University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
MY MISSION OF PEACE.

THE Indians stood behind, the two officers
came towards me together, and I told them
hurriedly that the Indians wanted peace if
they could be left alone about the base of Shasta, and
that I had come from them to say this.

My Indians, seeing me stand quietly and let the
officers approach, had dismounted, and stood watching
every movement, lariats in hand.

I began again excitedly, but the officer forgetting
himself, called out sharply to his corporal, and then
said to me,

“What! are you the—”

I sprang into my saddle in an instant.

“Tokadu! Kisa!” I called to the Indians, and they
laid their hands on their Mexican horses' manes, and
sprang to their backs even as they ran, for these
horses sniff danger as quick as an Indian.

A volley of shots followed us and scattered bits of
bark across our faces from the pines as we disap

[ILLUSTRATION]

DISCUSSING PEACE MEASURES.

[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. A man looks over his shoulder as his horse gallops away. Behind him, several Indians are also on horses and fleeing. The people they are fleeing consist of a crowd of people standing and one person on horseback, all near a barracks-like building which has a flag flying from a flagpole. In the background there are mountains and pine trees.]

peared in the forest, but did no further harm. My
mission of peace was at an end. Bitterly indeed I
deplored its blunt and rough conclusion. I had
always hated war and despised warriors. Warriors
are coarse-natured men trained to destroy what
refined and gentle men build up.

Men fight for freedom of body. There is no such
thing. For six thousand years men have struggled
for a mistake. There is a freedom of mind, and a
man can have that just as much in a monarchy as in
a land even beyond the pale of law. A shoemaker
or mender of nets may be as free of mind as a
monarch. Give us freedom of mind, or rather let
each man emancipate his mind, and all the rest will
follow. It is not in the power of kings to enslave
the mind, or of presidents to emancipate it. Free
the mind and the body will free itself.

Poets, painters, historians, and artists generally,
are responsible for the wars they deprecate, the
devastation they deplore. Let the poet cease to
celebrate men's achievements in battle, men, nine
cases out of ten, who have not even the virtues of a
bull-dog, men in debt, desperate, who have nothing
to lose in the desolation they spread, and everything
to gain, and wars will cease at once. Ridicule the
warrior as we do the bully of the prize ring, as he
deserves to be, and the pen will no longer be the
servant of the sword.

So long as the world goes on admiring these deeds
of ruffianism, so long will wars continue. Let the
historian enter into the heart, the private life of his
hero; let him refuse to be dazzled by the dome of
the temple, but enter in and see for himself, and let
him give the world the cold, clean truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, as he is in duty
and in honour bound, and we will find the hero of
war is much the more a brute and much the less a
man than the bully of the prize ring. The bully
harms no one but his single antagonist; no cities are
burned, no fields laid waste, no orphans made; and
he risks much and makes but little, at the best. The
warrior risks but little, for the chances of being hit
are remote indeed. Any soldier who receives half
the punishment the man of the ring must receive is
sure of promotion and laudation to the skies. Say
what you will, your soldier is a ruffian. The greater
the ruffian the better the soldier.

Should a man not fight to defend his country?
Should he not go around trained and equipped for
battle, and make a machine of himself in a military
system, take all the time he should devote to some
natural and pure pursuit, and devote it to the art of
destroying cities and slaying men? No, there is not
the slightest use or excuse for the soldier. Let all
warriors remain at home and there will be no wars.
Let bullies be treated as they deserve and there will
be no warriors.

If a set of men enter my fields in violation of my
rights, injure my property and take away my corn,
shall I not shoot them down? Shall I not arm my
household, and proceed to their fields and destroy
also? No, you answer, there is a law in the land to
protect you, a higher authority to appeal to.

Well, I say to the nations, there is a God in the
land. A higher authority. Appeal to Him.

But, you answer, there is no God: or what is
much the same thing, you refuse to trust, to believe
that nothing can wrong you so long as you do no
wrong. Very well, even admit there is no God, and
you will find there is a moral idea of right in the
world to-day that will not let one nation long
oppress another.

Beasts have gone back to the jungles. Theseus
may sleep and Hercules put aside his club and
surrender to love. Man is no more in danger from
them.

Savage men have passed away. They come not
down from the north nor up from the south; and
even if they did, I believe they could be won to us
by kindness and an appeal to their sense of right.
But should that not be possible, I know their favour
could be bought with a hundredth part of the time
and money that is spent in a single war.

The loss of life in war is not much—it is the least
of all things to be thought of. Men who fall in

battle have mostly seen enough of life. Many have
passed its prime, all have seen its spring, and they
do not, on an average, lose more than ten or a dozen
years.

It is the bad moral effect. Towns grow up again;
ships rebuild, and nations somehow drag through,
and are going on in a little time the same as before.
But only think how much time, how much talk, how
much that is cruel must come out of the memory of
a single war so long as any one lives to remember it.

