killed of wounded, it began to dawn upon them that Isa-tal Isa-tal had been a false prophet. So the charges ceased. During one of these lulls a young Comanche, Co-manche, gorgeously appareled In war bonnet and scalp shirt and mounted on a fine pony, made a lone charge toward the buildings In the face of a hot fire from the hunters. Riding up close to one of the buildings, he leaped from-his from-his pony, thrust a six-shooter through a porthole port-hole and emptied it. He then attempted to retreat but was shot down. This daring warrior war-rior who had hoped to make a great name for himself by his lone charge was Pe-ah-rite, the son of Horseback, one of the leading chiefs of the Comanches. By late afternoon the Indians had given up hope of wiping out the defenders of Adobe Walls and began to withdraw. After an anxious night of watchfulness the buffalo hunters discovered dis-covered the next morning that only a few Indians were lingering around the place and they were soon driven off by some long distance shots. During the second day hunters from some of the outlying camps made their way unmolested Into Adobe Walls and that night one of them, Henry Lease, was sent to Dodge City for help. On the third day a party of about 15 Indians appeared on a high bluff east of Adobe Walls, but they were quickly dispersed by a shot from Killy Dixon's rifle which knocked one of the s By ELMO SCOTT WATSON is: IXTY years ago this month there :' & occurred a fight, the story of which fi has become one of the classics of 'l '4 the Western frontier. That was the I Battle of Adobe Walls which began J- on the early morning of June 27, ' 1S74, when a war party of several ::: hundred Comanche, Kiowa, Chey- o': I enne, Arapahoe and Kiowa Apache Indians attacked a buffalo hunters' rap, occupied by 28 men and one woman, :uted on the south fork of the Canadian river vhat is now Hutchinson county in the Texas .handle. (.haracteristic of its ranking as a frontier clas-.jris clas-.jris the number of men who at one time or i-irther have been called "survivors" of the ,ef'be Walls fight. Seemingly every old-timer pi) was ever a buffalo hunter on the South-I'ltern South-I'ltern plains In the '7(fs has been accorded the Junction of "He fought at Adobe Walls" by iteur historians and Imaginative newspaper "artcrs, and this, despite the fact that there ! j been in existence for many years an authen- list of the actual participants which might 'jjlly disprove the claim advanced in favor of ''rious defenders of that outpost of the fron- ' ne'er the terms of the Medicine Lodge treaty - ISG7, the federal government fixed the Arkan-r, Arkan-r, river as the northern boundary of the Indian tintry for the tribes of the Southwestern ' us and guaranteed that white hunters should f- cross that stream. But they did. l-i 1S72 the mushroom town of Dodge City, i., sprang Into existence and became the out-"Mig out-"Mig point and center of activity of the hide '0'titers who, with their big Sharps buffalo guns, id:'e constantly invading the red man's country. l;:y the spring of 1S74 the slaughter had been J8,-great that the buffalo had been virtually Etr ed out near Dodge City. So A. C. Myers, who iu the general merchandise business In Hge, organized an expedition to establish a 1Ef.ling post farther south whore the hunters evfld get their supplies and to which they would . ;ig their buffalo hides which Myers would ; ght back to the Kansas "hide capital." Form-(,- a partnership with Fred Leonard and accom- wipe out the white men who were exterminating the buffalo, he found the tribesmen ripe for such a crusade. The first Indian leader to agree to help In this laudable enterprise was a chief of the Comanches, Quanah, the half-breed son of Cynthia Cyn-thia Ann Parker, who as a little girl had been stolen from her home In Texas and had become be-come the wife of the great Chief Peta Nocona. Then the medicine man "carried the pipe" to the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Klowas and Kiowa Apaches and they readily agreed to accompany their Comanche brethren. So a great war party of between GOO and 700 mounted warriors set out for the buffalo hunters' hunt-ers' camp and on the night of June 26 they camped about five or six miles from Adobe Walls, began painting themselves and their horses and preparing themselves for the charge against the hated white men. "Those men shall not fire a shot ; we shall kill them all," was the promise of Isatai. That night at Adobe Walls 28 men and one woman slept peacefully, little realizing that a storm of savage wrath was about to be hurled against them. In Hanrahan's saloon were Han-rahan, Han-rahan, Bat Masterson, Mike Welch, Hiram Watson, Wat-son, Billy Ogg, James McKinley, "Bermuda" Carlisle, Billy Dixon and a man named Shepherd. Shep-herd. In Myers and Leonard's store were Leonard, Leon-ard, James Campbell, Edward Trevor, Frank Brown, Harry Armitage, Billy Tyler, "Old Man" Keeler, Mike McCabe, Henry Lease and two men known only as "Dutch Henry" and "Frenchy." In Rath and Wright's store were James Langton, George Eddy, Thomas O'Keefe, Sam Smith, Andrew Johnson and William Olds and his wife. Just outside the stockade two brothers