We had not to wait long for the red-skins to attempt carrying out their late threats. On this occasion, we also had a good example afforded us of their gratitude, and keen sense of obligation for kindness. About ten o'clock on the following day, I discovered some thirty-five or forty of them descending the side of the mountain near the Ranch, on their ponies. Tom Harvey was at the moment standing by me. He recognized an Indian at their head whom he had almost, as he himself expressed it, raised. He had lived with Tom for several years, and on one occasion, had saved Tom's life. Naturally enough, old love for the lad, who was now barely eighteen years of age, moved Harvey's bowels strongly with compassion. Being, as my readers already know, a largely fat man, his compassion for the young Pah-ute was as oilily large and full-sized. To state matters briefly, he wished to save him, and applied to me for permission to go out and warn him to leave. "If I grant it, you must keep your tongue still, upon our being here." "In course I will, Cap!" "Not one word must you utter about our presence at the Ranch." "D'yer think I'm a fool, Cap?" Well! It can be no use to induce the belief that I did not wish him to go. Perhaps, at the time, owing to my conversation with Laithrop on the night before, I may have fancied we had judged the red rascals too harshly. Possibly—but there is no reason for my hesitation, or beating the cover. I may as well have it out, at once. The truth is, like an idiot, I permitted him to constitute himself good adviser to the one red-skin in particular, and necessarily to the others in general. With my full sympathy he walked towards the Indians, and motioned to him he had recognized, to come forward. The young Pah-ute advanced. Tom spoke to him, and the red-skin replied, making a gesture of dissent as he did so. After this Harvey continued long and earnestly, apparently urging him warmly to induce his colored friends to desist from their hostile intentions. The Indian, with an emphatic movement of the arm, seemed positively to refuse attempting to bring them to any such concession. It was then I saw the Ranger point in the direction of the corral in which I had stationed portion of my men. Immediately that I saw this, I became aware of the folly I had been guilty of, even more clearly than Harvey himself, soon afterwards, was of his. The young red-skin turned at once to his companions, pointing to the corral, and uttering a few rapid words. Then I saw Tom Harvey rushing back towards One of our own men had been instantly killed by their volley. My wish was to follow them instantly. But, in this instance, my orders were not attended to. The boys had rushed upon Harvey and seized him. They were already violently discussing the question whether they should shoot or hang him for the crime he had committed. It was fortunate for him that my wrath, as well as that of Arnold and Painter, although fierce enough, was scarcely so savage as theirs was. Brighton Bill and Butch', I knew, would stand by me in almost any case, whether they agreed with me or not. If matters came to the worst, I also felt certain that we might count upon the assistance of George Laithrop. Rushing amongst them, it was with no small violence, and even a fierce blow or two, that I struggled to the side of the pale and weaponless Harvey, and wrenched him from their hands. "What are you doing—Rangers?" "A' going to hang him, darned quick." "Without even a trial?" I demanded. "We'll jist try him, arterwards." "Then, by God!" I said, "you will have to hang me and try me afterwards, too." As they paused for perhaps half a minute, I continued without giving them a chance to speak. "I believed you chose me your Captain, yet here you are going to hang one of my boys, without letting me say a single word." "Say it darned sharp, then, Cap!" "And give us your orders to run him up with a rope, or put a bullet through his skull, in two minutes," roared out another. As they were again crowding up and one of them had grasped Harvey by the collar, Ben Painter, followed by Arnold, had struggled to my side and thrust him back. "I tell yer," he shouted out, for otherwise he would scarcely have been heard, "Mose is right. He's Captain. We mustn't have any Vigilance Committee business, but do up things square." "We'll take him down to Susanville, and give him a fair trial," added Arnold. "And then yer can hang him, if yer choose to," exclaimed Butch'. "Yer'll only have tu wait twenty-four hours." By this time, the last speaker and Brighton Bill had vigorously thrust their way to my side, and I felt I had a sufficient support to carry my point and save Harvey from the menacing rope and tree which had so lately reared themselves before him. But he also seemed to feel his increased chance of safety, and anxious to improve it, attempted to commence defending himself. When, however, he did so, I cut him short with a fierce whisper, announcing to him that if he uttered "a single word," I would abandon When this was at last effected, I placed him in the charge of Painter and Brighton Bill, while we buried the man who had been slain through his insane want of judgment. That night we