DISASTER OVERTAKES THE WOOD FAMILY.
Our consolidated train continued its creeping pace down the meandering Humboldt; crossing the stream occasionally, to gain the advantage of a shorter or better road.
Soon again there were other proofs of the wisdom we had shown in taking every possible precaution against attack.
Next ahead of us was a family from England, a Mr. Wood, his wife and one child, with two men employed as drivers. They were outfitted with three vehicles, two of them drawn by ox teams, in charge of the hired men, and a lighter, spring-wagon, drawn by four mules, the family conveyance, driven by Mr. Wood. We had not known them before.
One very hot day in the latter part of August, after having moved along for a time with no train in sight ahead of us, we came upon Mr. Wood in a most pitiable plight, the result of an attack and slaughter, not differing greatly from the Holloway case, and its parallel in atrocity.
Mr. Wood's party had spent the preceding night undisturbed, and were up early in the morning, preparing to resume their journey. The ox teams had been made ready and moved on, while Mr. Wood proceeded in a leisurely way with harnessing the four mules and attaching them to the smaller wagon. All the articles of their equipment had been gathered up and placed in proper order in the wagon.
When Mr. Wood had nearly completed hitching the team, Mrs. Wood and the baby being already in the wagon, some men, apparently all Indians, twenty or more of them, were seen coming on horseback, galloping rapidly from the hills to the northward, about half a mile away.
Mr. Wood, fearing that he and his family were about to be attacked, in this lonely situation, hurriedly sprang to the wagon seat and whipped up the mules, hoping that before the attack they could come within sight of the ox wagons, which had rounded the point of a hill but a few minutes before, and have such aid as his hired men could give.
He had no more than got the team under way when a wheel came off the wagon—he having probably overlooked replacing the nut after oiling the axle. Notwithstanding this he lost no time in making the best of the circumstances. Jumping to the ground, he hurriedly placed Mrs. Wood on one of the mules, cutting the harness to release the animal from the wagon; then, with the baby in his arms, he mounted another mule, and they started flight.
But the Indians had by this time come within gun-shot range and fired upon them. Mrs. Wood fell from the mule, fatally shot. Mr. Wood's mule was shot under him, and dropped; next Mr. Wood received a bullet in the right arm, that opened the flesh from wrist to elbow. That or another shot killed the child. Amidst a shower of bullets, Mr. Wood ran in the direction taken by his ox wagons. Getting past the point of the low hill that lay just before him without being struck again, he was then beyond range of the firing, and soon overtook his wagons. His men, with all the guns they had, returned, to find the woman and child dead on the ground. One of the mules was dead, one wounded, the other two gone. The wagon had been ransacked of its contents, and the band of assassins were making their way back into the hills whence they had come.
This small wagon, Mr. Wood said, had contained the family effects; and among them were several articles of considerable value, all of which had been taken. Among his property were pieces of English gold coin, the equivalent of fifteen hundred dollars. It had been concealed in the bottom of the wagon-box, and he had supposed the band would overlook it; but that, too, was gone.
Such was the plight in which our company found the man, soon after this tragedy was so swiftly enacted, and which so effectually bereft him of all, his family and his property, leaving him wounded, and dependent on the mercy of strangers.
The dead were placed in mummy-form wrappings and buried, mother and child in one, unmarked grave.
When the manuscript of this narrative was first made ready for the printer, the description of the calamity which befell Mr. Wood and his family ended here. There were other details, as clearly recalled as those already recited, but so atrocious and devoid of motive, that it was a matter of grave doubt whether the facts should be given. It seemed too deplorable that such an occurrence could be recorded as the act of human beings; furthermore, would it be credible? It has been intimated that the present endeavor is to give a complete history of events as they occurred: no material item suppressed, nothing imaginary included; therefore the remaining details are given.
Incredible as it may sound to civilized ears, after the bodies of Mrs. Wood and her child had been interred, hardly had those who performed this service gone from the spot when a part of the savage band that had murdered those innocent victims, rushed wildly back to the place, disinterred the bodies from the shallow grave, taking the sheets in which the bodies had been wrapped, and which were their only covering, and carrying those articles away. When the Indians had gone a second time, the grief-stricken Mr. Wood returned and reinterred the remains of his wife and child.
Mr. Wood's wounded arm was dressed by Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Kidd, his wagons were placed in the lead of our train, and again we moved westward.