University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
BLOOD ON THE SNOW.

THERE was a tribe of Indians camped down
on the rapid, rocky Klamat river — a sullen,
ugly set were they, too: at least so said The
Forks. Never social, hardly seeming to notice the
whites, who were now thick about them, below them,
above them, on the river and all around them. Sometimes
we would meet one on the narrow trail; he
would gather his skins about him, hide his bow and
arrows under their folds, and, without seeming to see
any one, would move past us still as a shadow. I do
not remember that I ever saw one of these Indians
laugh, not even to smile. A hard-featured, half-starved
set of savages, of whom the wise men of the
camp prophesied no good.

The snow, unusually deep this winter, had driven
them all down from the mountains, and they were
compelled to camp on the river.

The game, too, had been driven down along with
the Indians, but it was of but little use to them.

Their bows and arrows did poor competition with the
rifles of the whites in the killing of the game. The
whites fairly filled the cabins with deer and elk, got all
the lion's share, and left the Indians almost destitute.

Another thing that made it rather more hard on
the Indians than anything else, was the utter failure
of the annual run of salmon the summer before, on
account of the muddy water. The Klamat, which
had poured from the mountain lakes to the sea as
clear as glass, was now made muddy and turbid from
the miners washing for gold on its banks and its
tributaries. The trout turned on their sides and
died; the salmon from the sea came in but rarely on
account of this; and what few did come were pretty
safe from the spears of the Indians, because of the
coloured water; so that supply, which was more than
all others their bread and their meat, was entirely
cut off.

Mine? It was all a mystery to these Indians as
long as they were permitted to live. Besides, there
were some whites mining who made poor headway
against hunger. I have seen them gather in groups
on the bank above the mines and watch in silence for
hours as if endeavouring to make it out; at last they
would shrug their shoulders, draw their skins closer
about them, and stalk away no wiser than before.

Why we should tear up the earth, toil like gnomes
from sun-up to sun-down, rain or sun, destroy the

forests and pollute the rivers, was to them more than
a mystery—it was a terror. I believe they accepted
it as a curse, the work of evil spirits, and so bowed to
it in sublime silence.

This loss of salmon was a greater loss than you
would suppose. These fish in the spring-time pour
up these streams from the sea in incalculable swarms.
They fairly darken the water. On the head of the
Sacramento, before that once beautiful river was
changed from a silver sheet to a dirty yellow stream,
I have seen between the Devil's Castle and Mount
Shasta the stream so filled with salmon that it was
impossible to force a horse across the current. Of
course, this was not usual, and now can only be met
with hard up at the heads of mountain streams where
mining is not carried on, and where the advance of
the fish is checked by falls on the head of the stream.
The amount of salmon which the Indians would
spear and dry in the sun, and hoard away for winter,
under such circumstances, can be imagined; and I
can now better understand their utter discomfiture at
the loss of their fisheries than I did then.

A sharp, fierce winter was upon them; for reasons
above stated they had no store of provisions on hand,
save, perhaps, a few dried roots and berries; and the
whites had swept away and swallowed up the game
before them as fast as it had been driven by the
winter from the mountains. Yet I do not know that

any one thought of all this then. I am sure I did not;
and I do not remember hearing any allusion made to
these things by the bearded men of the camp, old
enough, and wise enough too, to look at the heart of
things. Perhaps it was because they were all so busy
and intent on getting gold. I do remember distinctly,
however, that there was a pretty general feeling
against the Indians down on the river—a general
feeling of dislike and distrust.

What made matters worse, there was a set of men,
low men, loafers, and of the lowest type, who would
hang around those lodges at night, give the Indians
whiskey of the vilest sort, debauch their women, and
cheat the men out of their skins and bows and arrows.
There was not a saloon, not a gambling den in camp
that did not have a sheaf of feathered, flint-headed
arrows in an otter quiver, and a yew bow hanging
behind the bar.

Perhaps there was a grim sort of philosophy in the
red man so disposing of his bow and arrows now that
the game was gone and they were of no further use.
Sold them for bread for his starving babes, maybe.
How many tragedies are hidden here? How many
tales of devotion, self-denial, and sacrifice, as true as
the white man ever lived, as pure, and brave, and
beautiful as ever gave tongue to eloquence or pen to
song, sleep here with the dust of these sad and silent
people on the bank of the stormy river!