slept in George Laithrop's house, and on the following morning we were no sooner stirring, than it was discovered that while we had been sleeping, Tom Harvey had been awake. In other words, he had made tracks. It must be remembered that there was scarcely one of our party who, while engaged in active work, looking after the Indians, was not in the habit of keeping one eye at least half-open in the hours of his intermittent rest. Possibly, however, it was the belief that there was no actual danger immediately around us, as well as the security Tom's size and weight appeared to afford against any attempt on his part to escape, that prevented our slumbers from being broken. At all events, it was difficult for us to realize the fact that he had managed it. We were all of us sleeping upon the floor of the house. Our blankets were all we had. Beds were then a scarcity, in this portion of the West, as, indeed, they would be now, at any Ranch in a section of it not too thickly populated. How the deuce he managed to step over the prostrate forms of so many of us as were lying between him and the door, without disturbing one of "I'm darned if yer didn't manage the thing well, Mose." After this, none of us again alluded to it. Life was too active and full of daily excitement, to give us time for recalling such an event after it had reckoned itself with the doings of the past. Only once since then, did I hear anything of "Fatty." He had been seen by a trapper on the Humboldt River, and had then said he was on the way to Salt Lake City. He may possibly by this time have become a Mormon, and been enrolled as an elder of that polygamous community. Some time in July, 1862, I received a letter from the last-named place. A few months earlier I had written to my wife, begging her to come to me, and giving her directions how to cross the Plains. This letter was from her. She had immediately complied with my wishes, and requested me to meet her as soon after she left Almost immediately, I left Susanville for Virginia City, Nevada. Thence, I went to Dayton. Here I met an overland stage-driver. From him I heard that he had passed a train at Austin, in which I might find my wife. Accordingly, I purchased a horse and side-saddle from the keeper of the hotel, who was named Jaquish, and on the succeeding day was again in the saddle. Dan Vanderhoof, a friend of mine whom I had known for several years, accompanied me portion of the way to Carson City. I went to this place with the view of meeting Colonel P. E. Connor with his command of California Volunteers. My friend introduced me to him and Major Gallagher, and I was asked to accompany them some eight miles down the Carson River to Reed's Station. It was to talk upon "business." Otherwise, I should have certainly declined deviating from the road, so increasingly anxious was I to see the little woman from whom I had so long been separated. This business was, after the evening meal, speedily arranged. They needed a guide and scout through Idaho and Utah, in the Fall. My qualifications as the last, would counterbalance any deficiency I might have as to the first-named. The necessary details were quickly agreed upon, and early on the next morning I was crossing the Desert towards the big bend of the Carson River. On the day following this, I came upon a large train of stock, and one of the guides told me a larger train was then some four miles behind them, at a distance of something more than a mile from the main track. Pushing on at once, in less than half an hour I came in sight of the encampment. While I was riding up to it, my wife recognized me. How she was able to do so, has, on thinking the matter over, always astonished me. The tan of exposure on the frontier, fuller muscle, and the general style of my dress and equipment, had so thoroughly changed my personal appearance. However, she certainly did know me. As for her, I should have recognized her features, even had she been dressed in the unsightly garb of an Esquimaux. It would be little use for me to detail the words and actions of this meeting. Any man who has been so long separated from his wife as I had been, and any female who had, for so long a period, not seen the face of her husband, will readily imagine what passed between us. We were, nevertheless, quickly compelled to bring our outburst of natural joy to an end, by the approach of Chart Gregory with Mr. and Mrs. Devine, and others of her companions on the train. Then I heard of all the trouble she had been exposed to, and more especially of a fellow named Mat Carpenter, who had been consistently unkind to her since they had first struck the "You needn't look round for him, Mr. P——," said Gregory, as he saw my eyes wandering round the camp, with an ominous look for him. "No sooner had your lady recognized you, than the scamp cleared out." At the instant, the employment of my real name, for the first time in so many years, as well as the polite appellation he had bestowed on "Mrs. P——," so completely astonished me, that I momentarily lost my self-possession. After this I could not help laughing, as my wife also did, although she, very certainly, could not comprehend the motive which induced