If in the great conflagration every book from Genesis
to the New Testament had been utterly swept
away, the world had been another world. The poets,
the painters, the historians, have this in their own
hands. “Peace hath her victories no less renowned
than war.” If I were a great poet, rather than celebrate
the deeds of battle, I would starve.

I now threw all my energy into the effort to keep
faith with the Indians in the mountains.

I reached the Sacramento river and crossed at the
ferry near Rock creek. I hid the Indians' camp
in the willows near the mouth of that stream, and a
few miles from Shasta city, while I took lodgings
at a wayside hotel hard by, and began at once to purchase
arms and ammunition, which I carried by night
to the Indian camp in the willows.

I soon had a good supply, and was only waiting a
fine moonlight night to push out, when it became

evident one evening at my hotel that my movements
were watched.

I ordered my horse, left him standing at the rack,
and went at the back of the house up the hill, and
from a point whence I could not be seen from the
hotel, signalled for one of my Indians. He came,
and I hastily gave this order: “Pack up at once,
three of you, swim your horses, cross the supplies
in the Indian canoe, and push out for home up the
Pit. One of you will come with me, for we must ride
to Shasta city for pistols there, and will then overtake
you before dawn.”

The Indian and I rode leisurely to Shasta city,
waiting for darkness. As I neared town I saw two
men cross a ridge behind us, halt, and then, when they
thought they were unobserved, push hard after us.

I left the Indian on the hill north of town by
the graveyard, and went down to the gunsmith's,
where I had some half-dozen revolvers being repaired.
I hitched my horse at the rack and went in. The
two men rode into town, rode past my horse, eyeing
him closely sideways from under their cavalry hats,
and I then knew that I had been followed from the
mountains, and had something more now than the
settlers to deal with. In a few minutes I saw these
men watching me from the door of the shop across
the narrow street.

It was now nearly dark but I asked the gunsmith to

let me take a brace of the pistols, and go out the back
way and fire them into the hill. I buckled the pistols
about me over my others, he opened the door, I paid
him liberally, and went out, promising soon to return.

I did not discharge a shot, but hurried down a
back alley to a barber's shop and had my long and
luxuriant hair cut close to the scalp. I then bought
a black suit of clothes and new hat at an adjoining
Jew's shop, dressed in a back room, ordering the Jew
to keep my cast-off clothes carefully till I returned,
and then went boldly into the street. My own
brother would not have known me.

I walked leisurely along, looking carefully at the
hundreds of horses hitched at the racks. At length
I found one that looked equal to a long and reckless
ride, unhitched him, mounted and rode up past my
own horse and out of town unchallenged, to my patient
Indian on the hill by the graveyard.

We divided the pistols and struck out up the stage
road for the bridge on the Sacramento. We reached
the end of the bridge in safety, and I hastily handed
the keeper his toll. He took the piece of silver, pronounced
it a bad coin, returned it and demanded
another; all the time talking and causing delay. I
now handed him a piece of gold, and he professed to
be unable to give change. Delay was what he desired.

We left him and galloped across the bridge. We
did not see the bar at the further end, and while the

Indian's horse by some good fortune cleared it, mine
struck it with all his force and fell over it, throwing
me over his head, and bruising me fearfully. I got
on his back again, but was bleeding from my mouth
from internal injuries, and could scarcely keep my
seat. I had lost one of my pistols in the fall. There
was now a sound of horses' feet in the rear, men
calling in the dark, and horsemen thundering across
the bridge. At this point some men came riding
down the narrow road, with its precipitous bluff on
one side and perpendicular wall on the other, and
called out to us to stop.

We set spurs to our horses, and dashed up the hill
right into their faces. They did not fire a shot as we
approached, but halted, let us pass, and then, as if
recovering their senses, sent several random shots
after us. An innocent good-night.

I had my pistol in my hand; and as I could hear
but imperfectly, and was otherwise suffering fearfully,
I hardly knew what I was doing. I fancied I
heard our pursuers upon us, and attempting to wheel
and fire, I accidentally discharged my pistol into the
shoulder of my own horse as we turned the top of
the hill.

The poor beast could only spin around on three
legs now, and as we could not get him to follow the
road farther, the Indian led him off to a thicket of
chaparral, left him, and we hastened on.

I now rode the remaining horse, and the Indian
ran along the dusty walk at my side. We reached
a little mining camp called Churn Town,—a camp
which I had visited often before,—and there finding
a number of horses tied to a rack, we determined to
procure another, since it would be impossible to overtake
our companions half mounted as we were.

The Indian took some money, and went through
the town, in hope of meeting some Mexican
with whom he could deal, and I went down to the
saloon to see what I could do in the same direction.
I found a large number of miners and settlers
engaged in a political meeting. A popular lawyer
was making a great speech on Popular Sovereignty.

