come and say to George, “It is daylight.” I jumped up and said, “We will go; I am almost dead for water.” We started on the full jump across Barren Valley, toward Mr. G. B. Crawley’s ranch. As we came nearer and nearer, I said, “I can’t see the house.” So we rode on until I saw it was burnt down, and the men said, “Yes, and we see the smoke yet.” Yes, it was still burning. We saw a fresh track here and there. I saw by the look of everything that it was set on fire the morning of the thirteenth of June. George said to me, “Sarah, let us not stop here, for they must be close by.”
I saw that they were afraid. I said to them, “It is of no use to be afraid; we have come to see them and see them we must, and if they kill us we have to die and that is all about it, and now we must have something to eat. George, you go and look out while John and I make some coffee, and when it is ready we will call you.” John said, “Sarah, let us kill some of the chickens.” I said, “No, John, we will not, for they do not belong to us.”
So we made our coffee as quickly as we could. We made it in one of the tin cans that had been burnt, and called George, who came down, and we all ate our breakfast as fast as we could, and I said to my boys, “What do you two think? Had we better go to the Malheur agency, or follow up the trail, which looks as if all the Indians were going towards Stein’s mountains. You are men, you can decide better than I can.”
“Now, Sarah, you know this country better than we do, and you know what to do, and if we say go this way or that way you would blame us if anything should happen, and another thing we have come with you and are at your command. Whatever you say we will follow you.”
“Well, since you have left it all to me, we will follow up the fresh trail that goes towards Stein’s mountains. I think
