When the chief of the Bannocks had heard the man’s story he at once gave him thirty of his best men, and told him to go and avenge the wrong that had been done him. He went and the result is known.
After killing the men and burning the station, the Bannocks marked their return trail with blood. They murdered in cold blood several small parties of unarmed prospectors. The bodies of these were not discovered until after the last fight at Pyramid Lake, when the murders were charged to the account of the Piutes.
SAVAGES.
Old Winnemucca was not at the first fight at Pyramid Lake, he being on the Humboldt River at the time, but young Winnemucca, the war-chief, was there, and commanded.
Before the fight began he showed a white flag and wished to explain matters, but a man among the whites, who had a telescope rifle, fired and killed an Indian who showed himself on the rocks, and thus precipitated the battle which ended so disastrously for the whites.
When the volunteers returned victorious from the second battle, they were the heroes of the hour, until some of them began to walk into stores and help themselves to clothing.
They called this mode of obtaining clothing “pressing” it, and declared that it was a military necessity. Some of the merchants thought they were “pressing” it a little too strong when they began to help themselves to fine calf-skin boots and cassimere pantaloons, and in two or three instances fights ensued in which pistols were used, one of the merchants and two or three of the raiders receiving severe wounds. This “pressing” was done by a “hoodlum” class that came over the Sierras among the volunteers. These were the men who took Indian scalps after the battle. In one instance one of them found an Indian lying with his back broken by a minie musket-ball. Drawing his bowie-knife he proceeded to scalp the poor devil alive. As he was sawing away at the tough scalp, the Indian spat in his face. This had the desired effect—the white butcher drew his revolver and blew out the Indian’s brains. The officers allowed no scalping, yet two or three scalps found their way to Virginia City.
“Old Gus,” an old Dutchman, marched about the town, from saloon to saloon, with an Indian bow stuck in the muzzle of his musket, at the end of which dangled a scalp. This gave “Old Gus” all the whisky he wanted. Wherever he came it was: “Hurrah for Old Gus, he got his Injun!”
The captain of one of the volunteer companies afterwards told me that in passing over the ground after the fight he chanced to come upon Old Gus, behind a rock, industriously engaged in skinning the head of a dead Indian, meanwhile calmly smoking his pipe.