such an audible peal of merriment on my part. Then she told me that Mr. Gregory had already thrashed Mat, some two days since. At the same time he had told him, I should be made acquainted with his conduct the moment that I met the train. This very clearly accounted for his disappearance, without waiting for an introduction. Having adjusted the side-saddle for my wife, and seen that she was safely mounted, I took behind me what positively needful articles she might require. With a friendly farewell upon our part, and a grateful leave-taking on mine to those of her fellow-travellers who had shown her kindness, we started across the great Desert. Continuing all night, we broke fast next morning at one of the stage stations, and after resting for an hour, once more started. From this point the road followed the river, and in my anxiety to save some eight or ten miles of a track My decision was rapidly formed. Knowing we should soon mount a small ridge, and should on its far side be unseen by them for some time, we had no sooner crossed it, than I turned left into the ravine known as Six-mile CaÑon. Pushing rapidly up this, we made our escape, and I did not mention the narrow chance we had run of an Indian fight, until my wife and myself were in sight of Virginia City. This was, I may undoubtedly say, the first case in which I had turned tail on the red-skins without an interchange of hostile salutations. On arriving at Susanville, my friends told me that the Indians had, the day before, killed Loomis Kellogg and a man of the name of Block, beside wounding Theodore Perdum, at a place more than half-way between Laithrop's Ranch and Mud Springs. They had been attacked by a party of Indians, which were generally in the vicinity of Honey Lake and closely upon the Humboldt. These had been baptized by the settlers as the Smoke-creek tribe, although by no means a tribe in the same sense as the Pah-utes and Modocs were. This band of red-skins was composed of the offscourings of these two tribes who had either fled or been chased from them, simply because they were too scoundrelly and contemptibly degraded, in the eyes of their original brethren, to be trusted or consorted with. Smoke-creek Sam was their chief. He had earned this pre-eminence by being, at long odds, not only the most blood-thirsty villain in this gang of red devils, but perhaps the most irredeemable ruffian the Indian history of the West can chronicle. The outrages in which he and his band had been involved, both at our immediate expense and that of all the settlers anywhere in our vicinity, were well-nigh numberless. During the past year, whether Uncle Sam's patience had been worn out by the accounts he had received of his namesake's rascally and bloody offences, or from a wish to make some capital in the East by bestowing a little affection on his Western nephew, it would be impossible to say. He, however, condescended to bestow a little attention upon Smoke-creek Sam. Some blue-coats had been sent out, and two military posts had been formed. These were, respectively, on Smoke and Granite Creeks, in the centre of the sweep of country exposed to this scoundrel's depredations. For a short time, he became somewhat quieter; but as the blue-coats did not busy themselves in punishing him, he had again plucked up courage, and since the Pah-ute troubles had anew commenced, was, once more, on the war-trail. Harry Arnold had already called the Buckskin Rangers together, and they had determined upon starting for the purpose, if possible, of completely exterminating Smoke-creek Sam and his gang of cut-throats. The second honey-moon of my one marriage was, therefore, brought to an end, or, rather, indefinitely deferred. It had, most certainly, scarcely begun, unless the commencement of such an agreeable period of life may be supposed to take place in the saddle, and in flight from a party of hostile Indians. Short time was allowed me to make my wife as comfortable as the exigencies of the moment permitted. The little woman submitted to them like a veritable heroine. In something less than an hour, we were on our way to the spot where the murders had taken place. While going, we were joined by two companies of soldiers, ordered out for the same purpose. Captain Knight was in command of them; and shortly after we had passed Summit Lake, and reached the place where Fort Warner now stands, I touched on a fresh Indian trail. My readers will not be unlikely to inquire how in the dry season of the year, when the cracked and parched earth takes no footprint, I was able to discern it. A small pebble here and there, freshly turned over, or a few stones formed into a sign for other red-skins, either to tell the day of the month on which they passed, Consequently I sent Arnold up the side of the mountain, to see whether the red-skins might not be still in our neighborhood. The Rangers were on foot, and I and Harry had been in advance of them. As I now continued, Captain Knight overtook me, almost immediately after I had been joined by Brighton Bill and most of the other boys. "They say, Mose, you are on the trail?" "So I am, Captain." "I can see nothing!" "Perhaps not. It needs quick eyes to