Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/75

search, and their relations had nearly given them up for dead, when one morning an Indian rode up to the cabin of the Williamses. In those days the settlers did not hesitate to sell us guns and ammunition whenever we could buy, so these brothers proposed to buy the Indian’s horse as soon as he rode up. They offered him a gun, five cans of powder, five boxes of caps, five bars of lead, and after some talk the trade was made. The men took the horse, put him in the stable and closed the door, then went into the house to give him the gun, etc. They gave him the gun, powder, and caps, but would not give him the lead, and because he would not take a part, he gave back what he had taken from them, and went out to the barn to take his horse. Then they set their dog upon him. When bitten by the dog he began halloing, and to his surprise he heard children’s voices answer him, and he knew at once it was the lost children. He made for his camp as fast as he could, and told what had happened, and what he had heard. Brother Natchez and ethers went straight to the cabin of the Williams brothers. The father demanded the children. They denied having them, and after talking quite awhile denied it again, when all at once the brother of the children knocked one of the Williamses clown with his gun, and raised his gun to strike the other, but before he could do so, one of the Williams brothers stooped down and raised a trap-door, on which he had been standing. This was a surprise to my people, who had never seen anything of the kind. The father first peeped down, but could see nothing; then he went down and found his children lying on a little bed with their mouths tied up with rags. He tore the rags away and brought them up. When my people saw their condition, they at once killed both brothers and set fire to the house. Three days after the news was spread as usual. “The bloodthirsty savages had murdered two innocent, hard-