I had on a buckskin suit and could not be seen much easier
than a Modoc when in the lava beds. They kept up a continual
firing, and now and then I could hear a bullet whiz near me. After
I had crawled about sixty yards as cautiously as I could I raised
on one knee and foot and my gun was resting across my leg while I
was peering through the fog to see if I could get sight of any
Indians, and listening to see if I could hear an Indian's voice. I
had remained in this position about five minutes when a ball
struck me on the shin-bone, just below the boot top. It appeared
to me that I could have heard it crack at a hundred yards. Never
before in my life had I experienced such a miserable feeling as at
that time. I thought that my leg was broken into atoms. I started
to crawl back up the hill, taking the same route that I had come
down, and when I had ascended the hill near enough to the boys so
they could see me, George Jones saw that I was hurt.
He dropped his gun and ran to me at once and said: "Captain, are
you badly hurt?" But before I had time to answer him he had picked
me up bodily and was running up the hill with me.
When he got to where our horses were he said: "Where are you
shot?" I said: "George, my left leg is shot off." "What shall we
do?" said George. I told him to put me on Johnny, that being the
name of my horse, and I would go to headquarters.
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