follow this one." "If there really is one," he said sharply. His tone was not the most agreeably confiding possible, and I raised my eyes from the ground on which they had hitherto been fixed, to contemplate him, when Bill inquired: "'Ow long, Cap, was hit since the blamed cusses went by 'ere?" "From four to six hours. Possibly, something more," was my answer. The officer gave utterance to a low and very dubious whistle, which unmistakably suggested a disbelief in the authority Bill had appealed to. On hearing it the Ranger's bronzed face flushed, and he turned on the captain, exclaiming: "What hin 'ell do you know habout hit? Hi'll bet my bottom dollar, Mose hain't made no mistake." "Well, my lads," said Knight, who, I must do him justice, immediately saw the mistake he had made, "go ahead, if you feel so confoundedly sure of the rascals." "In course we are," put in Butch'. "You just leave Mose alone, and we'll have their hair, afore night." By this time, Arnold had rejoined us. He had as yet seen nothing. Leaving him, therefore, to follow the trail, I went up the mountain to try my luck. As I reached its summit, and cast a careless glance down the other side, which was bare of timber, I caught sight of what I believed must be our Indians. Some juniper trees concealed me. Descending a few paces on the side where I had left the boys, I swung my hat. They understood my meaning and came to a halt. Arnold and Painter very soon joined me, and carefully concealing our movements, we crept again to the summit. As they coincided with me, we immediately returned to our party. Upon informing Captain Knight of what we had seen, he condescended to express his gratification, and immediately ordered his men to continue the trail we had hitherto been pursuing, and follow the red-skins round the far side of the mountain. On my venturing to suggest that he had better send only a portion of his men up the valley, he inquired what reason induced me to advise such a division of his command. "All the red devils are smart enough, Captain! Smoke-creek Sam is 'cuter than every Yankee pedler rolled into one, if that one had been between Honey Lake and the Humboldt for the last five years." "Well! What if he is?" "He's sure to smell us out. But if you will give me part of your men, I will take them with my boys across the mountain. Between us, not a red-skin shall escape." "That's so, Captain!" said Harry Arnold, emphatically. "Mose gives good advice." Whether or no Harry's opinion was so little flattering to his own judgment or not, that he was riled by the preference given to my counsel, modestly as it had been offered him, I am unable to say. With an obstinacy which may be a good thing in regular war, but is surely the reverse of it in following Indians, he would neither abandon his previous determination, nor give me one of his men. He, indeed, did all but order me to continue with him. My back was now up. To his astonishment he found out that I was to the full as—perhaps, even more determined to have my own way in a matter I thoroughly understood, than he was. Possibly, although I do not like to venture such an opinion touching any of Uncle Sam's servants, he may have had no wish to catch the red-skins. In entertaining such a disinclination, he would only be imitating too closely the general policy of our respected relative. Whatever his wish may have been, I ordered the boys to their saddles, and leaving him, struck a long caÑon we had recently passed, which led us almost to the spot on which the Indians had just been sighted, whom Arnold and Ben Painter as well as myself believed to be the Smoke-creek gang. When we reached the valley in which they were, we found ourselves immediately ahead of the course they were taking. No sooner had they spotted our party, which it was easy to do, in a tract of country almost entirely bare of foliage of any description, than they came to a halt. We were yet far beyond rifle-range, and I actually thought they were going to give us the chance of a fair and square stand-up fight. True, however, to their invariable character, the red men thought twice upon the matter. Turning from us they started up the valley, in the direction Knight's command was coming. However, they did not continue their retreat (it was a tolerably rapid one, as our pursuit also was) for more than a mile. Here they plunged into a rocky gorge on their left. Fancying that they might intend drawing the Rangers into a trap, I sent Brighton Bill and four others up the right side of the gorge, which was the most precipitous. Ben Painter, and some half-dozen more, were told to mount the other side. My directions were that they should advance as quickly as was possible, so that they might be able to head the party we were pursuing. It was fortunate that the ground presented tolerably rough travelling for horses, or, as they had necessarily dismounted, it would have been impossible for them to do this. After pursuing the uneven and broken track in the centre of the gorge for a considerable length, perhaps some three-quarters of a mile, it turned suddenly to the right. Here it formed a deep and irregular basin, from which there was only one means of