University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
A PRISONER.

SOME of the lawyers went away. A bed
was improvised for me on the floor, and I
believe Lockhart, or at least some one, kept
watch over me during the night.

Judge Roseborough, who is now the chief Judge
of the northern district of California, with his home
still at Yreka, has seen fit to give to the world
through some insinuating reporter an account of my
singular capture, imprisonment, and this Star Chamber
proceeding, and I believe claims some merit for having
saved my life.

No doubt he did save my life. But somehow, I
cannot feel any great gratitude toward him for that,
under the circumstances. At the best he only prevented
a foul and cowardly murder. He might have
done much more. He might have said some kind
words, spoken some earnest advice, and given some
direction to my unsettled and uncertain life. I was
dying, morally; I was starving to death for counsel

and kind words after what had just been said and
done. My heart was filling full of bitterness. But
perhaps he did not understand me.

Lockhart was in better temper the next morning.
He told me, which no doubt was the truth, that the
whole town and settlements were in a blaze of
excitement about the massacre, and that I was
liable to be shot by almost any one, unless I by a
prudent course of conduct put down the suspicions
against me.

I asked to be allowed to return to Soda Springs,
but he insisted that the only safe thing for me to do
was to join the expedition already on the way
against the Indians. I saw that he was determined
I should do this, and consented. He gave me
a letter—a very friendly letter—to Joseph Rogers, a
son of one of the men who had been murdered in
Pit River Valley, and then with the expedition. It
was an open and very complimentary letter. But
other letters were sent in the hands of the two men
who were sent with me.

These were men, I was told, belonging to the
expedition, who had not yet left town, and would
be glad to show me the way to the camp; but the
truth was, I was still a prisoner, and these men were
my keepers.

Very soon and very early we rode out of town
against the rising sun, past the grave-yard and past
the gallows toward Mount Shasta.

My heart was full of bitterness and revenge. As
we crossed the crest of the little brown hill that
looks above the town, I half turned in my saddle
and shook a thin and nervous hand against its cold
and cruel inhabitants.

I never entered that town again, save as an
enemy, for more than a decade.

At dusk we came upon the camp of the expedition,
noisy and boisterous, half buried in the snow.

This was the rudest set of men I ever saw
gathered together for any purpose whatever. There
were, perhaps, a dozen good men, as good as there
were in the land; but the rank and file were made up
of thieves, bar-room loafers, gutter snipes, and men
of desperate character and fortunes. They growled
and grumbled and fought half the time.

We travelled by night, drawing the supplies on
slides, in order to get the horses over the snow when
it was hard and frozen. I had told them the story
of my dangerous descent into the valley, but was
not believed by half the company. They could not
understand what upon earth a man could mean by
such a hazard. They were practical fellows. They
put everything on the popular conceived basis of the
age. They could not see what interest I had in
going there, could not see “what I could make by
it.” They did not see where I could make it
“pay.”

One day I woke up to a strange sensation. More
than once I had heard some talk about “a man
living with the Indians.” This man they talked of,
and of whom they seemed to have but a rough idea,
was to be captured, skinned alive, roasted, scalped,
and, in fact, to undergo all the refined tortures
known to the border.

It crossed my mind suddenly, like a flash, that I
was that man.

I saw at the time, however, that there was not
the slightest suspicion that the pale, slim boy before
them was “the man who lived with the Indians.”

Through half-friendly savages and other means
it had gone abroad among the settlers that there
was a white man living with the Indians. Nothing
could induce these men to believe that a man could
live with the Indians for any other purpose than to
take part with them in their wars, and to plunder the
whites. And, as a rule, so far as I know, those who
have cast their fortunes in with the Indians have
been outlaws, men who could not live longer with
their kind.

But these fellows expected to find the renegade a
strong-limbed, bearded, desperate man. Perhaps
had any one told them there and then that I was
that man they would have laughed in his face.

My first impulse was to run away. Had it then
been night I certainly should have fled. All day I

watched my chance to escape, but no chance came.
That night I had no opportunity without great hazard,
and soon I began to think better of my projected
flight through the snow.

Still cherishing the plan of my little Republic or
independent Reservation, I saw that the Shasta Indians
and their friends must show no sympathy with
the Indians charged with the massacre, and determined
to remain a little longer. Besides, I then liked
the excitement of war, and the real men of the company
were coming to be my friends.

The captain of the company was Gideon S. Whitey,
a brave, resolute, and honourable man. He afterwards
married a Modoc, or Pit River squaw, and
now lives with her and his large family of children
at Canon City, Oregon.

At last we entered the valley. I had travelled
nearly five hundred miles in the snow since leaving
it; forming a triangle in my route, with Mount
Shasta in the centre.

We soon were at work. Tragic and sanguinary
scenes occurred. I cannot enter into detail, it would
fill a volume.

It would also fill many pages to explain how by
degrees I came to enter into the spirit of the war
against my allies. Nor is there any real excuse for
my conduct. I was wrong, but not wholly wrong.
The surroundings and all the circumstances of the

time contributed to lead me to take a most active
part. I could not then as now rise above the situation
and survey the whole scene. From a prisoner
I became a leader.

