He managed to draw his knife.
However, this had been seen by me in time to avoid the thrust. With a blow from my fist, I dashed him from me. At the same instant a shot from his own Minie rifle, which Laithrop had caught up from the place where I had laid it, passed through his breast, and he fell.
Then I looked round for his companion.
To my surprise, I found him on the bed in the grip of Pig-tail Bobby. Never before had I seen a Chinaman with any fight in him. It was my first experience of a new phase in the character of the "Heathen Chinee." Bobby's knife was out, and in another minute the Pah-ute's life-blood would have been staining the blankets. This was a most useless proceeding, as blankets, at this time, were not over-plentiful round Honey Lake. Therefore I pulled Pig-tail back, with a round exclamation of disgust at the lavish profligacy of such a proceeding.
The red-skin, however, had more leg and less pluck than his companion. Leaping from the bed, he darted through the door, and was off.
However, I was as quick as he was. No sooner had I seen him make for the open, than I was after him. As I left the house I had caught up a double-barrelled shot gun, and brought him down before he had run fifty yards from it.
After burying the Indians, Partridge started with me for Susanville, taking their ponies with us.
A few days only had passed when Harry Arnold also returned with the rest of the Rangers. They had recaptured only a few head of cattle. The rest of the herd had been killed by the thieving red-skins, in the same cowardly manner which I have elsewhere detailed.
One might have fancied the lesson they had received at Mud Springs, and the close pursuit which had induced their main body to resort to this expedient, would have kept them quiet. It, however, did not. The periodical lust for robbery and bloodshed which seems, from time to time, to possess them, had mastered their nature. More complete punishment could alone stop it.
A week later, George Laithrop sent me a pressing demand to come down with a few of the boys and pass some time with him. Two Pah-utes had recently appeared at the Ranch, and told him they had seen Buckskin Mose and himself kill their two companions and bury them. They had then threatened him with prompt vengeance, openly telling him that they intended not only to kill him and burn his house in a few days, but to slaughter every white man in the valley.