of property. About this time a young Indian from Humbug
Creek, visiting the Scott Valley Indians, had stopped at an
emigrant camp and stolen two guns. Word was brought to
me ; I sent for Chief John and required him to bring the guns
and Indian, which he did. I tied and whipped the Indian, and
then let him go. Late in the fall, afterwards, I was sitting
near the top of the mountain back of my then house, witness-
ing a deer-drive by the Scott Valley Indians on the surround-
ing hills, when I heard a cap crack behind me in a clump of
small trees. Getting up and immediately running into the
thicket, I discovered an Indian running down the opposite
slope of the mountain. I returned to my house and sent Tom
after Chief John and from him learned that when he left this
Humbug was there. I directed him to bring him to my house,
which he did next morning. The Humbug Indian told me
it was not the first time he had tried to kill me, but that his
gun had failed him, and now that he, and all the Indians
thought that I had a charmed life. I gave him a good talk,
which impressed him much, and then unbound him, and told
him to go and do well thereafter. He was never known to do
a bad act afterward, but was finally killed by the Klamath
Lake Indians, about a year afterwards, in an effort to recover
some guns stolen from some people on Greenhorn Creek. All
these things tended to establish with me a great control over
these Indians in these valleys. During this time Judge Rose--
borough, now our District Judge, came up here as an Indian
agent, and for a year or more made his home with me. In
his w-hole intercourse with the Indians he was scrupulously
careful to do exact justice toward the Indians, and compel a
like care by both our people and the Indians toward each other.
This led to a better acquaintance on my part with the Klamath
Lake and Modoc Indians, who came several times to see him.
After that, my business occupying my whole time, it was only
occasionally that I saw any of the Indians to hold conversa-
tion with them, and then only when called upon to settle some
difficulty among the tribe, or between them and our people.
During this time, and if my memory serves me right, in 1855,
the Shastas, for some cause unknown to me, became hostile
