"No," said Meek, "but he looked as if he war going to."
There were some men who seemed to take pleasure in shooting natives without any reason. Captain Bidwell[97] called these "Indian shooters." "One of the Indian shooters," he writes, "seeing an Indian on the opposite bank of the river swam over, carrying a butcher knife in his mouth.... The Indian ran. The man with the knife crippled him with a stone and then killed him.... Another Indian followed later. One of the Indian killers hid and shot him." Another time a man missed his bridle. He swore an Indian had stolen it. "He fired at an Indian who stood by a tree one hundred yards or so distant. The Indian fell back into the brush and the other Indians in sight fled in terror." The bridle was found later under some blankets in camp.
In the Sierra Nevada.
On the Merced—Yosemite Valley. Walker, 1833, was probably the First White Man Here.
Copyright, C. C. Pierce & Co.
Walker passed the sink of the Humboldt and then struck into the Sierra Nevada. It took twenty-three days to cross and they suffered for food, seventeen horses being used up for this purpose and seventeen others being absolutely lost. There was no game and they finally were reduced to almost nothing and were glad to get a basket of acorns which a frightened native dropped. Arriving at last on the western edge they met with rocks so steep that it was with difficulty they were able to descend. Here they killed three deer and a bear and began to find a less inhospitable region, although at one place they were obliged to lower the horses by ropes over a long slope of loose rocks. On October 30, 1833, they reached the foot of the range and appear to have passed through the now famous Yosemite Valley, perhaps the first white men to enter it.
They were soon in Monterey where they found the people so agreeable that they had the jolliest kind of a winter. The season passed, however, and the time to go back came. Reluctantly they started in February, 1834, went up the San Joaquin valley with native guides, and crossed the Sierra at a more southern point than the outward passage; by Sonora Pass, Chittenden believes, and he is doubtless correct. Then they worked north-east till they came to their outward trail. On the way they had further amusement killing natives, whom they hunted down as a species of rare game. Several Mexicans in this sport exhibited their skill at horsemanship and lassoing by charging at full speed and throwing the rope over the necks of the terrified runners. The noose tightening, the victims were dragged and strangled to death. Some of the men joined a party under a trapper named Fraeb, who hunted in the mountains of what is now Colorado, and they ranged from the Gila to North and Middle Parks. Walker went to the rendezvous on Bear River to settle his affairs with Bonneville.
Walker had made a trip similar to Jedediah Smith's, but with a smaller circuit, and it was now certain that the river Buenaventura, which heretofore had been vaguely supposed to flow from Salt Lake or from near it, to the Pacific, was a myth. Bonneville, in a letter written long afterwards, claims this as one of the great results geographically of his expedition, yet he condemns Walker for not having explored Salt Lake, a much easier task and one which, to a certain extent, had already been accomplished though not placed on record.