The Fight at the Ford

Jackson, wounded and weary as he was, drove his crippled horse so hard
all the night through that by dawn he had covered almost fifty miles,
and was in sight of the long line of wagons, crawling like a serpent
down the slopes west of the South Pass, a cloud of bitter alkali dust
hanging like a blanket over them. No part of the way had been more
cheerless than this gray, bare expanse of more than a hundred miles, and
none offered less invitation for a bivouac. But now both man and horse
were well-nigh spent.

Knowing that he would be reached within an hour or so at best, Jackson
used the last energies of his horse in riding back and forth at right
angles across the trail, the Plains sign of "Come to me!" He hoped it
would be seen. He flung himself down across the road, in the dust, his
bridle tied to his wrist. His horse, now nearly gone, lay down beside
him, nor ever rose again. And here, in the time a gallop could bring
them up, Banion and three of his men found them, one dead, the other
little better.

"Bill! Bill!"

The voice of Banion was anxious as he lightly shook the shoulder of the
prone man, half afraid that he, too, had died. Stupid in sleep, the
scout sprang up, rifle in hand.

"Who's thar?"

"Hold, Bill! Friends! Easy now!"

The old man pulled together, rubbed his eyes.

"I must of went to sleep agin," said he. "My horse--pshaw now, pore
critter, do-ee look now!"