Buckskin Mose

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CIVILIZED LIFE IN A LARGE AND YOUNG CITY--WHAT A REDSKIN WOULD THINK OF IT--A CHANDELIER AND A BONFIRE--THE OLD FRIEND--THE WELL-KNOWN PIPE--TOO OLD TO KILL--SPITTED--THE WHITE MAHALA--AGAIN IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE GOVERNMENT--THREE MORE INDIAN MURDERS --OUR INDIAN RECRUIT--"SHOOT HEAP, BUT NO GUN"--"A CONVARTED RED DEVIL."

  The following winter was passed by me in San Francisco. It was for thefirst time since I had joined Captain Crim in crossing the Plains, thatI had trodden the streets of a large city. All seemed to me so new, sobusy, so thickly populated, that, for a few days, it appeared to me likethe real Wilderness, while I looked back on the mountains, the forests,the canons, and the desert I had left, as my actual world.

  My feelings partially realized those of the savage, when for the firsttime he treads in the active marts of trade, and their equally laboriouswealth or poverty.

  Mingling with his wonder at the thronged and toiling stores, thesuperficial wealth everywhere apparent, the spars and masts of the hugeshipping, the numerous spires, the sloping-eyed and high cheek-bonedChinese, the buzz of countless life surging around him, the clangingbells from the churches, haply the decorated volunteers stepping out tothe voice of drum and trumpet, with the elegantly dressed women, theinanely simpering dandies, and blear-eyed spectacled old men, who havebeen working on and on without pause or cessation for scores ofyears--there cannot but rise in him a feeling of contempt for all hesees before him.

  He may not but contrast his own chainless and unfettered existence withthat walled-in life whose passions are merely, so it would appear tohim, things of routine; whose enjoyments seem to him meaninglessshadows; whose loves and hates would count in his eye as nothing; andwhose range, from the cradle to the grave, is to him narrower than theglad gallop of a single day on which he sights his game, or spots hisenemy.

  But what have I to do with such thoughts as these? My white friendcannot realize them--nor can my red enemy even read them. The first willconsequently laugh at me for indulging in, while the last will neverhear of my having entertained, any such reflections.

  Moreover, after the first week of my sojourn in San Francisco, theygradually wore away. In my early life, which had been for so many yearsalmost forgotten, I had been upon the stage, had dealt in pop-corn, andhad proven my skill as a detective. If I could now find no occasion toemploy one of the last-named class, I could in any case purchase and eatthe second when it came in my way, and gaze upon that which was enactedon the first, either laughingly or applausively. So, by degrees, theold-time fancies came back, and I began to believe there might be somedelight in civilization after all. I saw a few friends, and, as I wasnot without money, made many new. Some of these have been reallyfriends, and some of them--well! it would be useless to sum up theircharacters, as they were not the red devils I had latterly been broughtin contact with. Possibly, none of them would have felt any pleasure inmaking my body serve as a living chandelier, by way of a prelude tolighting a bonfire with my person as the central faggot. Yet, verycertainly, they would have cleaned me out of all I had about me, withoutthe slightest compunction, not even allowing me to retain the price ofone meal.

  Amongst my old friends, I met Captain Crim, then a wealthy horse-dealer,dwelling on the Mission, and one whose word would have been good forthousands.

  After our first interview, we dined together; and when I had given him arough sketch of my adventurous life after he had left me at Susanville,we had a long talk over the events attending my first appearance on thePlains under my engagement with him. Many of the incidents which hadoccurred during it had almost been forgotten by me until he recalledthem, and three or four of them were solemnized by a hearty roar oflaughter upon my part, in which my old Captain joined with a will.

  However, all pleasures must end. It was thus with my visit to thecapital of the West.

  After the first week of my stay in San Francisco, there is no doubt butthat I began to enjoy the novelty of complete civilization thoroughly.Neither can there be any doubt but that complete civilization asthoroughly enjoyed me. In truth, in some three months it literallycleaned me out. An offer was made me of a brief engagement on the stage.But my first week's repugnance, when my pockets were not empty, had withtheir emptiness deepened into a strong disgust. Shaking off the dustfrom the soles, not of my feet, but my boots, in the spring, I againturned my face towards Honey Lake.