I stood in the doorway a little while, noting the
strange proceedings of the strange men in the strange
land, till I saw my Indian leading a horse triumphantly
out of town, then turned, mounted the other
horse, and followed at a good pace. I continued to
suffer and grow weak. It was evident I could not
keep my saddle for the long hard ride, now necessary
from our delay, to overtake our friends. It was now
absolutely necessary that we, or at least one of us,
should overtake the Indians in charge of the supplies
before dawn, for we knew they would refuse to go
forward till they saw that we too were safe.

It was finally decided that when we struck the
stage road I should attempt to make the Indian

camp at the foot of the high backbone mountains of
the McCloud, about twenty-five miles distant, and
there remain till recovered, while the Indian pushed
on. When we came to separate, the kind-hearted
Indian gave me the fresher and stronger horse,
mounted his own tired and bruised mustang, and
rode away in the dark and dust at a gallop.

What a night I had of it! It grew chill towards
morning, and I could not straighten myself in my
saddle. Night birds screamed wickedly in my ears,
and it seemed to me that I had almost finished my
last desperate ride in the mountains.

At dawn, after slowly threading a narrow bushy
trail, around mountains and over gorges, I came
down to the deep and dark blue river.

An Indian set me across in a wretched old boat,
and I took my course across the mountains for the
McCloud. There were some few miners here, and
sometimes I would meet half-tame Indians, and then
half-wild white men.

At dusk I dismounted at the Indian camp, more
dead than alive, and turned the horse out on the
luxuriant grass of the narrow valley. I had no occasion
to keep him now for here the trail ended, and I
could use him no further.

I did not like the look of things here altogether.
The Indians mixed too much with the whites. They
were neither one thing nor the other. I was compelled

to spend the night here, however, but determined
to go on over the high mountain the following
day, on foot, to Hubet Klabul, or “Place of Yellow
Jackets,” where I knew more noble Indians than
these would receive me.

I rose in great pain next morning, and went down
to the brook to bathe my head. While leaning over
the water, my pistol slid from the scabbard into the
stream, and was made useless till it could be taken
to pieces and cleaned. I went back, laid down, and
was waiting for an Indian woman to prepare me
some breakfast, when I saw two suspicious-looking,
half-tame Indians coming down the hill; then three
suspicious-looking white men, with the muzzles
of their rifles levelled at my head, and I was a
prisoner.

My faithful Indian companion of the night before
had almost cost me my life by his kindness. We
had taken the saddle-horse of an honest settler, then
a judge of the Court of Sessions. Some strange hand
had led me by his very door the day before, and I
had been followed in my slow and painful flight.

They took my arms, tied me, and talked very
savagely. I said in a low tone to one of the men
who stood close at my side, “Please don't hang me,
but shoot me. That will be easier and better for us
all.” Maybe it was my boyish face, maybe it was
some secret chord in his heart that only my helplessness

could touch; I do not know what it was, but he
looked at me with a gentleness that I could not mistake,
and I knew at once that I had at least one
friend among my captors.

I soon found that they had no connection with the
soldiers, and that they had no suspicion as to who I
was. This was a great relief, and by the time we
began to return I began to see a possibility of escape.
In those days when the character of the regular army
of the U. S. was not so high as it has been since the
Civil War, there was but little friendship or communication
between the citizen and the soldier. They
never came together if it could be avoided, and when
they did they were as oil and water.

Soon we came to a little mountain stream. I was
feverish and thirsty, and asked for a drink of water.
One of the men filled a cup and raised it to my lips.
I could not take hold of it, for I was bound like a
felon on his way to the gallows. I did not touch the
water, but turned away my head, and in spite of all
my efforts I broke down utterly and burst into tears.

The men looked the other way for awhile, and
then after some consultation they told me if I would
promise not to attempt to escape they would unloose
my arms. I had never been bound before. To have
the spirit of an eagle, and then be fettered like a
felon! That is crucifixion. I gave them my word
of honor to not attempt to escape, and they took it
like men and trusted me utterly.

After two days we reached Shasta city. I could
have escaped on the way. I could have dashed down
one of the hundred steep and bushy mountain-sides
from the trail and laughed at the shots that would
have followed; could have escaped in spite of my
wounds and wasted strength, but I had made a solemn
promise to men who were humane and honourable,
and I was bound to keep it at a fearful cost, and I
knew the cost at the time. At every rugged and
bushy pass on the way to prison I fought a battle
with myself against a reckless and impulsive spirit
that almost lifted me out of the trail, and almost
forced me to dash down the mountain through the
chaparral in spite of my resolution and my promise.

Let us pass hurriedly over those dreadful events;
but remember I kept my promise like a man. There
are a thousand things you will condemn and denounce,
but if you endure what I endured to keep faith with
your captors, I for one will pronounce you not wholly
bad, whatever you may do.