Written by Warren Hunter, Harper, Texas

[From J. Marvin Hunter’s Frontier Times Magazine, December, 1927]

LYING FACE TO FACE on a grassy hilltop, two boys were resting and reviewing leisurely the affairs of the roundup that preceded the drive of the Boss' cattle herd across the line into New Mexico. One lad, bordering upon the verge of young manhood, was telling the other of some experience which seemingly delighted him for his steely blue eyes smiled merrily as he viewed the incident as depicted by his companion. Obviously the two were friends. Not of hall fellows; well met type, but of the devotion of true friendship. The blue-eyed boy with a tanned and glowing face was not as old by several years as his "pardner," but he had courage that made up for his lack of size.

A few yards away grazed their horses with reins dragging over their heads and the bridlebits out of their jaws so that they might eat the tall grass with ease. Below them they could see their comrades, on the roundup working around the cattle. The herd, of more than a thousand head milled on each side of a half dry creek where water stood intermittently in puddles. And as the three men in charge herd rode the two friends on the hill talked and watched.

Suddenly a commotion among the cattle below aroused their attention and they saw the herd stampede. Simultaneously their minds flashed back to the morning when they left the ranch and they remembered Dick Robertson's parting word of warning, “By Grabs, boys." he had said. "I ain't goin' to be safe out thar. I've seen lots of Indian sign lately an' it don't look none too good!"

And days had passed quietly with no hostile advances from the unseen enemy of which they had observed so much evidence.

When the boys on the hill saw the herd stampede. Dan Arnold, the eldest, leaped up.

"They've stampeded, haven't they Dan?" asked John Coffey.

“Then, Dan looking westward, exclaimed, "Indians!" And with a bound he mounted his horse, and waited for John to reach his horse that was grazing several feet away.

John hastily jerked his horse's hoof from the reins in which he had stepped and made a flying mount. Together they raced down the hill as John yelled, "Let's go to the creek!" Together the boys hinged their horses down the steep hillside, John's bridle bits dangling around his horse's neck.

The Indians, numbering about twenty-five warriors had gained so much on the fleeing boys that only a few feet separated them from their intended victims. Painted and scowling, the Indians pressed them close, yelling furiously.

With his reins over his arm, John rapidly loaded his rifle, a rimfire Winchester, and turned to take aim at a half naked savage who had pulled his pistol and was yelling, "Shoote! Shoote!"

The unexpected proximity of the Indian so unnerved John that his bullet went wild and the warrior kept shooting.

As they reached the level of the creek, Dan was shot through the head and without a word his lifeless body toppled from his horse.

The Indians closed around John and siezed his horse. Realizing that they had him captured, the boy sprang from the horse into a growth of buttonwillow and raised his gun with the intention of shooting it out with them. When the Indians saw that the lad meant business they fled, holding their shields behind them and their feet on their horses' necks.

In desperation John sought a hidingplace. The vegetation on the creek was scarce and few large trees, if any fringed its banks. In the shelter of the low bank he crept up the creek to a place where two trees grew on the bank and where water had cut away the dirt from their roots. Then pulling big boulders up to form a wall around the roots, he crept into the hole.

During the ensuing hour John heard another cowboy up a fork of the creek, shooting and yelling like mad. The cowboy, Lapoleon Lemmons, was killed and scalped and his mutilated body was found later lying against a tree.

An hour spent in the broiling sun of mid-day soon began to tell on young Coffey and he ventured out to get water some two hundred yards distant. He had hardly left his hiding place when an Indian rode to the edge of the bank and peered over at him. He shrank away, however, when the boy raised his gun menacingly, and when he had disappeared John retreated to his place of refuge without the craved water.

During the retreat Nip Hammond had been chased to the ranch by a party of thirty warriors and was returning with assistance.

Another hour of torturing thirst brought John out for water for the second time. And after reaching the waterhole he had not satisfied his thirst before looking for the Indians. Five of them were seen at a distance and he mistook them for the men from the ranch. Waving his gun to them he called out. This brought about 35 Indians from around the brow of the hill and they charged him with a rush. Then he heard John Ferguson, one of the men from the ranch yell, "Oh, yes, you cowardly devils, come out and fight like whitemen!" Then John dodged around some elm saplings and leveled his gun on the Indians. Fearing that John was a decoy and hearing the fervent and profane exclamations of John Fergrsen the Indians abandoned the attack and fled.

The distance unpaired John's vision and he headed for his friends doubtfully. Then as their talk drifted up to him he recognized the familiar "By Grabs," of Dick Robertson and he proceeded confidently.

W. A. Bedo recognized him and exclaimed, "Yonder's John!" They had hardly expected to find any of them alive. Hammond, on arriving at the ranch had told of all the men having been massacred.

While hiding in the cavity of the tree roots John discovered that he had been wounded three times, in the thigh, side and arm.

The party returned to the scene of the fight and buried the mutilated bodies of Dan Arnold and Lapoleon Lemmons. John Coffey was fifteen years old at the time of this fight, and Arnold and Lemmons were eighteen years old.

This fight took place on June 1, 1871, on Spring Creek, in Coleman county, Texas.

John Coffey was a son of Rich Coffey, noted frontiersman, who lived at the Flat Top Ranch in Coleman county during the early days. He was born June 21, 1856, on the Brazos in Hood county, and with his parents he moved to the mouth of the Concho, on the Colorado river, in 1862, they being among the first settlers there. He was married at the age of 18 to Miss Mollie Brown, of Coleman county, on December 31, 1874. About 1888 Mr. Coffey located on Little Devil's River, near Noxville, Texas, and has resided there since, and today is one of the substantial men of that section, honored and esteemed by all who know him.

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