  It need scarcely be affirmed that my little wife was glad enough to seeme again. Without imputing to her any lack of affection, it may,however, be assumed that the Rangers were almost as pleased as she was,at my reappearance in Susanville. Brighton Bill, as I afterwards heard,said:

  "Now, Hi'm blowed hif we shan't 'ave ha little fun. Mose his has good haCap for ha lark, has ha Hingun skrimmage."

  Whether so or not, the boys rallied round me at once, and, greatly to mywife's disgust, commenced a series of plannings and plottings for theoccupation of the ensuing summer and winter.

  This year was commemorated by a very heavy emigration to Idaho by theway of Susanville, Surprise Valley, and Peuabla Mountain. GeneralWright, who was on his way to the vicinity of the latter, for thepurpose of prospecting with a party of some twelve men, had beenspecially recommended to me, and tarried with me for some four or fiveweeks.

  After this, he had started in the direction of Peuabla. For aconsiderable length of time no news came back to us, in any way, of hisparty. Naturally, this, at first, caused small uneasiness on our parts.Neither the Pony Express nor the Telegraph have yet penetrated everypart of the great but sparsely settled West. In consequence of this, thelack of constant intelligence scarcely argued that the receipt of newsmust unmistakably be unpleasant, if not disastrous.

  However, I chanced to be out with a party of the Rangers, on our way tothe Humboldt River. We were near Black Rock, when we happened to meet anold Pah-ute Indian with several squaws, possibly or not, his ownproperty. There was an appearance of a sort of Mormon respectabilityabout the wrinkled red-skin, which at the moment impressed me, to acertain extent, favorably. Feeling this, I stepped up to him for thepurpose of speaking. Judge what my astonishment was, when, drawing nearhim, to notice that he was smoking a pipe which I positively rememberedas having been in the possession of the General.

  There could not be the slightest mistake in this fact.

  It was much too costly a pipe to have come into the possession of anyIndian, save as a present, or by the more usual means in which thered-skin may acquire such property. My readers will very readilyunderstand what such means are. Wright had himself told me how highly hevalued this pipe. It had been presented to him by a dear friend, who wasat this time dead. There must necessarily have been but smallprobability that it should have been a voluntary gift to the oldPah-ute.

  Taking it at once from him, I demanded "where" he "got it."

  "Me heap find em," was his leisurely reply. "Injin no steal 'em."

  By this time, Bill Dow and several of the other Rangers had joined us.Dow also had happened to notice the pipe in the General's possession.With an angry imprecation, he exclaimed:

  "Yer lie, yer red devil!" Then turning to me, he said: "Mose! as sure asGod's in Heaven, that 'ere cuss has had a hand in killing Wright, forsartin. I reckon we'd jist better go over to Pabla, and look arter hisparty. Not, Cap! as I wants to dictate to yer. Only knowing as how theGineral was a real friend of your'n, I thought, perhaps--"

  "Thought!" I cried out, "Dow, when you know you are right."

  "I'm dead sartin of it," he muttered between his teeth.

  The aged Pah-ute had, while this was passing, been regarding me withthat stoical indifference of feature which is so characteristic of thered man. Looking fixedly at him, I said:

  "If you were not an old fellow, I would at once kill you. But ifanything has gone wrong with the General or his party, see that younever again allow yourself to come within sight of me."

  Immediately after this, we started for Summit Lake, and p
assing it, wentdown the canyon as far as the Puabla. On the following day about noon, wecame to a cabin which had very evidently been occupied by Wright and hiscompanions. It was now empty. The small canyon in which this rough cabinstood was filled with cottonwood trees and a dense growth of smallunderbrush. As we were examining the place, I came upon the firstfragmentary testimony of the dark tragedy which had branded this spotwith an ineffaceable stain. This was the leg of a man, which had beenhewn off just below the knee. While I was yet looking at it, Arnoldcalled out in a tremulously hollow voice, which at once indicated fromhow intensely nervous an agitation he must be suffering:

  "Come here, Mose."