In this condition of things, about mid-winter, when
the snow was deep and crusted stiff, and all nature
seemed dead and buried in a ruffled shroud, there was
a murder. The Indians had broken out! The prophesied
massacre had begun! Killed by the Indians!
It swept like a telegram through the camp. Confused
and incoherent, it is true, but it gathered force
and form as the tale flew on from tongue to tongue,
until it assumed a frightful shape.

A man had been killed by the Indians down at the
rancheria. Not much of a man, it is true. A “capper;”
a sort of tool and hanger-on about the lowest gambling
dens. Killed, too, down in the Indian camp
when he should have been in bed, or at home, or at
least in company with his kind.

All this made the miners hesitate a bit as they
hurriedly gathered in at The Forks, with their long
Kentucky rifles, their pistols capped and primed, and
bowie knives in their belts.

But as the gathering storm that was to sweep the
Indians from the earth took shape and form, these
honest men stood out in little knots, leaning on their
rifles in the streets, and gravely questioned whether,
all things considered, the death of the “Chicken,” for
that was the dead man's name, was sufficient cause
for interference.

To their eternal credit these men mainly decided
that it was not, and two by two they turned away,

went back to their cabins, hung their rifles up on the
rack, and turned their thoughts to their own affairs.

But the hangers-on about the town were terribly
enraged. “A man has been killed!” they proclaimed
aloud. “A man has been murdered by the
savages!! We shall all be massacred! butchered!
burnt!!”

In one of the saloons where men were wont to
meet at night, have stag-dances, and drink lightning,
a short, important man, with the print of a glass-tumbler
cut above his eye, arose and made a speech.

“Fellow-miners (he had never touched a pick in
his life), I am ready to die for me country! (He
was an Irishman sent out to Sydney at the Crown's
expense.) What have I to live for? (Nothing
whatever, as far as anyone could tell.) Fellow-miners,
a man has been kilt by the treacherous
savages—kilt in cold blood! Fellow-miners, let us
advance upon the inemy. Let us—let us—fellow-miners,
let us take a drink and advance upon the
inemy.”

This man had borrowed a pistol, and held or flourished
it in his hand as he talked to the crowd of
idlers, rum-dealers, and desperadoes—to the most of
whom any diversion from the monotony of camp-life,
or excitement, seemed a blessing.

“Range around me. Rally to the bar and take a
drink, every man of you, at me own ixpense.” The

bar-keeper, who was also proprietor of the place,
a man not much above the type of the speaker,
ventured a mild remonstrance at this wholesale
generosity; but the pistol, flourished in a very suggestive
way, settled the matter, and, with something
of a groan, he set his decanters to the crowd, and
became a bankrupt.

This was the beginning; they passed from saloon
to saloon, or, rather, from door to door; the short,
stout Irishman making speeches and the mob
gathering force and arms as it went, and then, wild
with drink and excitement, moved down upon the
Indians, some miles away on the bank of the river.

“Come,” said the Prince to me, as they passed out
of town, “let us see this through. Here will be
blood. We will see from the hill overlooking the
camp. I hope the Indians are `on it'—hope to God
they are `heeled,' and that they will receive the
wretches warmly as they deserve.” The Prince was
wild.

Maybe his own wretchedness had something to do
with his wrath; but I think not. I should rather say
that had he been in strength and spirits, and had his
pistols, which had long since been disposed of for
bread, he had met this mob face to face, and sent
it back to town or to the place where the wretches
belonged.

We followed not far behind the crowd of fifty or

sixty men armed with pistols, rifles, knives, and
hatchets.

The trail led to a little point overlooking the bar
on which the Indian huts were huddled.

The river made a bend about there. It ground
and boiled in a crescent blocked with running
ice and snow. They were out in the extreme curve
of a horse-shoe made by the river, and we advanced
from without. They were in a net. They had only
a choice of deaths; by drowning, or death at
the hands of their hereditary foe.

It was nearly night; cold and sharp the wind blew
up the river and the snow flew around like feathers.
Not an Indian to be seen. The thin blue smoke
came slowly up, as if afraid to leave the wigwams,
and the traditional, ever watchful and wakeful
Indian dog was not to be seen or heard. The men
hurried down upon the camp, spreading out upon
the horse-shoe as they advanced in a run.