Two decisive battles, or rather massacres, took
place, and perhaps a thousand Indians perished.
The white men fought as well out of camp as they did
in camp, and that is saying a vast deal for their valour
indeed.

However, I have not that high opinion of physical
courage in which it is too generally held. My observation
proves to me that the very worst possible
man in the world may also be the very bravest man,
for a day at least, that lives. I have seen too much
to be mistaken in this. I have seen a row of men
standing up on whisky barrels under a tree, with
ropes around their necks, ready to die at the hands
of the unflinching vigilantes. They sang a filthy
song in chorus, howled and cursed, and then danced
a breakdown till the kegs were kicked from under
them. The world sets too high a mark on brute,
bull-dog courage.

After a time Lockhart came up with his command
from Red Bluffs, and desiring the control of the
whole force, a difficulty arose and Whitey resigned.
Another man was chosen as nominal leader, but the
plain truth is, before we had been in the valley a
month I gave direction, and had in fact charge of

the expedition. Most of these men are dead now,
but scattered around somewhere on earth a few may
be found, and they will tell you that by my energy,
recklessness, and knowledge of the country and
Indian customs, I, and I only, made the bloody expedition
a success. I tell this in sorrow. It is a thousand
times more to my shame than honour, and I
shall never cease to regret it.

Before leaving the valley, we surprised a camp by
stealing upon it at night and lying in wait till
dawn.

It was a bloody affair for the Indians. Hundreds
lay heaped together about the lodges, where they
fell by rifle, pistol, and knife.

The white butchers scalped the dead every one.
One of the ruffians, known as Dutch Frank, cut
off their ears and strung them about his horse's
neck.

After drawing off the force some of the men lingered
behind and shot and plundered the medicine-man,
or priest. This priest is a non-combatant, is
never armed, and comes upon the field only after the
fight to chant for the dead. This one was dressed in
a costly robe of sables, with a cap made of skins of
the white fox. The rear of our force, on return to
camp, showed a man dressed in this singular garb
still wet with blood.

I was glad when we broke camp to return. We

had found the valley without a white man; we left it
with scarcely an Indian.

I had had a hard time of it. I had endured insults
from the roughs of the party rather than enter into
their battles, which were generally fought out with
the fist. It had in fact become intolerable. One
morning I gently cocked my pistol, and asked the
ruffian who had taken more than one occasion to
insult me to step out. He declined to do this, said
he was not my equal in the use of arms, but that
some lucky day he would get even. He waited his
time.

The snow had disappeared as we returned; spring
was upon us, and the journey was wild, picturesque
and not unpleasant. Nearly every man carried a
little captive Indian before him on his horse; most of
them had Indian scalps clinging to their belts, and,
dressed in furs and buckskins, cut in fantastic shapes
for Indian wear, they were a strange and motley sight
to look upon as they moved in single file through
the deep, dark forests.

At the camp, after crossing the summit, with the
McCloud and my Indian camp to the left, and Yreka
in front, I determined to leave the command and seek
my tawny friends at the base of Shasta.

I fancied I had made friends, and expected to have
honourable mention from those who returned to the
city. I do not know whether this was the case or

not. Newspapers never reach an Indian camp,
and I never entered Yreka again, save as an enemy,
for more than a decade thereafter.

Sam Lockhart I never saw again. He was a brave
man, prejudiced and reckless, but, I think, a good
man at heart. He was killed in one of the hand-to-hand
battles over the mines of Owyhee.

I made a little speech to the party, shook hands
with about half of them, mounted my mule, and
rode away alone in one direction, while they took
another.

After about an hour's ride I heard some one
calling after me. I turned round; they called
again, and I rode back. On nearing a thicket, a
double-barrelled shot gun loaded with pistol balls
was fired across my breast.

The assassin nearly missed his mark. Only my
right arm was shot through and disabled by a pistol
ball, and the mule was hit slightly in the neck. I
did not see any one. The mule wheeled and dashed
through the bushes on the back track at a furious
speed.

How dreadful I felt. To think that this was done
by one or more of the roughs, who had followed me,
after having been my companions in war!

Two of these men had sneeringly cautioned me to
look out for Indians that morning as I was preparing
to leave. They had taken this course to murder me,

and lay it on the Indians, as is often done on the
border.

My bitterness knew no bounds. I could not
return and overtake the company, wounded as I was.
I rode on rapidly, bleeding and faint.

I laid the matter on the whole company. I sometimes
felt that a good number must have consented
to this, if they had not advised it. Then I came to
the conclusion that they had determined from the
first who I was, and that I should die; but after
finding how useful I was, deferred my attempted
execution till the campaign was over. I long nursed
that thought, and am even now not certain that it
was incorrect.

I reached the Now-aw-wa valley, now known, I
believe, by the vulgar name of “Squaw valley,” and
found it still as a tomb. Mountain Joe and I had
built some cabins here and sheds for the stock; but
no stock, no Indians were in sight. At last, sick
from the loss of blood, I found a camp up on a hill-side,
and there dismounted. The Indians were
silent and sullen. A woman came at last to bring
me water, and then saw my wound. That moved
their pity. I told them the white men had done it,
and that made them more than half my friends again.