They saw the country settling up day by day, but
never raised a hand against the whites.
The whites were insolent, it is true, for had not Government given them the land, and had they not journeyed a long way to possess it?
Then the country was fenced up and their ponies could not get pasture ; the lands were ploughed and the squaws could not get roots and acorns. But worst of all, the whites killed and frightened off the game, and the Indians began to starve and die. Once or twice they undertook to beg, about the Forks of the Willamette, but the settlers set dogs on them, and they went back to their lodges and died off in a few years by thousands. The world wondered why the Indians died. " They are passing away," said the substantial idiot who edited the " Star of the West." " They are a doomed race," said the minister. I think they were.
Less than six months ago I visited this spot. How many Indians do you suppose I found there of the permanent old settlers ? Two ! Captain Jim and his squaw. All along the silver river, where it makes its flashing course against the sun, the banks are black and mellow, and the grass grows tall and strong from the bones and ashes of the u doomed race."
Captain Jim declines to surrender to the Reserva tion. They caught him once, him and his squaw, but he got away after a year or two, and not only brought back his own squaw, but one of
