Divine Deliverance of a Mormon Pioneer Company from an Indian Ambush

While a company of seventy wagons was traveling toward the West, they discovered they were being tracked by a band of savage warriors. After taking precautions by camping at a loop in the Platte River, the company's guards were suddenly confronted at dawn by six Indians approaching the camp with the intent to stampede and steal their livestock. When the guards, who had been hidden in the grass, stood up and leveled their guns at the attackers, the Indians were startled and retreated immediately, averting a potential loss of animals and harm to the company.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

While a company of seventy wagons was traveling toward the West, they discovered they were being tracked by a band of savage warriors. After taking precautions by camping at a loop in the Platte River, the company's guards were suddenly confronted at dawn by six Indians approaching the camp with the intent to stampede and steal their livestock. On came the dark horsemen, evidently anticipating an easy victory; and even those of the camp who had been aroused felt an undefinable dread. When the intruders reached a point about fifty yards from the line of pickets, the guards sprang to their feet from the grass which had hidden them, and leveled their guns direct at the advancing Indians. Not a sound had been made which could be heard a score of yards, but the dusky warriors realized that they were over-matched. Instantly they threw their horses back upon their haunches, buffalo robes, blankets and lariats dropped to the ground, and with a terrific yell, which when once heard under such conditions is never effaced from memory, the savages wheeled their ponies and rode for life; nor did they stop kicking and beating their horses until they deemed themselves well out of rifle range, which to a frightened Indian means a long distance. Thus was this serious danger averted, and by an early start we departed from the scene.