named Shadier, who bore the nlck- j-uled by a party of 20-odd frontiersmen, Myers out for the forbidden Indian country, -.niong the members of the party were Jim 5nrahan, an old buffalo hunter who was going tig to open a saloon at the new trading post ; j lnnas O'Keefe, a blacksmith; and two young 'falo hunters destined for future fame Billy Jf;,'on and Bat Masterson. After a journey of miles the expedition reached a spot on the th fork of the Canadian where stood the ;i'tis of an old trading post, known as Adobe Jlls, which had been built by William Bent I Coran St. Vraln, some time before IS 10. . '''ie or so farther on, In a broad valley where ; re was a pretty stream called East Adobe j..' lis creek, Myers and his companions unloaded : ir wagons and set about establishing the sec-c sec-c I -Vlohe Walls which was to become even more iotts than the first. .flyers and Leonard built a picket house, 20 (,tiO feet In size; Ilanrahan put up a sod house, h.v GO, and O'Keefe opened his blacksmith Pl In a picket structure, 15 feet square. My-3 My-3 and Leonard also built a stockade corral by Jting big cottonwood logs on end in the ground. JJ'Short time later, Rath and Wright, leading chants of Dodge City, decided to establish 00 irtiach store at Adobe Walls and built a sod , ('se, 10 by 20 feet, leaving James Langton In irge of the new business there. To Adobe l.Us also came William Olds and his wife to Jt,;-;n a restaurant. ' or several years the Indians had been watch- with Increasing alarm the wasteful slaugh-S slaugh-S of the buffalo by the white hunters. So P'i irv the spring of 1S74 a .Comanche medi-e medi-e nian named Isatai announced that he had new medicine which would enable them to names of "Mexico Ike" and "Blue Bill" and who were engaged In freighting hides to Dodge City, were sleeping In their wagons with a big Newfoundland New-foundland dog at their feet. About two o'clock In the morning Shepherd and Mike Welch were awakened by a report that sounded like the crack of a ride. They sprang up and discovered that the big cotton-wood cotton-wood ridge pole which supported the dirt roof of Hanrahan's saloon had cracked and was about to allow the roof to collapse. Hastily awakening others In the place, they set to work repairing the roof and this commotion aroused others who fell to and assisted them. Before going to sleep, Dixon and Hanrahan had prepared themselves for an early start In the morning for the buffalo hunting grounds to the northwest. By the time the repairs to the roof of the saloon were completed, the sky was growing red In the east. So Ilanrahan proposed pro-posed to Dixon that, Instead of going hack to bed, they got ready to start out as soon as it was light. To this Dixon agreed aud as he started to get his horse he looked down the vat-ley vat-ley and there, through the dim light of the morning, he saw a sight which almost paralyzed him for a moment. A dark mass of horsemen was moving swiftly up the valley and the next moment It had spread out like a fan and a mighty war-whoop shattered shat-tered the stillness. Isatai was coming with his host of wild tribesmen to make good his promise prom-ise to wipe out the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls. Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, Dixon fired one shot, then turned and sped toward the Ilanrahan saloon as the wild charge of the Indians swept down upon him. But this hasty warning was enough to bring the occupants of savages from his horse. It Is this incident that gave rise to one of the oft-repeated myths about the Adobe Walls affair, different accounts of It placing the distance of the shot all the way from a mile to a mile and a half I By Dixon's own testimony "The distance was not far from three-fourths of a mile. ... I was admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what might be called a 'scratch' shot." More hunters came In on the third day and by the sixth day there were fully a hundred men gathered there. It Is among these latecomers late-comers that so many of the "survivors" of later years were numbered. But by this time the danger from the Indians had passed. The red men had departed for a series of raids In Kansas Kan-sas and Texas which soon brought the military Into the field and resulted In their eventual defeat. de-feat. But before the affair at Adobe Walls ended there was one more tragedy, one which darkened dark-ened the life of the brave woman defender, Mrs. Olds. On the fifth day her husband was comIn down a ladder with a gun in his hand when It wont off accidentally, and she rushed from an adjoluing room In time to see his body roll from the ladder and crumple at her feet-Today feet-Today three monuments stand on the site of Adobe Walls. One Is a small slab of granite which marks the grave of William Olds. Another An-other marks the last resting place of the Shadier Shad-ier brothers. The third Is a huge red granite monument which tells that "Here on June 27, 1S7L about 7C0 picked warriors from the Comanche, Co-manche, Cheyenne and Kiowa Indian tribes were defeated by 2S brave frontiersmen" and it hears the names of the 2S who truly "fought at Adobe Walls." ( by Western Newipa-per Unioa. |