Part 3 (1/2)

”Yes,” I holloed as loud as I could, ”I've got one by the hair of his head and I'll cut his heart out if he makes a bad move. Joel's got his in the same fix.”

”Hold on to them boys,” uncle said, ”Hold on to them. We will start up the fires so you can see where to come,” and the fires lit up mighty quick.

I shoved up on my Indian's hair and made him tramp up. When we got to where Aunt Susan Bailey, Bellry and Rachel could see us with the Indians, they commenced to jump up and down and clap their hands, exclaiming, ”O, Goody, goody,” the tears running down their faces. The little boys and girls all joined in.

When the camp got more settled, the other men started out to look after the stock and we had uncle with his seven shot Colt rifle watching the Indians. Joel and I untied the Indians' belts and took their tomahocks, knives, bows and arrows from them. Each had a fox skin full of arrows.

We were going to hide them, when all at once the Indian I had taken in, commenced holloing, ”Show shoney humbugen--”

But that was as far as he got, when we holloed to uncle, ”Knock him down, knock him down, don't let him hollo.”

We dropped the belts and Indian weapons and ran back with our fists shut, ready to strike as soon as we could get to him. Uncle had his fist dawn to strike, but grabbed his Colts rifle which was leaning against a wagon, and drew his gun on them both and said, ”Drop to the ground or I'll blow both your brains out.”

They dropped flat on their faces.

”Now,” said uncle, ”If you fellows move or say a word until tomorrow morning at sun up, I'll blow your brains out.”

They lay there all night and did not move until after sun up the next morning.

The men gathered up the stock and saw to them as well as they could and then came in and got their suppers. It was getting late by this time.

Uncle sat in his place and watched the Indians all night. All the men guarded the stock and the camp except Joel and I. The men told us that we were excused from further duty and that Joel and I might go to bed and sleep. We were the only men in the train that slept any that night.

I don't believe the women slept much either.

The next morning we held a council concerning these chiefs. Uncle had more experience with Indians than the rest of us.

”If we kill them,” said uncle, ”The whole tribe might come on us, and if we took them along, the other Indians would see us and they might come onto us and overpower us. The best thing we can do, is to give them their breakfast and treat them well and let them go, and maybe they'll not bother us any more.”

This we did. That morning we got a late start. The sun was way up and it must have been about nine o'clock before we drove out.

While we were eating our dinner the following day, some Indians came to us--one was a chief of another tribe. He was an educated chief and could talk our language. We had just gotten out of the tribe's territory where we had the time the night before. He told my uncle and my brother, Crawford, that those chiefs, whom Joel and I had taken, were bad men, and if we had brought them with us, they would have fixed them for us and that those bad chiefs had no more idea of our men going out and jumping onto them, than nothing in the world, and that that was all that saved us. He also stated that the bad Indians did not care how many of their men they lost, just so they accomplished the killing of the white people and got their stock.

Joel kept his word in reference to the wine. He drove the ox team and wagon in which was the wine, also the bedding for uncle's family. He would claim he was sleepy, get the girls to drive for him, get the drinking cup, fill it two-thirds full when their backs were turned, and then come running and holloing for me to hold up, for he wanted a drink, as I had a keg of water in the hind end of my wagon. He would never spill a bit of it. I would drink part of it and Joel never let the rest go to waste. Joel was the prettiest runner I ever saw. He could run so level, that his head looked like it was sailing through the air. I never saw him outrun, and I had seen him run with some who were counted fast. He brought me wine several times. I asked him one day, how much wine there was in that keg.

”O! There's right smart of it,” he replied.

I told him not to bring me any more, and that was the last he brought me, but I heard it was dry before we got through.

CHAPTER IV

OVER THE MOUNTAINS INTO CALIFORNIA

While we were going down the Humbolt River, several days before we got to the sink or desert, six of our men got tired going so slow, and went on and left us. Uncle tried to get them to stay with us, but when they would go, he offered them provisions to take along. Four of them were so gritty that they would not take any. Two of them did. These four thought they would come to what were called ”trading posts,” but they had all gone back to California, as we afterwards found. The men had nearly starved to death. They had to shoot birds and they used everything they could find for food.

These ”trading posts” were kept by men who had brought on pack mules, provisions from California, to sell to emigrants and bought up weak stock and herded them on the gra.s.s until they got strong enough to drive across the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California.

Uncle thought we would soon come to one of these trading posts, where we could get flour, but the traders had all gone back and ceased to trade.

We ran out of flour and sea biscuits when we crossed the desert into Carson Valley. We had to live on beef and mutton for five or six hundred miles. The first flour and bread we got to eat, was after we crossed the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I thought I had seen mountains before, but these beat them all. When we got to the headwaters of the Carson River, for it was up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we went over what was called the Johnson Cut Off. When we got to the foot of the mountain, I looked up its side and told Uncle Joshua that we could never get up this mountain in this world, for it looked as straight up as a wall could possibly be.