  He was but a short distance in advance of me; and when I arrived wherehe was standing, let me own that I frankly regretted not having cut thethroat of the wrinkled old ruffian whose possession of the General'spipe had placed me on the track of this most dastardly and savagemurder--aye! and the throats of all the squaws who were with him, too.Had I not, in my own person, had a sufficient experience of thegentleness of these she-devils? Could I doubt that it had been alsodisplayed in the atrocious massacre of General Wright and theunfortunate men who had accompanied him?

  I shall, of course, be asked for the full particulars of this ferociousbutchery. Let me be as brief as I can in penning the details, whichalmost sicken me while I recall them.

  We found the General actually spitted, a pointed stake having beenforced lengthwise from behind through his body, and protruding beneathhis chin. This stake had then been placed upon two crotched limbs oftrees, above a fire, of which nothing but the dead embers now remained.As far as we could make out, there were no other marks of violence onthe charred shape of the victim. He must have been killed by theterrible torture of thrusting this stake through his entrails. Theremainder of his party had been literally cut into pieces. Arms, hands,heads, feet, legs, thighs, and bodies had been hewn apart, and werescattered around in the brush. Nor was there more than one of thevictims who might have been slain before they were subjected to thisinch by inch torture. Only a single wound by a bullet could be found byus, on any of these mutilated fragments of what had once been life.

  And these brutal devils are the race that the Government of the UnitedStates demand should be dealt gently with by its children. I shouldrefrain from denouncing them, perhaps, when the barbarities I had twiceexperienced at their hands are remembered by me. But in such a case asthe present one, where my memory has no individual suffering to give itedge and bitterness, I may surely be permitted to express my opinions.This, the more specially, when I know that these opinions are shared inby every settler who has had some two or three years' practical dealingwith the falsehood, rascality, treachery, blood-thirstiness, anddemon-like barbarity, which, almost invariably, in every instance,characterize the Western Indian.

  What, let me fearlessly ask, could in any way have been the naturalresult of the hesitation of the Government at Washington, to operateefficiently for the protection of its own children?

  These men had, undoubtedly, the right to claim such a protection. Anyother country to which they might have belonged, would have given it tothem. It has, however, been consistently refused, or accorded them in away which renders it worse than useless. They have, consequently, beencompelled to rely upon themselves for protection, it being carried outafter their own fashion. Necessarily, this fashion has varied. But, inno case, could it take a shape other than of the struggle ever-existentbetween the conflicting parties, when law has become paralyzed, orneglects to put in a satisfactory appearance. For many years, legalrestraint had been overridden in San Francisco. At length, the conditionof society resulting from this became unbearable. It was then that thecitizens of the capital of the young and vigorous West took the matterinto their own hands, independently of the State authorities. Avigilance committee sprung from their actual necessity, and, in a shortspace of time, daily crime was reduced to the ordinary ratio it bears incivilization. Even in the great Eastern metropolis, during the past twoor three years, a similar necessity has been proclaimed, and a likeexertion of the popular will has been predicted by some of the leadingNew York journals. There, however, law seems recently to have awakenedfrom its long slumber, and, if consistently active and severe, willrepress the lawlessness of passion or criminality.

  But where there is no law, save on sparsely rare occasions, as issufficiently evidenced on the mountains, and in the valleys and plainsbordering on California, the action of vigilance committees, or somerestraint as sharp and certain, is a paramount necessity.

  How can it be wondered at, while crime of the nature of thelast-mentioned, and others which I have recounted, are of well-nighyearly occurrence, that it should have exerted, on the part of thoseexposed to its visitation--without the interference of nationalprotection except at rare intervals--the determination to repress it,bloodily and mercilessly, as the instances in which it develops its ownatrocity and pitilessness, too evidently require?