escape. This was a narrow and rocky defile, running up the steep side of the caÑon. As they saw us behind them, they endeavored to mount this. Bill, and the boys who were with him, had, however, Astounded by the totally unexpected warmth with which they had been saluted, they faced round, with the intention of fighting their way through their pursuers. Upon reaching the bend of the gorge, at which it widened into this basin, Ben's party received them with a round volley. The red-skins now knew they were fairly trapped, and drawing back into the basin, commenced, with the fragments of rock, to pile up a rude sort of breastwork. As the boys were dismounting for active business, a blue-coat suddenly appeared upon the scene. The soldiers had reached the mouth of the gorge, and Captain Knight had despatched him to find out what the firing he had heard, meant. It must be owned, this was a sufficiently curious question. As Arnold not unnaturally asked the sergeant, who addressed it to me: "What the devil could it mean?" I replied even more sharply: "You can see for yourself. If the Captain wishes to look at a little real Indian fighting, he's got a chance." Time and words were, at this moment, too valuable for me to waste any more of them. I again turned to the work on hand, and the blue-coat rode back. It may be suspected he was glad enough to do so, as Indian bullets and arrows were at the time rather lively. We were left to finish the affair, without the slightest assistance from the paid servants of Uncle Sam. As we subsequently had reason to know, this was not, however, Wrathful as we not unnaturally felt, we had no opportunity at the instant of discussing the matter with that righteous amount of Buncombe, which is, in similar cases, so gratifying to the average American mind. It should be mentioned, nevertheless, that one of the boys became fearfully disgusted with the conduct of his paid protectors. Indeed, Mart Gilbert, for such was his name, jumped from behind the mass of rock under which he was crouching. In his rage he actually executed an indignant pas seul, as I should in my earlier years have styled it, in the very face of the enemy. While displaying his maniacal agility, he roared out for any "darned red skunk" to show himself and fight him. None of those to whom he addressed himself, however, displayed any wish to accept his invitation. But, naturally enough, they thought they had an excellent chance afforded them for picking him off. A regular storm of bullets and arrows rang and whistled round him. Fortune generally seems to have a sympathy with madness. It certainly had so in this instance. Not one of these missiles even scraped his body. And before a second volley could be discharged at him, with, in all probability, a more successful result for the red-skins, Painter had crept to a point from which he could rake them a second time. This volley was delivered at short range Seeing the disorder into which they were thrown, I gave the boys the order to advance. My words were not quite rapid enough. The boys Brighton Bill had with him were once more in a position available for following the example those with Painter had set them. Demoralized as they were by the second volley, the red-skins nevertheless exhibited what Saxons denominate pluck, and made a furious rush upon the main body of their assailants, meeting us about half-way up to their breastworks. Our work was now short and thorough. Harry and myself had not dismounted. He was a capital horseman, and rode in Comanche style, better even than I did. It was in this fashion that he approached an old Indian who was literally hailing his arrows at us, and shot him from under the neck of his horse. Ridding his hand of the revolver which was attached to his wrist by a strap, he rushed the animal past his prostrate enemy, and took his scalp very neatly, almost at the same instant recovering his seat. The red-skin, however, although dropped by Arnold's shot, very evidently disapproved of the loss of his hair. Raising himself from the ground, precisely at the moment when the former reappeared above the back of his horse, he let fly another arrow. This struck Harry in the back of the neck, immediately behind the vertebral bones, passing directly through it for more than half its length. No time was given the Indian for another shot, as I was sufficiently near to settle him. "I say, Mose! lend me a hand." On looking round, I could not forbear laughing. The manner in which the arrow had passed through Arnold's neck compelled him to protrude his head in front of him in such a strangely quaint fashion. Mirth would have been compulsory, even in one at the point of death. Of course, while laughing, I had pulled out the unpleasant addition to his muscular anatomy. Upon counting the bodies of the dead, we found seventeen. The remainder of the party had managed to effect an escape. After this we returned to the mouth of the gorge, where we did not find Captain Knight and the blue-coats waiting for us. We felt considerably mortified by the fact, that although the slain red-skins might have been a portion of Smoke-creek Sam's band, he himself was, as decidedly, not amongst them. FOOTNOTE: |