Family History Friday: Story about my Great-Grandfather Hatch

Since my children like to check my blog, I am doing this column so they will hear some family history stories every so often. We have copies of these for them to read or that I can read to them, but putting a story here occasionally is just another way to make sure that they become familiar with their ancestors.

This story is about my Great Grandfather, Heber Albert Hatch (known as Bert.) His daughter, my Grandma Johnson (Ruth Hatch Johnson) was a storyteller. I used to love to listen to her tell these stories. One year she wrote some of her stories down and made a little book for our family. My mom made copies of this book for her grandchildren, so Jumble has her own copy but none of my other children were born yet so they don't have a copy (other than a CD that we have that includes the book--I guess I need to print it up for each of them.) Anyway, the following story is from that little book:

BERT AND THE INDIANS
When Bert was about fifteen years old, he lived on a ranch outside Taylor in Northern Arizona. There was no mail service to Taylor, Snowflake, or Showlow in those days so the men in these communities took turns riding into Holbrook to get the mail. Now Bert wasn't a man yet, but he still took his turn at riding after the mail.
When he was a boy, the Indians in Northern Arizona were still quite wild, and sometimes the Apaches would go on the warpath. Several times that year there had been rumors that the Indians were stirred up again and were sending out raiding parties.
Bert had a small pony that he loved very much. This pony was a fast runner, so Bert decided to ride this pony the day he went after the mail, and it was a good thing he did.
He had already got the mail and was in the wooded hills outside Taylor when this happened. He reached the top of a small knoll, and he looked down into the valley, and there next to a small camp were about ten Indians in full war paint dancing around. They looked like they were almost ready to get on their horses and ride out on a raid.
Now when Bert saw those Indians, he became very frightened because he had heard stories of what the Indians did to lone travelers. His breath came in rapid gasps, and he turned his pony around quickly and started back down the hill, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The Indians saw him and with loud whoopings and hollerings they jumped on their horses and started after him. He urged his pony on and began dodging in and out among the trees trying to lose the Indians, but they never lost sight of him and kept coming.

Bert's pony was a fast runner, but he soon got tired and tried to slow down. When this happened, Bert became even more frightened and wondered what he could do to get away from the Indians. About this time he came to a small creek, and an idea came to him. He remembered hearing of an old Indian trick of going up a stream in order not to make any tracks. Quickly he turned his pony into the water and galloped up the stream. When the Indians came to the edge of the stream, they had to stop the chase because they didn't know which way he had gone.
After Bert had gone quite a ways up the stream, he crossed over to the other side and circled around for a time before he went on home. He did this to be sure he didn't run into the Indians again.
When Bert got home, he learned that a Brother Robinson from the country was missing. It was feared that he had been found by the same Indians that had chased Bert. About two days later his body was found in the very same stream Bert had made his escape in. It made Bert very thankful he had ridden his fast pony because if he hadn't, the Indians would probably have caught him and killed him like they did Brother Robinson.

It's amazing to think that my Great-Grandfather was chased by Indians! I'm sure that Heavenly Father had a hand in his decision to take his fastest pony and in the idea he had to ride down the stream. We are grateful his life was preserved so that we can be here today. I wish I had a photo of Heber Albert Hatch to include, but I haven't managed to acquire copies of my parent's photos yet. Something else I need to do!