It must be owned that the open hardihood of these threats looked ominous. The red-skin so seldom threatens before he strikes, that it seemed to me the dwellers about the Lake might be exposed to a graver danger from the Indians, than any they had as yet incurred.
In consequence of this belief, my men were at once summoned. The same day we started for George's Ranch, and got there after nightfall. On consulting with Laithrop, it was considered advisable to keep the Rangers as much out of sight as possible, to prevent the red-skins from realizing how well he was protected. In compliance with this idea, only some half-dozen of the boys, amongst whom was Tom Harvey and myself, became occupants of the house. Half of the remainder were stationed in a large log corral about one hundred yards distant on the south side. The rest were secreted in an old root-shed, or rather in the cellar of one, to the west.
George and myself sat by the burning logs on his hearth, talking on until a late hour.
Our subject was the red man, and he bitterly denounced the way in which our Government dealt with such a grave subject. It was, he said, continually patting them on the back, and buying a temporary truce. This, he believed, made the Indians actually think that a power which had only to plant its heel firmly upon them and crush them out of existence, actually feared their strength. "Greater liars, more unblushing thieves, as well as more reckless murderers," he continued, never existed. And these were the men whom Uncle Sam protected against his own children, whenever the blue-coats appeared upon the frontier.
Nor can I affirm but that he is, in the main, right. It is only by terrible punishment for their crimes, the whites are able to keep the red-skins within anything like reasonable bounds.
My knowledge of them, up to this time, vouched for the necessity of such retaliation. In no case which I have yet recounted had the settlers commenced an Indian war, if these struggles are entitled to such a name. When we struck, the blow was called for, by gross outrage or bloodier murder. Since I had met and known them, I had encountered no red-skin who had dealt squarely with me, except the father of Clo-ke-ta and Old Spotted Tail. And, possibly, of all the tribes I had yet any acquaintance with, the Pah-utes possessed the fewest virtues and the most thorough vices. George Laithrop's opinion of the Indian, founded in a great measure upon their character, was, in a fuller or lesser degree, shared by all who had ever been brought in contact with them.