“Stop here,” said the Prince; and we stood from
the wind behind a boulder that stood, tall as a cabin,
upon the bar. The crowd advanced to within half a
pistol shot, and gave a shout as they drew and
levelled their arms. Old squaws came out—bang!
bang! bang! shot after shot, and they were pierced
and fell, or turned to run.

Some men sprung up, wounded, but fell the
instant, for the whites, yelling, howling, screaming,

were among the lodges, shooting down at arm's
length man, woman, or child. Some attempted the
river, I should say, for I afterwards saw streams of
blood upon the ice, but not one escaped; nor was a
hand raised in defence. It was all done in a little time.
Instantly as the shots and shouts began we two
advanced, we rushed into the camp, and when we
reached the spot only now and then a shot was
heard within a lodge, dispatching a wounded man or
woman. The few surviving children—for nearly all
had been starved to death—had taken refuge under
skins and under lodges overthrown, hidden away as
little kittens will hide just old enough to spit and
hiss, and hide when they first see the face of man.
These were now dragged forth and shot. Not all
these men who made this mob, bad as they were,
did this—only a few; but enough to leave, as far
as they could, no living thing. Christ! it was
pitiful! The babies did not scream. Not a wail,
not a sound. The murdered men and women, in
the few minutes that the breath took leave, did not
even groan.

As we came up a man named “Shon”—at least,
that was all the name I knew for him—held up a
baby by the leg, a naked, bony little thing, which he
had dragged from under a lodge—held it up with one
hand, and with the other blew its head to pieces with
his pistol.

I must stop here to say that this man Shon soon
left camp, and was afterwards hung by the Vigilance
Committee near Lewiston, Idaho Territory; that he
whined for his life like a puppy, and died like
a coward as he was. I chronicle this fact with a
feeling of perfect delight.

He was a tall, spare man, with small, grey eyes,
a weak, wicked mouth, colourless and treacherous,
that was for ever smiling and smirking in your face.

Shun a man like that. A man who always smiles
is a treacherous-natured, contemptible coward.

He knows, himself, how villainous and contemptible
he is, and he feels that you know it too, and so
tries to smile his way into your favour. Turn away
from the man who smiles and smiles, and rubs his
hands as if he felt and all men knew, that they were
really dirty.

You can put more souls of such men as that inside
of a single grain of sand than there are dimes in the
national debt.

This man threw down the body of the child among
the dead, and rushed across to where a pair of ruffians
had dragged up another, a little girl, naked, bony,
thin as a shadow, starved into a ghost. He caught
her by the hair with a howl of delight, placed the
pistol to her head and turned around to point the
muzzle out of range of his companions who stood
around on the other side.

The child did not cry—she did not even flinch.
Perhaps she did not know what it meant; but I
should rather believe she had seen so much of death
there, so much misery, the steady, silent work of the
monster famine through the village day after day,
that she did not care. I saw her face; it did not
even wince. Her lips were thin and fixed, and firm
as iron.

The villian, having turned her around, now lifted
his arm, cocked the pistol, and—

“Stop that, you infernal scoundrel! Stop that,
or die! You damned assassin, let go that child, or
I will pitch you neck and crop into the Klamat.”

The Prince had him by the throat with one hand,
and with the other he wrested the pistol from his
grasp and threw it into the river. The Prince had
not even so much as a knife. The man did not know
this, nor did the Prince care, or he had not thrown
away the weapon he wrung from his hand. The
Prince pushed the child behind him, and advanced
towards the short, fat Sydney convict, who had now
turned, pistol in hand, in his direction.

“Keep your distance, you Sydney duck, keep your
distance, or I will send you to hell across lots in a
second.”

There are some hard names given on the Pacific;
but when you call a man a “Sydney duck” it is
well understood that you mean blood. If you call a

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY.

[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. Two men stand facing each other. One is pointing at the other and one has a gun in his right hand, pointed downwards. There are two dead men behind the man with the gun, and in the background there is another man with a gun pointed at an Indian. There are three teepees in the background, and a man and child are standing huddled together looking at the two men. ]

man a liar to his face you must prepare to knock him
down on the spot, or he will perform that office for
you. If he does not, or does not attempt it, he is
counted a coward and is in disgrace.

