Dabney Herndon Maury

“ I had a great ambition to encounter a grizzly, as we called the fierce, brown bears of that region, and one evening I had gone alone down into the canon in search of partridges and teal. One barrel of my gun was charged with number six, and the other held nine buckshot for Indians. I had gone some distance down into the canon, when I observed that the sun was low and I must hasten back to camp. On my homeward way I came upon the track of a huge grizzly, who had crossed the road only a few minutes before, and must at that moment have been within two hundred paces of me. ”

“ Baldy Smith pointed out to us the Apache camp, in which two years before he, with William Henry Whiting, Dick Howard, and Policarpio, their guide, were carried prisoners, and held until the chiefs decided whether to kill them or not. Happily, after a solemn council it was determined to release them. "Polly," as he was known, was a famous Mexican guide and hunter, as brave and faithful as any man upon the plains. ”

“ They paid no attention to the troops, merely opening out to let them pass, and the men had no desire to molest them. Neither man nor horse died of that terrible suffering, and never was Devil's River more welcome, than when on the morning of the third day they rode into its pleasant waters. ”

“ Humbolt had declared him the discoverer of a new science. On him the Secretary of the Navy called to locate the position of the San Francisco, and direct the course of the ships to be sent to her rescue. I well remember the honest pride with which he wrote me how they found the wreck where he showed it ought to be, and saved the hundreds of survivors; among them Lieutenant Frank Murray, who won grateful acknowledgment for his heroic conduct and gentle care of the helpless women and children, in recognition of which the people of Philadelphia gave him a service of silver. ”

“ Soon after this we set out for El Paso, and on the second or third day were met by a man who told us with great vociferation how the Indians had run off fifty head of his cattle from Eagle Springs, and begged the general to aid him in recovering them. His nickname was "Talking" Campbell. In those early days of Texas, men were named from some personal peculiarity, and we had then living "Big-foot" Wallace, a tremendous, good natured fellow from Rockbridge County, Virginia. ”