Accordingly, they were taken to Susanville and placed in a species of lock-up which there did duty as a jail.
As we quitted Willow Creek, it may perhaps be mentioned that one of the red ruffians appealed to us to let him go, on the score that he had done nothing but "shoot him gun into old white man." This plea of innocence was necessarily unattended to.
We had intended to give them a fair trial, and it was to come off very quickly. It is only in large cities that justice is slow and dilatory. But on the morning immediately preceding the day which had been fixed forit, I mean the second morning of their imprisonment, Harry Arnold, in company with Butch' Hasbrouck, met me. It was in front of J. I. Steward's hotel. The former said:
"Cap! we were coming to see you."
"What is up now?"
He had given me the rank I had held when out with the Rangers. This he seldom did, even then, unless we were in active and trying pursuit of the red-skins. What did it mean?
"Wall, Mose, du yer want the infarnal red cusses who helped murder my Hattie to git clean off?" demanded Butch'.
"Certainly not!"
"Shut up, Butch'," exclaimed Harry, "until we are somewhere, where none can hear a word you are saying."
"Ye're jist right. I will."
When Arnold spoke last, I noticed that his strong fingers had grasped the arm of his companion, tightly. Moreover, I was enabled to remark that the face of the latter had more of its old vitality. This was, however, at present, by no means of an alluringly agreeable character. His eyes seemed to have the very devil in them. When he replied to Harry, he strode rapidly up the street. Arnold and myself followed him, until we had passed the last house or log shanty in it, and had reached a clear and open spot. Here I came to a dead halt.
"And now, man, what is it you have to tell me?"
"Du yer know the skunk the folks in Washington sent to Pyramid Lake, last fall, as[3]Injun agint?"
"Yes!"
"What d'yer think he's a' goin' tu du with the cuss'd red devils we cotched up thar," as he said this, he gave a jerk with his thumb in the direction leading to it, "at Willier Crik?"
"What can he do with them?"
"He's a' goin' to rin 'em off to-morrer, on to the Resarvation. So we can't du nothing with them," Hasbrouck replied savagely.
"You must be dreaming, Butch'," I exclaimed angrily. "The thieving scoundrel doesn't dare do it."
"Doesn't he?" asked Arnold, with a bitter smile. "Why! he isn't even one of Uncle Sam's blue-coats!"
Arnold then explained to me how the other Ranger had learned that this plan had actually been decided upon, and gave me the names of some of our more timidly loyal fellow-citizens, who had been induced by the agent to guarantee him their support. What was there for us to do? This fellow actually represented our respected Uncle! He had probably called for the assistance of the regulars stationed in the vicinity of Susanville. Little doubt, perhaps, existed in our minds that our boys could have whipped them with the help of their friends, who, I firmly believe, would have turned out in mass, at such a call as we might have made. But this would have been insurrection, or treason, or something of the sort. I could see nothing left for us to do, but to grin and bear it. That was a natural necessity.
But somehow or other, on that night the matter was removed from our hands, as well as that of the Indian agent aforesaid. While we were all sleeping the sound slumber of law-abiding citizens of the United States, aparty of masked men overpowered the jailer, and broke into the prison.
On the next morning, a fine tree which stood at the side of Albert Smith's dwelling-house bore a new kind of fruit. The red-skins who had murdered Hattie Pierson and her parents were dangling from its branches. They had paid for their crime with its legitimate penalty.
It was a sound and vigorous specimen of frontier justice.
Suspicion pointed its finger at many of my fellow-citizens, possibly, myself included. The Indian agent was furious. But the perpetrators of this act of justice, outside of law, kept their own counsel. Up to the present, as I have reason to know, suspicion has failed to obtain positive proof of the hands that hung the five Pah-ute assassins.
This volume is now drawing to a close, as in 1869 I quitted that portion of the country in which I had so long been residing. Nevertheless, in the preceding year, one more bloody act occurred which it may be necessary to record. Hiram Partridge and Vesper Coburn were at this period keeping the station at Deep Hole Springs, to which my pilgrimage in the winter of 1861 with lame Tom Bear may be remembered by any one who has not shrunken from my company up to the present time. Hiram was a cousin of John Partridge, and had once been a partner with me in working my claim at the mines on the Humboldt. Vesper Coburn was an old schoolfellow and playmate of mine, when we were no more than children. Consequently, I no sooner heard of their murder than I determined, were it within my power, to avenge it.
Previous to this, the organization of the Buckskin Rangers had been broken up.
Susanville had somewhat declined from its old prosperity. If the settlement round Honey Lake had been growing at all, it was certainly not doing so, at its right end. Montana had sprung into sudden prominence, Idaho was greatly increasing in wealth and the number of its inhabitants, while other places in the surrounding section of the country, to the south and west, were rapidly outstripping us. Many of my old comrades had gone to the two places I have more distinctly named, while some of them had struck on beyond, as far as Lower California.
When this outrage occurred, I chanced to be at Reno, a small town on the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was then completed as far as Salt Lake City. It is at Reno the junction is now formed with the line for Virginia City, Nevada.
Some months had passed subsequent to the death of Partridge and Coburn, when I encountered three red-skins in the vicinity of this place, and recognized the horse on which one of them was mounted as Hiram's property. Beside this, they all of them wore articles of clothing which were decidedly not made by the Indians. Had anything else been wanting to convince me of their being the criminals, this was supplied by my personal knowledge of the faces of two of them. These had been in the actual employment of the murdered men.
They started on their return to the mountains, and I followed them.
My pursuit only counted one white, all told—myself. Their number was triple mine. The odds were sufficient to justify the weaker party in employing stratagem. Suffice it that I did so, and counted three scalps against the deaths of my old playmate and recent partner.
If any doubt had been entertained by me of the justice of this action, it would have been speedily dispelled by the additional proof shortly after afforded me. It was only a few days after my return to the Humboldt, that a red-skin, known by me as Pah-ute Jim, accused me of killing his brother, one of the two Indians who had been employed by my murdered friends.
"Yes!" I unhesitatingly answered. "I did kill him, because he helped to kill Partridge and Coburn."
"Umph!" he ejaculated. "Natches heap tell 'um kill. No kill, Natches heap kill Injin."
Natches, I ought possibly to mention, was, at this time, the chief of the Pah-utes.
With this incident, I may fairly conclude. My Indian hunting, trapping, and fighting ended with it. Since this I have been engaged in mining and other pursuits, having resided for some length of time in Salt Lake City among the Mormons. Should my first literary venture, my dear reader, prove tolerably successful, Heaven only can tell whether it may not be followed by another. If so, it is just within the range of possibility, I may turn from Indian fighting to Mormon polygamy. I can scarcely say which you may think the least interesting. But I can honestly vouch for it, the many-wife business will be the most amusing.
FOOTNOTE:[3]Unfortunately, I am unable to recall the name of this individual, and therefore cannot pillory it.
[3]Unfortunately, I am unable to recall the name of this individual, and therefore cannot pillory it.
[3]Unfortunately, I am unable to recall the name of this individual, and therefore cannot pillory it.