INDIAN FIGHTING IN TEXAS

LAST RAID IN FRIO CANYON

Brutal Killing of Mrs. Kate McLauren and Young Allen Lease

In 1882 the Indians struck their last blow at the settlers in Main Flo canyon. For more than thirty years they made constant raids and many white families were slain, and in this last two more victims fell, Mrs. Kate McLauren and Allen Lease, a youth who lived with the McLauren family.

John M. McLauren, husband of the murdered woman, was born in North Carolina, and came to Texas in 1857. In 1871 he married Miss Kate Ringer at Lockhart, Caldwell County, Texas. They soon after came to Frio canyon and first settled below the town of Leakey, but moved in 1880 seven miles above and were the outside settlers at that time. Here they lived two years without being molested.

On April 19, 1882, Mr. McLauren left home and went down to Cherry Creek, below the Leakey settlement. It was a wild, gloomy looking place where the McLauren family lived. The canyon was narrow, and just below the house was almost a shut-in. The sides of the mountains next to the river were high rock next bluffs, and in time many huge boulders had become detached and went plunging into the river below. Just above this narrow place is an elevated spot on which the house stood. There was a garden spot between the house and the river, east. Above, north and west, the valley widened and the mountain curved around and terminated in the huge cliff fronting the river. At the time McLauren left home that morning a band of Indians came around on top of the mountains and stopped on the cliff which overlooked all the valley and the house, and no doubt saw the settler when he left home. The family at home consisted betside the mother and the boy Allen, of Maud, 6 years old; Alonzo, 3 years and Frank, the baby in arms. The eldest daughter, Mary, was away boarding with the family of Richard Humphreys, near Leakey, and going to school.

After dinner, Mrs. McLauren took the children and went down to the garden to work. During this time John Thompson, who had been up the river horse-hunting, passed back and saw the women in the garden; but no sign of Indians at that time. He carried a Winchester, and no doubt the Indians saw him from their elevated position. They could keep concealed from view by the rocks and cedar with which they mountain top was covered. About 2 o'clock the Indians came down the mountain north of the bluff where it was not so abrupt, and going to the cabin commenced to plunder it. Mrs. McLauren had sat down on a blanket to rest and nurse her baby and the balance of the children were sitting around her. The Indians made a noise at the house, which was not more than sixty yards away, but back from the brow of the hill at the base of which the garden was situated. Thinking hogs were doing some mischief there, Mrs. McLauren told Allen Lease to run up there and scare them off. The boy did, and almost ran into a crowd of Indians in the yard. Uttering a cry of fright he ran back, pursued by an Indian with a Winchester, who fired at him just as he reached the foot of the little hill. The ball hit Allen in the back of the head and came out at the nose, and without uttering a sound he fell forward on his face dead. By this time Mrs. McLauren had sprung to her feet and the Indian fired a shot at her, hitting her in the breast. She fell to the ground but at once arose and started to run, with the baby still in her arms. The Indian now fired again and she was wounded in the right arm, but kept on towards the garden fence next to the river. The murderous rascal kept on shooting, and before getting to the fence the poor woman was wounded three times more, twice in the right leg and once in the hip. Before this time she had told the children to run, and Maud was over the fence. The now badly wounded woman handed Maud the baby, which she still clung to despite the fearful shots she was receiving, and tried to get over herself, but another whizzing ball came and struck her again in the hip, and she fell to the ground on the outside of the fence and was unable to rise. The Indians did not follow them and continued to rob and pillage the house, and now accurred an incident that has but few equals in frontier annals. Mrs. McLauren was lying with her head on the bare ground and rocks, writhing and moaning, covered with blood, and little Maud was weeping beside her. The child conceiving the idea that her mother could rest better with a pillow under head, and in her devotion and solicitude lost all fear, and crossing the fence ran swiftly across the garden past the dead body of Allen and through a crowd of Indians into the house, seized a pillow and running back, tenderly placed it under the dying mother's head. Strange to say, the Indians made no attempt to molest her. Did not this innocence and devotion forth the Divine power which stayed the bloody hand of this savage?

