Lakes, present, together with a number of officers from the post,—we opened the talk by saying, substantially, that we were there to represent another department of the Government; that we knew all about the history of the past, and had come to offer them a home on a Reservation, and to provide for their wants; and that we were prepared to assist them in removing to the new homes at Yai-nax, on Klamath Reservation.
The chiefs were suspicious and wary, not disposed to talk, but were good listeners. After two days, passed in “making heart,” they said they could not give an answer without “Old Win-ne-muc-ca,” the head chief of all the Shoshones, Snakes.
The council was adjourned, and this celebrated old fraud was sent for, a distance of one hundred miles.
Meanwhile we waited for his appearance, sometimes visiting the Indian camps several miles away.
On one occasion I went on horseback and alone with We-ah-we-wa. He seemed anxious to give warning to his people of our coming, and sent runners ahead on foot for that purpose. As we rode away from our camp I had some misgivings, when I remembered that the man beside me was one of the most bloodthirsty savages that had ever led a band of braves to a banquet of blood. He it was who had directed, and assisted too, in the many scenes of robbery and murder on the Cañon City road.
He was more than an ordinary man in mental power, had in former years, while a captive, lived on Warm Springs Reservation, had learned the Chinook jargon, and could speak “Boston” sufficiently well to make himself understood.
After leaving our camp, and while en route to his,
he told me of his capture years before; of his confinement in a guard-house, and exhibited the scars that had been made by the fetters he had worn; then of his escape and subsequent adventures, and narrow escape from recapture and death.
He did not appear to shrink from mention of his own crimes and exploits, but sought to impress me constantly that he had only acted in defence of his own rights. There was in the face of this man a cunning, treacherous look that was anything but reassuring.
On crossing a little stream fringed with willows, we came suddenly on his camp. Not a house, tent, or lodge was to be seen, but scattered around among the sage bushes were several half-circular wind-brakes, made of sage-brush and willows. The women and children ran out at our approach. The chief called them back. They came shyly, and with wondering eyes gazed on the man who had come to move them to a new home. I learned from him that they had never been to the post, and that few white men had ever called on him; hence the curiosity they had on being close enough to see how a white man looked. This chief was the owner of three sleek, fat, healthy-looking wives; they lived on roots, fish, and grasshoppers. The entire outfit for house-keeping was carried from one camping place to another on the backs of the squaws.