But where there is no law, save on sparsely rare occasions, as is sufficiently evidenced on the mountains, and in the valleys and plains bordering on California, the action of vigilance committees, or some restraint as sharp and certain, is a paramount necessity.
How can it be wondered at, while crime of the nature of the last-mentioned, and others which I have recounted, are of well-nigh yearly occurrence, that it should have exerted, on the part of those exposed to its visitation—without the interference of national protection except at rare intervals—the determination to repress it, bloodily and mercilessly, as the instances in which it develops its own atrocity and pitilessness, too evidently require?
However, let me avoid the appearance of defending what I believe to be the righteous exertion of a spirit of self-protection, and leave it to the unbiassed judgment of my readers.
Burying the fragments of the bodies of the poor victims, or as many of them as we could find after a long and sorrowful search, in as decent a manner as we could, we resumed our way to the Humboldt. Here we located some six miles above Lancaster, on this river, and met with no very great success in our search for the precious metals. While here, an Indian from above Gravelly Ford, known by us as Shoshonee John, came in to our party. He could talk very fair English, and had been driven from his tribe in consequence of his openly professed friendly feeling to the whites. After a brief discussion among the boys, he was permitted to remain with us, until we started on our return. This was some time in August, in 1865.
We had reached the back of Granite Creek Station, which was then kept by Allen Simmons, from Oroville, and a man of the name of Bill Curry, when we fell in with some eight or ten Mahalas, with their papooses or children.
One of the Mahalas was a white woman. She had been taken by the Bannocks when she was no more than twelve years of age, in 1851. All her relatives and companions had been killed by them. Only herself had been spared. She was now married to a red-skin, by whom, she told us, she had five children. On our asking her to leave her captors, with the tears standing in her eyes, she refused to do so. She said that she knew of no friends who would receive her. What, she did not attempt to disguise that she considered as the disgrace of her present life, would, as she felt, preclude her from all white friendship. In consequence of this, she avowed herself determined to remain. On being further questioned, she told us that we were the first white men she had seen since the period of her capture. I then asked her, if she had heard of the horrible massacre of General Wright and his party. Bursting into tears, she affirmed that it had been "the work of Smoke-creek Sam, and the wretches who were with him."
Her grief and disgust at this were so marked and unmistakable, that I had no hesitation in asking her to tell us how and where we might find this scoundrel and his gang of ruffians. Without the slightest hesitation, she did so. Indeed, from the sudden flash in her eyes, and the rush of color to her tanned, yet still smooth cheeks, I felt convinced she experienced a bitter delight in believing that we might punish him. It is generally impossible for the necessity of life, or even for love, to blot out the ties of blood. She might be compulsorily a Mahala, yet was still, at heart, a white woman.
Again I endeavored to induce her to quit her present mode of life, but, unhesitatingly, although sadly, she refused to abandon the red-skin with whom her existence had been for so many years linked, and his and her children.
At Granite Station, Al. Simmons gave us additional information respecting Smoke-creek Sam. He had a few days before surprised a party of Chinamen, between the Peuabla mountain and Owyhee River. Some sixty, in all of them, had been murdered by the gang. This had been effected, in a similar way to the cruel mode of death by which General Wright had perished.
Pushing on, therefore, to the military station at Smoke Creek, we detailed the circumstances of these bloody outrages to Captain Smith, who was then in command of it.