  However, let me avoid the appearance of defending what I believe to bethe righteous exertion of a spirit of self-protection, and leave it tothe unbiassed judgment of my readers.

  Burying the fragments of the bodies of the poor victims, or as many ofthem as we could find after a long and sorrowful search, in as decent amanner as we could, we resumed our way to the Humboldt. Here we locatedsome six miles above Lancaster, on this river, and met with no verygreat success in our search for the precious metals. While here, anIndian from above Gravelly Ford, known by us as Shoshonee John, came into our party. He could talk very fair English, and had been driven fromhis tribe in consequence of his openly professed friendly feeling to thewhites. After a brief discussion among the boys, he was permitted toremain with us, until we started on our return. This was some time inAugust, in 1865.

  We had reached the back of Granite Creek Station, which was then kept byAllen Simmons, from Oroville, and a man of the name of Bill Curry, whenwe fell in with some eight or ten Mahalas, with their papooses orchildren.

  One of the Mahalas was a white woman. She had been taken by the Bannockswhen she was no more than twelve years of age, in 1851. All herrelatives and companions had been killed by them. Only herself had beenspared. She was now married to a red-skin, by whom, she told us, she hadfive children. On our asking her to leave her captors, with the tearsstanding in her eyes, she refused to do so. She said that she knew of nofriends who would receive her. What, she did not attempt to disguisethat she considered as the disgrace of her present life, would, as shefelt, preclude her from all white friendship. In consequence of this,she avowed herself determined to remain. On being further questioned,she told us that we were the first white men she had seen since theperiod of her capture. I then asked her, if she had heard of thehorrible massacre of General Wright and his party. Bursting into tears,she affirmed that it had been "the work of Smoke-creek Sam, and thewretches who were with him."

  Her grief and disgust at this were so marked and unmistakable, that Ihad no hesitation in asking her to tell us how and where we might findthis scoundrel and his gang of ruffians. Without the slightesthesitation, she did so. Indeed, from the sudden flash in her eyes, andthe rush of color to her tanned, yet still smooth cheeks, I feltconvinced she experienced a bitter delight in believing that we mightpunish him. It is generally impossible for the necessity of life, oreven for love, to blot out the ties of blood. She might be compulsorilya Mahala, yet was still, at heart, a white woman.

  Again I endeavored to induce her to quit her present mode of life, but,unhesitatingly, although sadly, she refused to abandon the red-skin withwhom her existence had been for so many years linked, and his and herchildren.

  At Granite Station, Al. Simmons gave us additional informationrespecting Smoke-creek Sam. He had a few days before surprised a partyof Chinamen, between the Peuabla mountain and Owyhee River. Some sixty,in all of them, had been murdered by the gang. This had been effected,in a similar way to the cruel mode of death by which General Wright hadperished.

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p; Pushing on, therefore, to the military station at Smoke Creek, wedetailed the circumstances of these bloody outrages to Captain Smith,who was then in command of it.

  His horror at hearing of the last, and being made acquainted with thedetails of the first, by those who had seen the remains of the murderedparty, was as thorough, almost, as ours had been. An arrangement withhim was, in consequence, speedily concluded, by which we were to proceedto Susanville, and, after giving our horses and ourselves a few days'rest, return to the station. Thence we were to start, in company withhimself and men, to inflict, if possible, a well-deserved andretributory punishment on Smoke-creek Sam and his gang.

  On arriving at the station, we found a party of three or four men fromthe Humboldt, who had preceded us by a few hours.

  They had brought the intelligence that a party of Indians had visitedGranite Creek on the day before. The station, as they informed us, hadbeen burned to the ground. Al. Simmons, Bill Curry, and another man, hadbeen killed. When A. R. Le Roy, who had joined the Rangers previous toour leaving the Humboldt River, heard this, he was fearfully excited.Al. Simmons had been one of his dearest friends, and the news of thisadditional murder increased not only his rage, but that of all of us.

