Nearly a year later, a prospecting party en-…

chunk 787 · paragraph 810

Capt. Jim Blain with two or three others were coming in with a supply of provisions and were jumped by the red devils about two miles below the present site of Chloride. No casualties re- sulted however, and the only loss sustained was that of the team they were driving. Nearly a year later, a prospecting party en- camped one half mile above Chloride, was at- tacked, and three white victims now sleep on Chloride creek, whose graves are visible to the passerby. The raid of Victorio and forty of his braves through the placers, the streets of Hills- boro, and on to the scene of the White House butchery and McEvers’ ranch, is still fresh in the memories of old timers in that section. Lieutenant Smith of the 9th cavalry, met his death whilst gallantly leading a charge upon the hell hounds who had fortified themselves, and were in waiting for his approach. A party of prospectors on the Animas led by Hagan, after whom the peak of that name is known, was butchered, with the exception of one or two who escaped wounded. Scores of instances might be enumerated where the wards of the government, in other localities, have populated graveyards, and yet these brutes are permitted to stray away from the reservation whenever they feel so inclined.