the brush and up the mountain. I told him what had
happened, bade him return to his camp, and tell the
women to pack up and push out through the moun
tains, with what arms and ammunition they had, for
the McCloud. The faithful fellow went back, and
before dusk returned to me with water, Indian
bread and venison, and then back again to make his
way with the women and children through the moun
tains to our home on the other side of Shasta. I
never saw him again. In crossing the trail leading
from the head of Shasta valley to Scott s valley they
fell into the hands of some brutal rancheros who
hung the Indian warrior, plundered the women and
took some of the children to keep as herders, cooks,
and for such other service as they might see fit to
impose.
I stole down the mountain to the stage road, some miles to the east ; and what a glorious ride ! I was glad again, free, wild as the wind. All through that ride of fifty miles I lived a splendid song. I climbed the mountains at dawn, my horse, strong and nervous still, foaming and plunging like a flood.
That night I reached the Indian camp. Here was business, blood. The women and children were mostly high up in the mountain, almost against the snow; but the warriors, with a few women that re fused to leave them, were on the east of the McCloud, on the outskirts of their possessions. They had been assisting the Pit River Indians, and had invariably lost, until their force, weak, even at the openi