  Captain Smith was by no means dilatory. His men were soon in theirsaddles, after we had rejoined him, and we pushed on rapidly to GraniteCreek.

  About one hundred yards west of the station, we found the body ofSimmons, lying on his face upon the ground. A small bullet-hole was justoutside of his heart. He must have been slain instantly. Myself and theother boys felt his death as keenly as we had done anything, for sometime. Scarcely eight days since, we had been sitting with him, andtalking of the butchery of the Chinese; and now we saw that his life hadbeen sacrificed by the red devils as relentlessly, although in a lesscowardly manner. As for Le Roy, when he saw the body, he flung himselfon the ground beside it, and throwing his arms around the lifeless formof his friend, burst into a savage flood of tears. Within the burned-uptimber of the station lay poor Curry, who had been slain there. Thethird man had evidently attempted to escape by flight. But the Indianshad been too quick for him. Judging by their tracks, which were stillclearly visible, he had been pursued, overtaken, and brought back. Lessfortunate than the others, his death had not been so speedy. He had beenstretched upon the earth with his face downwards. His hands and feet hadbeen fastened by thongs to stakes driven into it. Brush and branches,hewn from the trees, had been then heaped upon his body and set fire to.

  It would be unnecessary to say, that had anything been wanting toquicken our desire for retaliation, this must have done so. Afterattending to a hurried burial, we took the trail, which led us evidentlyin the direction the white Mahala had indicated to me, when I had askedher to tell me where Smoke-creek Sam and his gang were generally to befound.

  Two days after, we camped for the night in a small valley in themountains above Black Rock.

  This valley was some six miles, or more, distant from an almost levelpiece of ground, to which the name of Soldier Meadows had been given.

  After attending to the demands of our stomachs, for we had been on ourown legs or those of our horses since daybreak, I went out with someother of the Rangers, as scouts, to discover if we were yet near thered-skins. Possibly an hour and a half may have elapsed, when somecamp-fires were seen by me in the direction of the upper part of Queen'sRiver. Shoshonee John had accompanied me, and detected them as quicklyas I had done.

  "Pah-ute Ingin!" he at once said.

  "Or Smoke-creek Sam!" I could not help replying.

  "All, heap same. Pah-ute as bad, only Smoky-creek Sam some worse."

  Without pausing to discuss his exceeding Irish summary of the merits ofthe original tribe, and those who had absconded or been expelled fromit, we immediately returned to our camp, being joined upon our way byButch' Hasbrouck, who had also detected the same camp-fires.

  "How far off, Butch', did you believe the red-skins were?"

  "Ten miles will bring yer to 'em."

  "He right!" sententiously observed the Indian who had accompanied me.

  My estimate of the distance agreed with theirs, and upon our reachingthe camp, the Rangers immediately took to their saddles, and CaptainSmith ordered his men to mount. While they were doing this the red-skinaddressed me, saying:

  "Give Shoshonee John a gun, to help shoot heap Pah-utes."

  "How do I know you will?"

  The question was prompted by the knowledge I had acquired of the Indiancharacter. It seemed to me that if the petitioner had owned a gun at thetime about which he first joined us, he might, not improbably, have keptout of our neighborhood. He, however, answered me promptly enough.

  "Pah-ute Ingin heap shoot Shoshonee John when catch him. Shoshonee Johnshoot him, too."

  It might be so. But Harry Arnold and Ben Painter took the same view ofthe case as I did, and the matter was compromised by Captain Smithordering him to be given a cavalry sabre. At the same time, BrightonBill, who had been listening, growled out:

  "'E's ha convarted red devil. Hi'm blamed hif H'i wouldn't 'a given 'ima rifle."

  When within a mile or something more of the camp, a halt was ordered,while some of us made a reconnoissance. Creeping up to their position,we found the band must count heavily. It had encamped on the very edgeof the desert, which was here some forty miles across, without a singlebush or shrub growing upon it. It formed almost a dead level, and in thedry season was so hard that a horse would scarcely leave the slightesttrack by which scout or red-skin could have trailed it.