Actually I ain't forgot about this thread, but I'm wondering what happens after it passes a two-year limit
Hookey... the topic was Jack Hayes, the cooly efficient and deadly 21 year-old last seen as a Sergeant of Rangers operating out of San Antonio in the year 1838.
After that things get a bit muddy. Did he run (literally) with a bunch of Shawnee/Delawares for two days down around present-day Del Rio to wreak vengeance on a much larger number of Comanches?
No other record of Hays as an exceptional runner but the association with Indians AND the reckless attack against long odds certainly sounds in character.
In the meantime, before we move on, I would be remiss if I failed to return to Capt Bird's famous 1839 fight against Comanches up be resent-day Waco.
This has long been dismissed as a failed attack, showing how badly off the Rangers were until they got the revolver. That completely ignoring the fact that the 34 Texians on the scene, facing long odds, inflicted at least 30 casualties for a loss of maybe five of their own.
The Texians had chased a small party of Indians, which ran back to a huge party of Indians, which chased the Rangers to the cover of a ravine, from which cover they used their rifles to decimate their mounted opponents.
If ya really wanted to attribute EVERYTHING on the Frontier to prior Indian examples (as often applies), except maybe for the falling-into-a-trap part, them Texians were essentially duplicating the tactics already used by rifle-Armed Eastern Tribesmen on the Plains for at least twenty years by that point, with similar results.
Perhaps it is called a defeat because Bird himself was killed, while standing in plain view on the edge of the ravine to encourage his men. But here's the remarkable part, why I came back to it, well told by one Clay Coppedge....
http://www.texasescapes.com/ClayCoppedge/Birds-Creek.htm After the Indians had dropped back a second time, Captain Bird mounted the creek bank to encourage his men, only to be struck in the heart by an arrow that Brown said was fired from 200 yards away.
Brown, quoted in George Tyler's "History of Bell County," said of the shot that it was "the best shot known in the annals of Indian warfare, and one that would seem incredible to those who are not familiar with their skill in shooting by elevation."
The Indians lost somewhere between 30 and 100 Indians in the battle. Bird and four of his men were killed.
[Referring to Adobe Walls] ......Willie Dixon went on to write his memoirs, where he claimed, as he always had, that his shot at Adobe Walls was just as lucky as it was long.
No one knows what the Indian who killed Captain Bird had to say about his shot. We don't even know if he survived the battle, but the memory of the shot he made certainly has.
200 yards and a hit in the heart, DRT, from what was likely about a 40lb draw bow with a homemade arrow, most likely from an expert archer who may have been firing from horseback, not looking down the arrow but probably firing as Plains Indians ordinarily did; from a bow held flat and chest height, firing by "instinct" or "feel".
However it was done it was an incredible shot.
Birdwatcher