When you call a man a “Sydney duck,” however,
something more than blows are meant; that means
blood. There is but one expression, a vile one, that
cannot well be named, that means so much, or carries
so much disgrace as this.

The man turned away cowed and baffled. He had
looked in the Prince's face, and saw that he was born
his master.

As for myself, I was not only helpless, but, as was
always the case on similar occasions, stupid, awkward,
speechless. I went up to the little girl, however,
got a robe out of one of the lodges—for they had not
yet set fire to the village—and put it around her
naked little body. After that, as I moved about
among the dead, or stepped aside to the river to see
the streams of blood on the snow and ice, she followed
close as a shadow behind me, but said nothing.

Suddenly there was a sharp yell, a volley of oaths,
exclamations, a scuffle and blows.

“Scalp him! Scalp him! the little savage! Scalp
him and throw him in the river!”

From out of the piles of dead somewhere, no one
could tell exactly where or when, an apparition had
sprung up—a naked little Indian boy, that might

have been all the way from twelve to twenty, armed
with a knotted war-club, and fallen upon his foes like
a fury.

The poor little hero, starved into a shadow, stood
little show there, though he had been a very Hercules
in courage. He was felled almost instantly by kicks
and blows; and the very number of his enemies saved
his life, for they could neither shoot nor stab him with
safety, as they crowded and crushed around him.

How or why he was finally spared, was always
a marvel. Quite likely the example of the Prince
had moved some of the men to more humanity. As
for Shon and Sydney, they had sauntered off with
some others towards town at this time, which also,
maybe, contributed to the Indian boy's chance for
life.

When the crowd that had formed a knot about him
had broken up, and I first got sight of him, he was
sitting on a stone with his hands between his naked
legs, and blood dripping from his long hair, which
fell down in strings over his drooping forehead. He
had been stunned by a grazing shot, no doubt, and
had fallen among the first. He came up to his work,
though, like a man, when his senses returned, and
without counting the chances, lifted his two hands to
do with all his might the thing he had been taught.

Valour, such valour as that, is not a cheap or common
thing. It is rare enough to be respected even by

the worst of men. It is only the coward that affects
to despise such courage. He is moved to this altogether
by the lowest kind of jealousy. A coward
knows how entirely contemptible he is, and can
hardly bear to see another dignified with that
noble attribute which he for ever feels is no part
of his nature.

So this boy sat there on the stone as the village
burned, the smoke from burning skins, the wild-rye
straw, willow-baskets and Indian robes, ascended,
and a smell of burning bodies went up to the Indians'
God and the God of us all, and no one said nay, and
no one approached him; the men looked at him from
under their slouched hats as they moved around,
but said nothing.

I pitied him. God knows I pitied him. I clasped
my hands together in grief. I was a boy myself,
alone, helpless, in an army of strong and unsympathetic
men. I would have gone up and put my arms
about the wild and splendid little savage, bloody and
desperate as he was, so lonely now, so intimate with
death, so pitiful! if I had dared, dared the reproach
of men-brutes.

But besides that there was a sort of nobility about
him; his recklessness, his desire to die, lifting his
little arms against an army of strong and reckless
men, his proud and defiant courage, that made me
feel at once that he was above me, stronger, somehow

better, than I. Still, he was a boy and I was a boy—
the only boys in the camp; and my heart went out,
strong and true, towards him.

The work of destruction was now too complete. There
was not found another living thing—nothing but two
or three Indians that had been shot and shot, and yet
seemed determined never to die, that lay in the bloody
snow down towards the rim of the river.

Naked nearly, they were, and only skeletons, with
the longest and blackest hair tangled and tossed, and
blown in strips and strings, or in clouds out on the
white and the blood-red snow, or down their tawny
backs, or over their bony breasts, about their dusky
forms, fierce and unconquered, with the bloodless lips
set close, and blue, and cold, and firm, like steel.

The dead lay around us, piled up in places, limbs
twisted with limbs in the wrestle with death; a mother
embracing her boy here; an arm thrown around a
neck there: as if these wild people could love as well
as die.