Creek bridge on the Dayton road, the men again met, and immediately set out through the fields west of the race-track to Edgar slough, and then up the Oroville road to the first Chinese camp opposite which they stopped. Charles Slaughter was now of the party, and also Eugene Roberts, a native of Concord, New Hampshire, twenty years of age, a butcher's butcher by occupation. The latter did not know what infatuation led him into the folly, nor did any one else, unless it was the inspiration of the council of nine that overshadowed him as he sawed bones and cut and chopped meat in the room below. In the vicinity were three Chinese camps; and filled now with the demon of destruction Fahey wished to burn them all; but it was thought best by the others to take the first one that night and leave the others for another time.
Close at hand where they now stood, and near the huts, was a barn partially filled with straw, to which through a crack Roberts applied fire. Then they all ran down behind the banks of the creek near by and made ready their pistols to fire upon the Asiatics as they came out. Rare sport! A dog giving the alarm the fire was put out. Then crawling up to the shanty nearest the barn they began to fire into it. The inch boards of which it was made, with the spaces exposed by the cracks and windows, afiTorded not the safest protection, and the occupants watching their chance opened the door, dodged the bullets, and ran into the bushes. Charles Slaughter then fired the barn for the second time, and it burned to the ground. This was laurels sufficient for the night. Returning to headquarters and reporting, they were commended for the bravery and skill with which they opened the campaign. John Slaughter was made lieutenant and others promoted.
On the Humboldt road two miles east of Chico, at Chris Lemm's ranch, stood a shanty tenentcd on the night of March 14, 1877, by six Chinamen, whose
