Where I was exactly I couldn't say, only that I had the plains of western Kansas behind me, the coolness of the high peaks of the Rockies before me, and the will to survive within me.
And there was that matter of those Indians I'd left behind, and me without a canteen now.
They'd swept down upon me of a morning as I was squatting near my coffeepot. I'd been awake only a few minutes and the sky was still gray in the hour before the sun would poke it's head out from beyond the blanket of the horizon, and when they rushed me I'd only had time to rekindle my fire and set some water on to boil. Normally I was a man came wide awake first thing, but that morning there was still some sleep in my eyes and my brain was still a bit foggy.
Not so foggy I hadn't buckled on my guns already, though. If not for that I'd have been done for, but when the first Indian leaped among my camp my eyes cleared and my brain got un-foggy right quick.
I seen him leap at me with a knife in his hand, and I rolled off to my left and drew my gun. I always kept them fully loaded, and times like that were the reasons why I didn't leave a chamber empty.
Had I known what lay before me in the coming weeks, I might have taken to carrying an extra gun...and a pair of shotguns!