Q. State the facts about it. State what followed after your return to the commissioners. A. I went back and went to the peace commissioners’ tent with Jack’s message that he would meet them five unarmed, and he would do the same; he would have five men with himself, and go without arms; and I told him they were
forted all around there, and they had been killing beef; and I thought it was useless to try to make peace any longer; and if Captain Jack would not agree to meet at the tent, and if I were in their places I would not meet them any more.
Q. What did the commissioners then reply or decide upon? What decision did they come to? A. They held a council between themselves. I was not at their council.
Q. Was your visit the day before the assassination? A. Yes, sir; I seen General Canby that evening,; and I told him I had a proposition to make to him. He was out, and I met him, and he wanted to know what it was; I told him that if I was in his place, if I calculated on meeting them Indians, I would send twenty-five or thirty men near the place were I expected to hold the council, to secrete themselves in the rocks there; that they would stand a good show to catch them, if they undertook to do anything that was wrong. General Canby said that that would be too much of an insult to Captain Jack; that if they knew of that, they might do an injury then; he would not do that.
Q. Did you hear him say that? A. Yes.
Q. Did they determine to meet him, or not? A. they sent to me the next morning, then, to come down to the peace commissioners’ tent.
Q. Was Captain Jack informed that they would not go to that place one mile nearer? A. Yes, sir; Bogus Charley went in that evening before the murder, right ahead of me, into General Gilliam’s camp and stayed all night. He staid at my camp, and the next morning the peace commissioners decided that they would not meet Captain Jack in this place where he wanted to meet them, and sent a message out by Bogus and Boston for them to meet him at the peace commissioners’ tent, the peace tent, and they were gone about an hour; and they came back again and said that Captain Jack was there with five men.
Q. (Interrupting). You heard it? A. Yes.
Q. Jack was to meet them where; he was where? A. He was at the peace tent.
Q. Captain Jack sent back a message then by Bogus and Boston that he would meet them at the peace tent with five men? A. Yes, sir; but they were not armed, and he wanted the peace commissioners to go without arms.