The mother now told her daughter that if she could get help she might live, and the brave little Maud set off at her utmost speed down the river towards the settlements. Now, at this time George Fisher was not far down the river fishing, and the child soon came upon him. He heard her breathing hard on the bank just above him, and looked and said, "Is that you Maud" "Yes," she said, excitedly "is that you Mr. Fisher?" and at once spring down the bank to where he was. In broken accents she told him that the Indians had killed Allen and shot her mother, and wound up by saying, "Mamma says for you to come quick." Mr. Fisher lived a mile below, and Mrs. McLauren had told Maud to go to his house first, as it was the nearest place. He, not believing he was able to cope with the Indians alone carried the child to his house and then informed his neighbors, James Hicks, Henry Wall and Mrs. Goodman of the tragedy. Mrs. Goodman wanted to go back to the wounded woman at once but no one would accompany her, the men scattering with the news and gathering a force to fight. Before doing this, however, they carried little Maud and Mrs. Goodman to the house of another neighbor, named David Thompson. James Hicks came on down the river to John Leakey's, who as soon as he learned the news took two Mexicans, who were in his employ, and set out rapidly on foot for the McLauren place. Before he went far he saw McLauren coming behind him in the road and stopped and told him the news. He had, however, already ran his horse down going back home, having a presentiment that all was not well. At J. B. Johnson's he found Mr. Fisher and they went together, having obtained a fresh horse from Mr. Johnson. Mrs. McLauren was still lying where she fell when they came to the spot - alive, it is true, but that was all; the last spark of life was flickering. She faintly asked for water. McLauren went to the river a few yards away and brought some in his hat brim. This she drank and died in three minutes after. The baby was lying on the ground by her side, and little 3-year old Alonzo was sitting beside it.

It was now sundown and who can tell what that poor woman suffered from 2 o'clock until this time with wounds and thirst, expecting each moment when sufficient time had elapsed for someone to come and assist her. Then likely the thought would occur that something had happened to the 6-year old Maud, and that she had never reached her destination, and still no one knew of their direful distress. Allen Lease was still lying at the foot of the hill where he fell, but the hogs had eaten his face off. The bodies were taken down to the lower settlement and buried in the Leakey cemetery. Great excitement prevailed. It had been a long time since an Indian raid, and the people had begun to think that the days of Indian alarms were over.

Twenty men assembled to follow and fight the Indians, if possible to overtake them. The trail was taken up at the McLauren ranch and it led back up the mountain the way they had come down. Among the pursuers were W. J. McLauren, captain; Tobe Edwords, James Hicks, - Coryell, H. T. Caston, Henry Wall (better known as "Boy" Mallo,") Frank Sanders. John McLauren, husband of the slain woman, was not of the party, the reason of which he says was his horse running into a stooping tree the day of the killing and nearly putting his eyes out, so that he could hardly see for several days. The trail led a western course, and was followed with such vigor and over such a rocky country that many horses gave out, and at Kickapoo Springs all turned back except W. J. McLauren, Tobe Edwards, and H. T. Coston and Caryell. These went on to the last lope that turns into the Rio Grande valley, and then they turned back, Caryell left them where the trail crosses the road that runs from Brackett or Fort Clark to Howard's well, and went to Fort Clark and informed Lieut. Bullis, who commanded the Seminole scouts, of the raid and where they last saw the trail where he was satisfied led into Mexico. Bullis at once took his scouts, and getting on the trail followed it out of Texa and five days into Old Mexico to a place called by the Seminole "Horseshoe Bend." Here the Indians were camped in a little valley on a creek thinking they were now safe from the vengance of the Texas settlers. Bullis had two guides - one Seminole buck and a Lipan squaw. The Indians being followed were Lipans, and when the squaw learned from something found on the trail that it was her people they were following, she tried to decoy Lieut. Bullis and his party off another way on a cold trail, where some Indians had passed some time before. The Seminole guide, however, said she was wrong, and that they were on the right track When the squaw perceived that her directions were not to be followed shoe got on the warpath and had to be tied to her horse. She was the wife of one of the Seminole scouts.

Lieut. Bullis located the hostile camp with the aid of a spy-glass, three miles away, from a hill top. Dividing his men, he left half with the horses and belligerent squaw and taking the others surrounded the camp and night and awaited the dawn. At daybreak the chief came into view, smoking a pipe and was instantly killed from some shots from the ambushed scouts. A general charge was now made on the camp and some were killed before they got up from where they were lying, and others as they ran. When the fight was over five Indians were dead on the ground, four bucks and one squaw. One buck ran off, pursued and fired at many times, but jumped off a bluff 20 feet high, and the last three men to shoot at him after he jumped off said streams of blood were running from his wounds. That he survived from those shots is not likely. One wounded squaw with a hand shot off was captured and brought back.

John McLauren met Bullis at Fort Clark on his return and identified several things that were taken from his house, and there is no doubt that the right Indians were punished. The wounded squaw acknowledged they were the ones, but claimed leniency from her captors, stating that she kept the bucks from killing the children. Some might say now that it was the Indian squaw that saved the little girl's life when she went after the pillow, instead of Providence, but God makes wicked and bloody men sometimes the instruments to carry out His behest. The heart and mind of the wild, painted Indian squaw could be used the same way. The wounded squaw was sent to Fort Sill reservation.