one of them to the government. This is given by the Indians to help feed the government stock, which is kept at work hauling stone, lumber, wood, etc., etc. Dave is very desirous of having the Piutes in, all parts of Nevada notified to come to the reservation, and help build it up. He claims that in one year’s time they will have room and work for them, and they can come there and build a home. He is also very anxious that the whiskey traffic among them be stopped, and to that end asks that the officers in every town will see that a drunken Indian be punished as severely as possibly. This, he claims, is a terrible curse among them, and is gaining ground.”
No newspaper in San Francisco would publish this statement, and they were obliged to have it done in Reno, Nevada, in a paper the civilized world knows nothing of. I will only speak now of the character of “Captain Dave.” I said Mr. Batemann hired an Indian to frighten Mr. Balcom away. That Indian was this very “Captain Dave.” I have known him many years, and have always been ashamed of him as a Piute. Twenty years ago I knew him to blow a young girl’s brains out because she refused to marry him, and his behavior ever since has been in keeping with that. It is no secret among my people that he exposes his wife to bad white men for money. He is not a “leading man.” No man can be a leading man among Indians, unless he is honorable and brave. Dave is neither. On the contrary, he has no character whatever, and could always be hired to do a wicked thing. He is my own cousin.
Mr. Mushrush, the farmer spoken of in the printed article, does all his farming in the bar-room at Wadsworth. We have a store at this agency kept by Mr. Eugene Griswold. He is the man who always gets the beef contracts. It may be in another man’s name sometimes, but it is all the same.
